Edition: Wordsworth, 1995 (Buy from Amazon)
Review number: 899
While Rewards and Fairies is a sequel to Puck of Pook's Hill, it is probably much better known as the original home of Kipling's most famous poem, If -. Myself, I don't like the poem very much - it's too much the sort of "uplifting" thing children used to be forced to learn in school.
The format is identical to that of its predecessor, as Puck introduces the two children to a series of people - all male - who illustrate the history of Sussex, where Kipling himself lived in the latter part of his life. The tales this time, which range back right to the end of the Bronze Age, are not so interesting, and the collection as a whole has a perfunctory feel, as though Kipling doesn't care.
Showing posts with label Rudyard Kipling. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Rudyard Kipling. Show all posts
Thursday, 9 August 2001
Saturday, 21 July 2001
Rudyard Kipling: Stalky and Co. (1899)
Review number: 882
Few of Kipling's fictional stories contain much of an autobiographical element, despite his frequent use of the first person. In this collection of stories, the school and some of the characters are based on his own experiences; Beetle, in particular, is a self portrait.
The Devon boarding school portrayed in the book is basically a factory for producing future officers of the British army to serve in the colonies, and is by modern standards a violent place, with bullying and savage corporal punishment. Yet Kipling's evident nostalgia for his time at the school infects the reader, who senses the intensity of the friendships and the enjoyment of the experiences, which mainly focus on triumphs over the more petty minded masters. The success of his treatment makes a modern reader quite uncomfortable, especially when he seems to have fond memories of bullying. The way that his schoolboys rebel against authority was controversial at the time, but much less so now. Times have changed.
The reader is also made aware, more deliberately, of a different dark undercurrent. Sprinkled throughout the stories are notes about the future deaths of the boys; they are destined to die young in the service of the British Empire. (One of them, interestingly, is going to be shot by his own men, a less glorified death than the others.) Kipling's point is presumably that the Empire was maintained at a human cost; despite his reputation as a jingoist, this is not the only place where he showed an awareness of this. Few today would deny that there was a human cost, though the focus has canged so that we would think about what it meant to the colonised rather than the coloniser.
Stalky and Co. is one of the most uncomfortable of Kipling's books to read, and this is a measure of the author's talent, as he glories in what is to us unpalatable and almost brings us to feel we appreciate it too.
Wednesday, 4 July 2001
Rudyard Kipling: Captains Courageous (1897)
Edition: Minster, 1967 (Buy from Amazon)
Review number: 858
The life of the Banks fisherman, chronicled in this novel, must have changed almost beyond recognition in the course of the last century. Technological innovations such as radar and GPS will have made the seas safer, telephone and the TV will have made the fishing communities less isolated and the big cities may well have lured many of the younger generation away.
At the time when Kipling wrote his tribute to the courage and hard work of these fishermen, the situation was very different. Much of the equipment would have been recognizable to the medieval sailor, though the boats would be stronger to cope with North Atlantic seas and the power would be steam (the latter the biggest advance). Captains relied on an encyclopaedic knowledge of the Banks, with simple instruments like the lead providing all the information they needed for navigation.
Admiration for these men - and hundreds of fishermen died each year - prompted the novel, and it is impossible not to feel the same when reading it. That is for more important than the simple plot, in which a spoilt rich boy is rescued by a fishing boat after being swept overboard from a steamer, and is forced to grow up and become a totally different person during the several months fishing before the return to the mainland.
The banal story makes this one of Kipling's less important novels, but it does still have the marvellous evocation of a foreign culture (which, even then, it would have been to the vast majority of his readership) which is part of his best work.
Review number: 858
The life of the Banks fisherman, chronicled in this novel, must have changed almost beyond recognition in the course of the last century. Technological innovations such as radar and GPS will have made the seas safer, telephone and the TV will have made the fishing communities less isolated and the big cities may well have lured many of the younger generation away.
At the time when Kipling wrote his tribute to the courage and hard work of these fishermen, the situation was very different. Much of the equipment would have been recognizable to the medieval sailor, though the boats would be stronger to cope with North Atlantic seas and the power would be steam (the latter the biggest advance). Captains relied on an encyclopaedic knowledge of the Banks, with simple instruments like the lead providing all the information they needed for navigation.
