Kai Lung Unrolls His Mat

The itinerant storyteller Kai Lung once again faces the malignity of the depraved Ming-shu. To delay his fate and navigate the perils of a bureaucratic China, Kai Lung unrolls his mat and spins tales of ingenious stratagems and extreme courtesies.

He recounts the leadership of a fraternity of thieves within I-kang; the insatiable craving of the concave-witted Li-Loe; and a civil war in which Ching-kwei raises the standard of the “Restoring Ying” to besiege the capital and depose Shang, the usurpatory King of Tsun. By varying the angle at which events present themselves, the storyteller talks his way out of a snare.

First published in 1928, Ernest Bramah’s third Kai Lung book continues his deadpan parody of ornate literary translations. The series established a specific strain of British satirical fantasy, constructed entirely from the rigid, mock-polite syntax of its narrator.