Kim (Classic, 20th-Century, Penguin)
by Rudyard Kipling
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Book Summary Information
Author: Rudyard KiplingEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 1987-09-01
ISBN: 0140183523
Number of pages: 368
Publisher: Penguin Classics
Book Reviews of Kim (Classic, 20th-Century, Penguin)
Book Review: Among the top 3 most influencial novels of 20thc
Summary: 5 Stars
This was probably the first - and almost only time a white author really entered the mind of asia.
It opened the whole relationship of the west with india an even ironically helped the campaign of Ghandi and his (MKG's) portrayal of a hindu holy-man (so frightening to muslims).
Kipling himself perhaps saw Kim as his "perfect self" though sadly the real Kipling about this time embrased the two dimensional imperialism of the Daily Mail - in want of a distant Bad Guy for his actual manichean fantasy he fitted up the germans - and sadly had a huge influence on the disaster that was the First World War.
"Kim" Philby (named for the hero) and others in search of this foreign world of duplicity and black and white values later embraced communism.
This novel affected all of this - was the first realistic (rather than idealised) view of buddhism in its evolved and contradictorary form (I like the way the Lama blends in snatches of Pure Land etc along with his "no self" agnosticism). Kipling "sold" a positive picture of India and its two-way relationship with "Blighty" that greatly influenced later events an perceptions of both right and left.
Too bad he embraced the rich and powerful so whole-heartedly - (as did WB Yeats at a similar time in a similar way) and so lost his clear poetic vision.
Rather than take on the task of fighting germany - he might have written a sequel - in which O'Hara had to contemplate the foundations for the glamourisation of the struggle between the European powers - questioned the disruptive influence of the Entente Cordial (all the dangers of a treaty and none of the mutual benefits) and why exactly Britain had to be a continental power with a land-army (responsible for the defense of France and Belgium but with no say in the methods) when it had plenty to do across the oceans.
Kipling painted a picture of the glamour and cultural richness of India - and of great-power conflict. He knew a lot more about the first than the last - sadly because of his authentic voice on Asia folk took heed of him over Europe.
He is one a few people who almost completely discounted a great cultural good with a massive social evil. The pen was mightier than the sword and it was correctly said that at that time the word of Kipling was more eagerly listened to than the words of all but a few heads of state. He lost his own son to the multinational meatgrinder that he and a few "war-glamourisers" wound into action - implying that the whole thing might be more fun than driving a desk in Finchley - he encouraged the French to think they could use the British to gain hegemony in Europe - based on the sound prediction that the Rosbifs would leave when the bloodletting was over.
I adore this man and abhor him - I want to grab hold of him after this book (1901) and send him back to India. You don't understand the Twentieth century if you don't read this book - from the Somme to TE Lawrence to Woodstock to the rise of Mandela is the story of folk who read this book and/or felt its influence. Only the Beatles can compete - but only because they too were influenced. Kipling as colonial taught generations to identify with the locals - thus fuelling de-colonialisation - into the hands of the very "Babu-Class" that he distrusted. They were not like his "Babu". Hurree - they were "in a hurry" and so were the brits!
If only the Neo-cons had both read it and understood its mixed influence and implications. The whole Iraq fiasco could be described as "insufficient Kim".
Summary of Kim (Classic, 20th-Century, Penguin)
Kim is an orphan, living from hand to mouth in the teeming streets of Lahore. One day he meets a man quite unlike anything in his wide experience, a Tibetan lama on a quest. Kim's life suddenly acquires meaning and purpose as he becomes the lama's guide and protector--his chela. Other forces are at work as Kim is sucked into the intrigue of the Great Game and travels the Grand Trunk Road with his lama.How Kim and the lama meet their respective destinies on the road and in the mountains of India forms one of the most compelling adventure tales of all time.
One of the particular pleasures of reading Kim is the full range of emotion, knowledge, and experience that Rudyard Kipling gives his complex hero. Kim O'Hara, the orphaned son of an Irish soldier stationed in India, is neither innocent nor victimized. Raised by an opium-addicted half-caste woman since his equally dissolute father's death, the boy has grown up in the streets of Lahore:
Though he was burned black as any native; though he spoke the vernacular by preference, and his mother-tongue in a clipped uncertain sing-song; though he consorted on terms of perfect equality with the small boys of the bazar; Kim was white--a poor white of the very poorest.From his father and the woman who raised him, Kim has come to believe that a great destiny awaits him. The details, however, are a bit fuzzy, consisting as they do of the woman's addled prophecies of "'a great Red Bull on a green field, and the Colonel riding on his tall horse, yes, and'--dropping into English--'nine hundred devils.'"
In the meantime, Kim amuses himself with intrigues, executing "commissions by night on the crowded housetops for sleek and shiny young men of fashion." His peculiar heritage as a white child gone native, combined with his "love of the game for its own sake," makes him uniquely suited for a bigger game. And when, at last, the long-awaited colonel comes along, Kim is recruited as a spy in Britain's struggle to maintain its colonial grip on India. Kipling was, first and foremost, a man of his time; born and raised in India in the 19th century, he was a fervid supporter of the Raj. Nevertheless, his portrait of India and its people is remarkably sympathetic. Yes, there is the stereotypical Westernized Indian Babu Huree Chander with his atrocious English, but there is also Kim's friend and mentor, the Afghani horse trader Mahub Ali, and the gentle Tibetan lama with whom Kim travels along the Grand Trunk Road. The humanity of his characters consistently belies Kipling's private prejudices, and raises Kim above the mere ripping good yarn to the level of a timeless classic. --Alix Wilber
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