Admiration for these men - and hundreds of fishermen died each year - prompted the novel, and it is impossible not to feel the same when reading it. That is for more important than the simple plot, in which a spoilt rich boy is rescued by a fishing boat after being swept overboard from a steamer, and is forced to grow up and become a totally different person during the several months fishing before the return to the mainland.
The banal story makes this one of Kipling's less important novels, but it does still have the marvellous evocation of a foreign culture (which, even then, it would have been to the vast majority of his readership) which is part of his best work.
Thursday, 21 June 2001
Rudyard Kipling: Plain Tales From the Hills (1888)
Review number: 846
Kipling's first collection, of stories published in journals, contains a large number of quite short stories. They are all about India, and nearly all about the British in India. He establishes the subject which inspired so much of his work right at the beginning; that is, how India affected the British soldiers and officials who worked there. (Of course, the British changed India too, but that is not what Kipling chose to write about, and in many of his stories the subcontinent is portrayed as so vast, so alien and so primordial that these changes were superficial, hardly touching the real India.)
The social breadth among the British pictured by Kipling is quite wide, though mainly confined to young officers and clerks. Several stories are about how India educates young men sent out from a sheltered life in England. Among the best of these are the ones involving the scheming Mrs Hawksbee, but the collection is evenly good. As a début, it had quite an effect, and it is not surprising that Kipling went on to become one of the best short story writers in English.
Thursday, 31 May 2001
Rudyard Kipling: The Second Jungle Book (1895)
Edition: Penguin, 1987 (Buy from Amazon)
Review number: 828
The original Jungle Book contained some stories which nowadays would be considered rather daring in a childrens' book because of their treatment of death. In The Second Jungle Book, this is even more the case, with violent death a commonplace. This is almost the "jungle red in tooth and claw", and it is going to be very surprising to anyone whose only prior acquaintance with the stories comes from the Disney cartoons. Things are slightly softened, mainly so that the stories will work, but death is present in every one.
A larger proportion of the stories are about Mowgli than is the case in the earlier book; the two tales which aren't are poorer in quality than their counterparts, Quiquern in particular being quite forgettable. The Mowgli stories, on the other hand, are very good indeed. They are not as immediately gripping as his duel with Shere Khan or the encounter with the monkeys, and it is easy to see why Kipling later redistributed the stories. (In the redistributed version, the mood does swing moves quite rapidly, as the stories from the different books are read.) The Second Jungle Book is more aimed at adults and older children than the first; it could be quite disturbing.
Review number: 828
The original Jungle Book contained some stories which nowadays would be considered rather daring in a childrens' book because of their treatment of death. In The Second Jungle Book, this is even more the case, with violent death a commonplace. This is almost the "jungle red in tooth and claw", and it is going to be very surprising to anyone whose only prior acquaintance with the stories comes from the Disney cartoons. Things are slightly softened, mainly so that the stories will work, but death is present in every one.
A larger proportion of the stories are about Mowgli than is the case in the earlier book; the two tales which aren't are poorer in quality than their counterparts, Quiquern in particular being quite forgettable. The Mowgli stories, on the other hand, are very good indeed. They are not as immediately gripping as his duel with Shere Khan or the encounter with the monkeys, and it is easy to see why Kipling later redistributed the stories. (In the redistributed version, the mood does swing moves quite rapidly, as the stories from the different books are read.) The Second Jungle Book is more aimed at adults and older children than the first; it could be quite disturbing.
Tuesday, 1 May 2001
Rudyard Kipling: The Jungle Book (1894)
Edition: Penguin, 1987 (Buy from Amazon
)
Review number: 810
Strangely enough, the text of even such a well known story as The Jungle Book can be quite complicated. In the original publications of this and its sequel, The Second Jungle Book, each collection contained a number of Mowgli stories and others not related to them. Then, when the first collected edition of Kipling's work came out a few years later, all the Mowgli stories were printed together in The Jungle Book, and all the others as The Second Jungle Book. This Penguin edition, which contains both books, replaces the stories in their original order.
One of the problems with The Jungle Book is that most people first encounter them through the Disney film, or through the distortions used by Baden Powell in the Scout movement. Neither of these really equal the original stories, which must rank as one of the greatest pieces of children's literature ever written. The original collection includes three Mowgli stories and four others, two of which are among my favourite pieces of Kipling's writing, The White Seal and Rikki-Tikki-Tavi.
The reasons that the stories are so successful are several, and include Kipling's great strengths of atmospheric background and characterisation of the animals. (This only fails to work in Servants of the Queen, he last story in the collection.) The Mowgli stories and The White Seal, in particular, hint at something more than enjoyable children's tales, with the idea of moving from one world to another (childhood to adulthood?) prominent in the first and death in the second. (It is no accident that it takes a creature already extinct to direct Kotick to a place where the seals can be safe from the hunters.) Few writers today would dare write in this kind of way for children, though much of it is probably aimed more at adult readers.
One thing that is really amazing about the Mowgli stories is that they are set in a part of India that Kipling never visited. He creates an atmospheric narrative really out of our expectations of what a jungle should be like; he even takes liberties with the natural histories that he used as sources of information (the wild elephant, for example, not being native to the area).
)Review number: 810
Strangely enough, the text of even such a well known story as The Jungle Book can be quite complicated. In the original publications of this and its sequel, The Second Jungle Book, each collection contained a number of Mowgli stories and others not related to them. Then, when the first collected edition of Kipling's work came out a few years later, all the Mowgli stories were printed together in The Jungle Book, and all the others as The Second Jungle Book. This Penguin edition, which contains both books, replaces the stories in their original order.
One of the problems with The Jungle Book is that most people first encounter them through the Disney film, or through the distortions used by Baden Powell in the Scout movement. Neither of these really equal the original stories, which must rank as one of the greatest pieces of children's literature ever written. The original collection includes three Mowgli stories and four others, two of which are among my favourite pieces of Kipling's writing, The White Seal and Rikki-Tikki-Tavi.
The reasons that the stories are so successful are several, and include Kipling's great strengths of atmospheric background and characterisation of the animals. (This only fails to work in Servants of the Queen, he last story in the collection.) The Mowgli stories and The White Seal, in particular, hint at something more than enjoyable children's tales, with the idea of moving from one world to another (childhood to adulthood?) prominent in the first and death in the second. (It is no accident that it takes a creature already extinct to direct Kotick to a place where the seals can be safe from the hunters.) Few writers today would dare write in this kind of way for children, though much of it is probably aimed more at adult readers.
One thing that is really amazing about the Mowgli stories is that they are set in a part of India that Kipling never visited. He creates an atmospheric narrative really out of our expectations of what a jungle should be like; he even takes liberties with the natural histories that he used as sources of information (the wild elephant, for example, not being native to the area).
Tuesday, 9 January 2001
Rudyard Kipling: Just So Stories (1902)
Edition: Weathervane Books, 1978 (Buy from Amazon)
Review number: 709
Of all Kipling's writing for children, the Just So Stories are aimed at the youngest readers, and, in fact, are clearly intended to be read aloud to small children. The stories are basically whimsical original myths, mostly about how the world came to be "just so". (The Butterfly That Stamped doesn't quite fit into this category, and is more like one of the Arabian Nights tales.)
The charm of the well known stories remains, both for adults and children, and a large part of this is derived from the language Kipling uses. Considering the age of those at whom the stories are aimed, the vocabulary is extremely complex, much more so than most writers would dare to use today. The words are used in a poetic way which really comes alive when read aloud; the sentences are full of alliteration and rhymes and the descriptions are rich and ingenious. Like every Kipling story, the backgrounds are vivid, creating a very different world from that actually around us. The illustrations by Kipling himself are part of the way in which the background is established.
Some aspects have dated. There is too much arch humour, particularly in the captions to the illustrations. (The stories about the invention of the alphabet don't work very well; they are too much catalogues of the origins of each letter and assume that the Roman alphabet is the only logical one.) The best stories are why this book is a classic; my favourites are How the Elephant Got His Hump and The Cat That Walked by Himself.
Review number: 709
Of all Kipling's writing for children, the Just So Stories are aimed at the youngest readers, and, in fact, are clearly intended to be read aloud to small children. The stories are basically whimsical original myths, mostly about how the world came to be "just so". (The Butterfly That Stamped doesn't quite fit into this category, and is more like one of the Arabian Nights tales.)
The charm of the well known stories remains, both for adults and children, and a large part of this is derived from the language Kipling uses. Considering the age of those at whom the stories are aimed, the vocabulary is extremely complex, much more so than most writers would dare to use today. The words are used in a poetic way which really comes alive when read aloud; the sentences are full of alliteration and rhymes and the descriptions are rich and ingenious. Like every Kipling story, the backgrounds are vivid, creating a very different world from that actually around us. The illustrations by Kipling himself are part of the way in which the background is established.
Some aspects have dated. There is too much arch humour, particularly in the captions to the illustrations. (The stories about the invention of the alphabet don't work very well; they are too much catalogues of the origins of each letter and assume that the Roman alphabet is the only logical one.) The best stories are why this book is a classic; my favourites are How the Elephant Got His Hump and The Cat That Walked by Himself.
Friday, 15 December 2000
Rudyard Kipling: Traffics and Discoveries (1904)
Edition: MacMillan, 1949
Review number: 696
Amazon link
Most collections of Rudyard's Kipling's short stories today seem rather uneven; some of his writing has dated much more than the rest. Traffics and Discoveries is not so much uneven as poor; few of the stories it contains have much to say. There are several patriotic stories from the Boer War period; as this was hardly marked by British moral superiority - being best remembered today for the British invention of the concentration camp - its propaganda now gives an uncomfortable feeling to the British reader.
Among Kipling's most successful adult stories were those whose central characters were three privates in the Indian Army, and there are three stories in this collection which attempt to repeat this formula with the Navy. It doesn't really work, partly because there is virtually no originality in them, and partly because the writing is diffuse and confusing.
Most interesting are the stories which look at some of the most significant new technologies of the time - the car, the radio, and electric power. This includes what it almost certainly the earliest story to feature a traffic policeman. The car is also important in 'They', which begins with a breakdown. Probably the best story in the collection, it is a rather Jamesian tale about the ghosts of children.
One other tale deserves comment. Initially, The Army of the Dream seems to be Kipling the right wing Imperial apologist through and through; it is basically a tract in support of the formation of what amounts to the Territorial Army, and apparently views warfare as an extension of team sports. (This was, of course, a not uncommon metaphor among the British upper classes until it was discredited in the First World War less than a decade after the publication of this collection.) However, it has a sharp sting in the tail, as the narrator awakens from his dream in his London club to realise that the men he has been talking to are all dead. This of course undermines everything he appears to have been trying to say, and leaves the reader with an uneasy feeling - exactly as Kipling must have intended.
Review number: 696
Amazon link
Most collections of Rudyard's Kipling's short stories today seem rather uneven; some of his writing has dated much more than the rest. Traffics and Discoveries is not so much uneven as poor; few of the stories it contains have much to say. There are several patriotic stories from the Boer War period; as this was hardly marked by British moral superiority - being best remembered today for the British invention of the concentration camp - its propaganda now gives an uncomfortable feeling to the British reader.
Among Kipling's most successful adult stories were those whose central characters were three privates in the Indian Army, and there are three stories in this collection which attempt to repeat this formula with the Navy. It doesn't really work, partly because there is virtually no originality in them, and partly because the writing is diffuse and confusing.
Most interesting are the stories which look at some of the most significant new technologies of the time - the car, the radio, and electric power. This includes what it almost certainly the earliest story to feature a traffic policeman. The car is also important in 'They', which begins with a breakdown. Probably the best story in the collection, it is a rather Jamesian tale about the ghosts of children.
One other tale deserves comment. Initially, The Army of the Dream seems to be Kipling the right wing Imperial apologist through and through; it is basically a tract in support of the formation of what amounts to the Territorial Army, and apparently views warfare as an extension of team sports. (This was, of course, a not uncommon metaphor among the British upper classes until it was discredited in the First World War less than a decade after the publication of this collection.) However, it has a sharp sting in the tail, as the narrator awakens from his dream in his London club to realise that the men he has been talking to are all dead. This of course undermines everything he appears to have been trying to say, and leaves the reader with an uneasy feeling - exactly as Kipling must have intended.
Tuesday, 14 November 2000
Rudyard Kipling: The Day's Work (1898)
Edition: MacMillan, 1982
Review number: 683
Short stories of variable quality make up The Day's Work; it contains some of Kipling's best writing alongside some of his worst. The stories have no feature common to them all; most are set away from India, most have non-human characters - animals or machines are anthropomorphised.
To take the poor stories first, .007 (about railway locomotives) and A Walking Delegate (about horses and Communism) seem twee; the two entitled William the Conqueror are dull and have a sentimentalised ending which makes it obvious that they were originally written for the Christmas market.
However, these failures are set against the first and last in the collection, The Bridge Builders and The Brushwood Boy. In the latter and in The Maltese Cat, the anthropomorphism succeeds as well as it does in the Jungle Book. (The former is one of Kipling's Indian stories.) The Maltese Cat is an enjoyable tale of a polo match from the point of view of the ponies; it is described on the jacket as the greatest of all polo stories, hardly a genre providing much competition, but it must rank as one of the best descriptions of team sports ever written. Another memorable story is The Ship That Found Herself, an imaginative tale of the maiden voyage of a ship as experienced by the various components which make it up.
The best stories make this a collection worth reading; it is a shame that the quality is so uneven.
Review number: 683
Short stories of variable quality make up The Day's Work; it contains some of Kipling's best writing alongside some of his worst. The stories have no feature common to them all; most are set away from India, most have non-human characters - animals or machines are anthropomorphised.
To take the poor stories first, .007 (about railway locomotives) and A Walking Delegate (about horses and Communism) seem twee; the two entitled William the Conqueror are dull and have a sentimentalised ending which makes it obvious that they were originally written for the Christmas market.
However, these failures are set against the first and last in the collection, The Bridge Builders and The Brushwood Boy. In the latter and in The Maltese Cat, the anthropomorphism succeeds as well as it does in the Jungle Book. (The former is one of Kipling's Indian stories.) The Maltese Cat is an enjoyable tale of a polo match from the point of view of the ponies; it is described on the jacket as the greatest of all polo stories, hardly a genre providing much competition, but it must rank as one of the best descriptions of team sports ever written. Another memorable story is The Ship That Found Herself, an imaginative tale of the maiden voyage of a ship as experienced by the various components which make it up.
The best stories make this a collection worth reading; it is a shame that the quality is so uneven.
Friday, 27 October 2000
Rudyard Kipling: Life's Handicap (1891)
Edition: MacMillan, 1982
Review number: 665
Rudyard Kipling produced a large number of short stories, including some of his best known writing (The Jungle Book, for example, being a collection of connected tales). They are quite varied, even when dealing with a specific theme, as here: Life's Handicap contains twenty seven stories about the experience of the British in India. Some have dated more than others, but they all have the marvellous sense of atmosphere which is the hallmark of Kipling's writing.
It is often said against Kipling that he was an imperialist, and it is hardly possible to deny it - there are moments when his now uncomfortable assumptions about the superiority of the white man become apparent. Kipling fits into the time and place of his background as well as most people do, and it is rather unfair to expect him to have the attitudes of someone born a century later. The chosen theme of most of his writing makes these background ideas particularly obvious, so that he is something of a sitting target. He is a greater writer than the two others who have survived and who also can be accused of the same kind of unconscious racism (I'm thinking of Buchan and Haggard), and he is much less one sided. He writes about unpleasant Europeans, of British officers who fail, as well as of ones who are as infallible gods to their native servants. His characters, even in the short stories, are more than the stereotypes of cheap imperialist fiction.
In the case of Life's Handicap, I remain slightly uneasy despite the excellence of many of the stories. This is because of the title of the collection, for which the only interpretation I can think of is slightly racist (though possibly just reflective of the social situation in nineteenth century India): that some people have a superior position or an inferior one from the start of their lives, dependent on whether they are Indian or European. It may be a racist idea, but Kipling didn't originate the system, and it was certainly true.
Review number: 665
Rudyard Kipling produced a large number of short stories, including some of his best known writing (The Jungle Book, for example, being a collection of connected tales). They are quite varied, even when dealing with a specific theme, as here: Life's Handicap contains twenty seven stories about the experience of the British in India. Some have dated more than others, but they all have the marvellous sense of atmosphere which is the hallmark of Kipling's writing.
It is often said against Kipling that he was an imperialist, and it is hardly possible to deny it - there are moments when his now uncomfortable assumptions about the superiority of the white man become apparent. Kipling fits into the time and place of his background as well as most people do, and it is rather unfair to expect him to have the attitudes of someone born a century later. The chosen theme of most of his writing makes these background ideas particularly obvious, so that he is something of a sitting target. He is a greater writer than the two others who have survived and who also can be accused of the same kind of unconscious racism (I'm thinking of Buchan and Haggard), and he is much less one sided. He writes about unpleasant Europeans, of British officers who fail, as well as of ones who are as infallible gods to their native servants. His characters, even in the short stories, are more than the stereotypes of cheap imperialist fiction.
