owlcroft
Webmaster, Great SF&F
- Joined
- Mar 12, 2009
- Messages
- 5
Those who have had the pleasure of reading Ernest Bramah's classic "Kai Lung" books--or, for that matter, those who have not yet encountered them--will want to get hold of the newly released volume Kai Lung Raises His Voice. Ths collection includes the half-dozen tales previously available only in the rare and risibly expensive collection Kai Lung: Six, plus another five, four of which were never published before. This is truly a treasure trove.
For those not already familiar with the inerant tale-teller Kai Lung (who was a fixture in literate circles in the early decades of the last century--Lord Peter Wimsey and Harriet exchange quotations from the tales), the stories are exquisite drollery set in "a China that never was". They trade on an effusively genteel comic exaggeration of the politeness of Chinese expressions; just some of the chapter titles from various Kai Lung books give one a flavor of the things:
Another book in the same vein is Bramah's novel The Moon of Much Gladness; it also was published under the title The Return of Kai Lung, but it has nothing to do with Kai Lung--it just traded on the then-current fame of the name. It, too, is screamingly funny in that same dry way.
For those not already familiar with the inerant tale-teller Kai Lung (who was a fixture in literate circles in the early decades of the last century--Lord Peter Wimsey and Harriet exchange quotations from the tales), the stories are exquisite drollery set in "a China that never was". They trade on an effusively genteel comic exaggeration of the politeness of Chinese expressions; just some of the chapter titles from various Kai Lung books give one a flavor of the things:
- The Degraded Persistence of the Effete Ming-Shu
- The Propitious Dissension Between Two Whose General Attributes Have Already Been Sufficiently Described
- The Incredible Obtuseness of Those Who Had Opposed the Virtuous Kai Lung
Another book in the same vein is Bramah's novel The Moon of Much Gladness; it also was published under the title The Return of Kai Lung, but it has nothing to do with Kai Lung--it just traded on the then-current fame of the name. It, too, is screamingly funny in that same dry way.
