Anyone read Kim?

[MsAmerica]

I'm just reading Rudyard Kipling's Kim, and not much liking it.

I love it. And Kipling in general. But it's a very distinctive style of storytelling, so not to everyone's taste.

Yes, last week in fact! I really enjoyed it. I find the style a bit Much at times, but the evocation of India is fascinating

Yes! I read it this year for the first time. Beautiful, wonderful novel. Kipling was an exceptionally good writer. Unfortunately, he’s one of those novelists people tend not to read. Ford Madox Ford and Henry Green are the same - truly great writers who people have forgotten.

It’s a novel that the woke mob/bullies/nutcases/fanatics have demanded we remove from the libraries. Because of that, I read it expecting something vicious and hate-filled. Instead, I found a beautiful, joyful love letter to India. The Asian characters are treated with immense respect and drawn with a loving hand. Indeed, the Tibetan Lama is gentle, kind, wise and good (in contrast to the English vicar, who is a small-minded bigot). In fact, it’s hard to imagine a more positive depiction of a non-Western character. It was only after finishing this masterpiece that I realised the vast majority of the woke mob hadn’t read it. Not that that stops them, of course.

Kipling gets a lot of stick for being a narrow-minded, colonial, Victorian bigot - and I think it all comes from people who've not read him.

Yes, he's a bit gung-ho for Empire & Glory at times (at least before Jack's death). But his attitudes to many things are rather more nuanced than he's given credit for. He spends at least as much time sending up colonial attitudes as he does supporting them. He has compassion rather than condemnation for a soldier who takes his own life because of gambling debts. There's admiration for womens brains and acknowledgement that it is society's attitude to their sex that holds them back - not their ability or intelligence. Cross culture relationships in his stories fail because of social pressure, rather than inherent incompatibility. And there can be no doubt that he genuinely loved India.

For those who enjoyed Kim, I also recommend Peter Hopkirk's Quest for Kim https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/140329.Quest_for_Kim which goes in search of the real events and people who are likely to have inspired the story.

Don't recognise the picture of Kim.being attacked by the 'woke mob'. Feels like bullshit stirred up by the usual lot, but people on all sides can be fools, so who knows.

Be that as it may, Kim a wonderful book and Kipling a wonderful, flawed, complicated writer who suffers from the idiocy of some of his supporters - like Boris reciting a hugely inappropriate poem of his in a temple in India.

Stalky & Co is still the most subversive of school stories. Nothing - not Roald Dahl, not all the Horrid Henry tripe rivals it for anarchy and wildness.

And this, dear God this, written by a man who'd nagged his only son to go to war: 'If any question why we died, / Tell them, because our fathers lied.'

Well, if you’re not enjoying it stop reading it. The fact that others like it is sort of irrelevant.

I loved it, and I am a Kipling fan having been brought up on the Just So Stories and the Jungle Books.

I once recommended it for a book club choice several years ago and a couple of people refused to read it on principle. Those who were more open minded enjoyed it.

....like Boris reciting a hugely inappropriate poem of his in a temple in India.

A temple where???

And I like the poem. It's written in the character of an uneducated Cockney soldier who is trying to express, as best he can, his love of the East, and how much he wishes he was back there.

But that's all shove be'ind me - long ago an' fur away
An' there ain't no 'buses runnin' from the Bank to Mandalay;
An' I'm learnin' 'ere in London what the ten-year soldier tells:
"If you've 'eard the East a-callin', you won't never 'eed naught else."

I only read it recently for the first time, and expected to be skimming through horrible “white man’s burden” racism, but I actually loved it. The lama is an amazingly drawn character.

I've never read it, but loved Stalky & Co many years ago. I've just downloaded it to my kindle for the princely sum of 40p!! Looking forward to it.

The llama is a brilliant character and the relationship between Kim and him is beautifully described. When I am trying to persuade DH to get on and finish a chore I say ‘You will acquire merit’.

Kipling is pretty good on female characters too. Mrs Hawksbee is quite hot at busting the snobbery and hypocrisy of some of the British raj.

He is. There's a line in one of the short stories where he actually says Mrs Hawksbee would have been Governor of India if women weren't barred from it.

The woman Kim and the Llama meet in the road is clearly intelligent and independent, too - so it isn't only Western women. She runs a large estate, and can hold her own in theological disputes with priests.

I've been wanting to get back to reply, but, sorry, I've been very ill.

Interesting responses, thanks! I don't at all mind Kipling possibly being "a narrow-minded, colonial, Victorian bigot," because I think of him as a man of his times, and anyone who only wants to read authors totally aligning with one's own beliefs is in trouble.

But I've been trying to figure out what I don't like. The basic setting has no appeal for me, but I can easily admire his vivid description and nuanced understanding of the people. And I admire the actual writing, the sentences and the dialogue. (I particularly like the way to accept gifts by permitting someone to acquire merit for themselves.) I also can easily imagine how excitingly exotic it must have been for a staid Victorian. Maybe I was expecting more plot? Maybe I wanted loose ends tied up? Maybe I wanted more clarity about Kim's growing bond to the lama?

And, @TonTonMacoute, I don't stop reading a classic just because I don't like it. I try to be open to the possibility that I may come to like it, and there's something to be said for plowing through some worthwhile things even if we don't like them.

But, ladies, there were no pet llamas in the book! It was a lama. It's an Eastern religious person like a monk, not a tall furry animal like a camel.

Is there a "best" Kipling book, if I want to try again?

My autocorrect is clearly fond of South American camelids. It is firmly convinced that lama should be either Llama (capitalisation autocorrect's own) or - on occassion - lava.

Maybe try one of the collections of mixed short stories - like Plain Tales from the Hills or Actions and Reactions - to get more variety of setting and type of story (and usually fewer loose ends). The former has the first appearance of Strickland, Lizbeth, , and a few other characters you may recognise from Kim; although it also has His Chance in Life which I have never been entirely able to decide whether it is awful or very pointed satire.

I don't currently have Actions and Reactions to hand, but I think that may be the one that includes the sci-fi stories.

I think perhaps it’s both? Satire based on awfulness? I do think that with some Kipling it’s impossible to understand with a modern mindset.

For me “A Sahib’s War” is the most Kipling of stories. Race, class, cynicism, tragedy, the works.

And, @TonTonMacoute, I don't stop reading a classic just because I don't like it. I try to be open to the possibility that I may come to like it, and there's something to be said for plowing through some worthwhile things even if we don't like them.

That's certainly a highly commendable attitude, and one I used to share - when I was much younger!