In the case of Life's Handicap, I remain slightly uneasy despite the excellence of many of the stories. This is because of the title of the collection, for which the only interpretation I can think of is slightly racist (though possibly just reflective of the social situation in nineteenth century India): that some people have a superior position or an inferior one from the start of their lives, dependent on whether they are Indian or European. It may be a racist idea, but Kipling didn't originate the system, and it was certainly true.
Friday, 13 October 2000
Rudyard Kipling: The Light that Failed (1891)
Edition: MacMillan, 1982
Review number: 655
One of Kipling's most interesting novels, The Light that Failed hovers on the edge of sentimentality for most of its pages, never quite slipping. Dick Heldar is an artist, who becomes successful through drawings of a war in Sudan for one of the London newspapers - this being in the days before photographs filled the newspapers. Returning to London, he begins to work as a serious artist, and re-encounters his childhood playmate, Maisie, and falls in love with her. Just as he begins work on what is to be his masterpiece, he has to seek medical advice for a problem with his eyes and is told that he is going blind, incurably, as a result of the after affects of a head wound received in the Sudan.
In the original published version of the story, The Light that Failed ended here, with Maisie marrying Dick to look after him. Kipling later changed this, saying that he was restoring the story to what he had always wanted it to be, and wrote a much longer ending (about a third of the novel as it now stands) in which Maisie abandons Dick and leaves him to sink into squalor. The original ending is trite and sentimental, and the novel as it now stands has far greater power.
The Light that Failed works because of the way it is written, with the contrast between the high spirits of a group of bachelor friends in the first half, and the serious theme of the second. Both parts are extremely well written, the earlier part being like the more cheerful army stories or parts of the Jungle Book. It is carefree, and this makes Dick's physical disintegration in the second half more powerful.
The novel is not really a particularly deep one; its concern is more with Dick's physical dissolution than with an in depth analysis of his psychology and the effects of his blindness. By leaving this to the imagination of the reader, it is extraordinarily effective, while remaining easy to read.
Review number: 655
One of Kipling's most interesting novels, The Light that Failed hovers on the edge of sentimentality for most of its pages, never quite slipping. Dick Heldar is an artist, who becomes successful through drawings of a war in Sudan for one of the London newspapers - this being in the days before photographs filled the newspapers. Returning to London, he begins to work as a serious artist, and re-encounters his childhood playmate, Maisie, and falls in love with her. Just as he begins work on what is to be his masterpiece, he has to seek medical advice for a problem with his eyes and is told that he is going blind, incurably, as a result of the after affects of a head wound received in the Sudan.
In the original published version of the story, The Light that Failed ended here, with Maisie marrying Dick to look after him. Kipling later changed this, saying that he was restoring the story to what he had always wanted it to be, and wrote a much longer ending (about a third of the novel as it now stands) in which Maisie abandons Dick and leaves him to sink into squalor. The original ending is trite and sentimental, and the novel as it now stands has far greater power.
The Light that Failed works because of the way it is written, with the contrast between the high spirits of a group of bachelor friends in the first half, and the serious theme of the second. Both parts are extremely well written, the earlier part being like the more cheerful army stories or parts of the Jungle Book. It is carefree, and this makes Dick's physical disintegration in the second half more powerful.
The novel is not really a particularly deep one; its concern is more with Dick's physical dissolution than with an in depth analysis of his psychology and the effects of his blindness. By leaving this to the imagination of the reader, it is extraordinarily effective, while remaining easy to read.
Tuesday, 3 October 2000
Rudyard Kipling: Puck of Pook's Hill (1906)
Edition: Piccolo, 1975
Review number: 641
Of the classic children's books written by Rudyard Kipling, Puck of Pook's Hill has perhaps dated the most obviously. It remains a charming idea, much copied, but so much about it is a celebration of Victorian country life that in many ways it is not very relevant to the children of today. The idyllic upper class childhood of Dan and Una, full of enchanting places to play, has probably never existed outside fiction, and to be a child in the country today is little like this. (The South Downs are probably a more fun place to be a child than the Lincolnshire Fens, where I grew up, which are more like living in the middle of a gigantic factory.)
By reciting parts of a cut down version of A Midsummer Night's Dream at the appropriate time near an ancient shrine dedicated to Puck, Dan and Una unexpectedly summon up the sprite, who treats the children to a tour of the history of East Sussex (where Kipling himself lived) in which they meet a Norman knight, a Roman legionary and a medieval Jewish moneylender, who each tell the children stories of the past. (The area around Hastings and Pevensey is particularly rich in historical associations.)
The history is old fashioned and contains what are now known to be inaccuracies, but the way in which Kipling makes it exciting and alive is one of the strengths of the book. The other, which is connected, is the ability which is shared by much of his writing to create an alien world and draw the reader in, whatever their age. Faded by comparison, Puck of Pook's Hill is still a worthwhile book to introduce to a child if they have been enchanted by The Jungle Book.
Review number: 641
Of the classic children's books written by Rudyard Kipling, Puck of Pook's Hill has perhaps dated the most obviously. It remains a charming idea, much copied, but so much about it is a celebration of Victorian country life that in many ways it is not very relevant to the children of today. The idyllic upper class childhood of Dan and Una, full of enchanting places to play, has probably never existed outside fiction, and to be a child in the country today is little like this. (The South Downs are probably a more fun place to be a child than the Lincolnshire Fens, where I grew up, which are more like living in the middle of a gigantic factory.)
By reciting parts of a cut down version of A Midsummer Night's Dream at the appropriate time near an ancient shrine dedicated to Puck, Dan and Una unexpectedly summon up the sprite, who treats the children to a tour of the history of East Sussex (where Kipling himself lived) in which they meet a Norman knight, a Roman legionary and a medieval Jewish moneylender, who each tell the children stories of the past. (The area around Hastings and Pevensey is particularly rich in historical associations.)
The history is old fashioned and contains what are now known to be inaccuracies, but the way in which Kipling makes it exciting and alive is one of the strengths of the book. The other, which is connected, is the ability which is shared by much of his writing to create an alien world and draw the reader in, whatever their age. Faded by comparison, Puck of Pook's Hill is still a worthwhile book to introduce to a child if they have been enchanted by The Jungle Book.
Thursday, 18 June 1998
Rudyard Kipling: Kim (1901)
Edition: Penguin, 1987
Review number: 69
Kipling's famous novel of British India, which made his name in the late nineteenth century, is still worth reading today. Kipling is rather out of favour today with the academic world; his work is routinely accused of racism. It's perhaps rather unfair to suggest this of Kipling; he was hardly as bad as many of the people of his own time, and Kim suggests considerable respect for many aspects of Indian culture.
Whatever else Kipling's book may be, it is certainly a good read, and was the prototype for many "ripping yarn" type stories. There is surprisingly little in the way of action when you think about it; Kim may become involved in spying, but he is hardly James Bond before his time.
There are certainly aspects to the story that have not endured so well. The odd remark strikes the reader as patronising (asides about the Oriental idea of efficiency and so on), and the idea that a white man could pass unnoticed through Indian society, even if brought up as though a native, is fairly absurd, as is pointed out in Edward Said's excellent introduction to this edition. (The introductions are one of the strongest points of the Penguin Classics series.)
One of the reasons Kim succeeds is because of the sympathetic treatment Kipling gives to the lama befriended and served by Kim. The lama is completely taken up with his quest for the river of healing, and is naive about the world while being extremely wise. His complex personality makes the comparatively sketchy nature of the other characters work well.
Review number: 69
Kipling's famous novel of British India, which made his name in the late nineteenth century, is still worth reading today. Kipling is rather out of favour today with the academic world; his work is routinely accused of racism. It's perhaps rather unfair to suggest this of Kipling; he was hardly as bad as many of the people of his own time, and Kim suggests considerable respect for many aspects of Indian culture.
Whatever else Kipling's book may be, it is certainly a good read, and was the prototype for many "ripping yarn" type stories. There is surprisingly little in the way of action when you think about it; Kim may become involved in spying, but he is hardly James Bond before his time.
There are certainly aspects to the story that have not endured so well. The odd remark strikes the reader as patronising (asides about the Oriental idea of efficiency and so on), and the idea that a white man could pass unnoticed through Indian society, even if brought up as though a native, is fairly absurd, as is pointed out in Edward Said's excellent introduction to this edition. (The introductions are one of the strongest points of the Penguin Classics series.)
One of the reasons Kim succeeds is because of the sympathetic treatment Kipling gives to the lama befriended and served by Kim. The lama is completely taken up with his quest for the river of healing, and is naive about the world while being extremely wise. His complex personality makes the comparatively sketchy nature of the other characters work well.
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