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In February, we will be reading Kim by Rudyard Kipling.
Please post your thoughts and questions in this thread.
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http://literature.viten.org/kipling/kipling.jpg
In February, we will be reading Kim by Rudyard Kipling.
Please post your thoughts and questions in this thread.
Yay!!! I'm going to finish Ghosts from The New York Triology and then get to Kim. Hopefully next weekend. :D
I will begin next week.:)
Just started. He put his own father into the opening as the curator of the museum.
Hi
I'll start reading it today.
Kim is a wonderful book. It's just great rolicking imperialist fun. I don't really have time to read it again, so I'm basing these comments on memory, but I do remember being a little let down by the ending, but partly because I didn't want it to end. But it definitely did feel a little anticlimactic.
I've read the first three chapters and I just wanted to highlight a few things. First there are two central themes that run parallel and intertwine. The theme of the "Great Game," which is the spy narrative that runs through. Second is the theme of escaping the "wheel of things," which is the narrative of finding the lama's quest to find the River of the Arrow. The first is a theme of the physical world and the second is a theme of the metaphysical world. And Kim is at the center of both these themes.
And who is Kim? Here is something from early in the first chapter:
Yes, he's white but he's actually chamelion, able to become Hindu or Mohammedan, slip from one persona to another, mimic the every element of the phisical world, because he is master of the phisical world.Quote:
If the woman had sent Kim up to the local Jadoo-Gher with those papers, he would, of course, have been taken over by the Provincial Lodge, and sent to the Masonic Orphanage in the Hills; but what she had heard of magic she distrusted. Kim, too, held views of his own. As he reached the years of indiscretion, he learned to avoid missionaries and white men of serious aspect who asked who he was, and what he did. For Kim did nothing with an immense success. True, he knew the wonderful walled city of Lahore from the Delhi Gate to the outer Fort Ditch; was hand in glove with men who led lives stranger than anything Haroun al Raschid dreamed of; and he lived in a life wild as that of the Arabian Nights, but missionaries and secretaries of charitable societies could not see the beauty of it. His nickname through the wards was 'Little Friend of all the World'; and very often, being lithe and inconspicuous, he executed commissions by night on the crowded housetops for sleek and shiny young men of fashion. It was intrigue, - of course he knew that much, as he had known all evil since he could speak, - but what he loved was the game for its own sake - the stealthy prowl through the dark gullies and lanes, the crawl up a waterpipe, the sights and sounds of the women's world on the flat roofs, and the headlong flight from housetop to housetop under cover of the hot dark. Then there were holy men, ash-smeared fakirs by their brick shrines under the trees at the riverside, with whom he was quite familiar - greeting them as they returned from begging-tours, and, when no one was by, eating from the same dish. The woman who looked after him insisted with tears that he should wear European clothes - trousers, a shirt and a battered hat. Kim found it easier to slip into Hindu or Mohammedan garb when engaged on certain businesses. One of the young men of fashion - he who was found dead at the bottom of a well on the night of the earthquake had once given him a complete suit of Hindu kit, the costume of a lowcaste street boy, and Kim stored it in a secret place under some baulks in Nila Ram's timber-yard, beyond the Punjab High Court, where the fragrant deodar logs lie seasoning after they have driven down the Ravi. When there was business or frolic afoot, Kim would use his properties, returning at dawn to the veranda, all tired out from shouting at the heels of a marriage procession, or yelling at a Hindu festival. Sometimes there was food in the house, more often there was not, and then Kim went out again to eat with his native friends.
And then he meets someone of a type he has never met before, a guru from Tibet walking lost about town and running into Kim's crowd.
Clearly Kim is stricken by the old man. Unafraid like the rest of his friends, Kim leads the old man to the Curator of a museum to ask about the sacred river the old man is seeking. But why does Kim decide to follow the Lama and be his chela? He listens to the holy man talk to the curator and while he doesn't follow what is being said, clearly he is fascinated by something.Quote:
'Who is that?' said Kim to his companions.
'Perhaps it is a man,' said Abdullah, finger in mouth, staring.
'Without doubt.' returned Kim; 'but he is no man of India that I have ever seen.'
'A priest, perhaps,' said Chota Lal, spying the rosary. 'See! He goes into the Wonder House!'
'Nay, nay,' said the policeman, shaking his head. 'I do not understand your talk.' The constable spoke Punjabi. 'O Friend of all the World, what does he say?'
'Send him hither,' said Kim, dropping from Zam-Zammah, flourishing his bare heels. 'He is a foreigner, and thou art a buffalo.'
The man turned helplessly and drifted towards the boys. He was old, and his woollen gaberdine still reeked of the stinking artemisia of the mountain passes.
'O Children, what is that big house?' he said in very fair Urdu.
'The Ajaib-Gher, the Wonder House!' Kim gave him no title - such as Lala or Mian. He could not divine the man's creed.
'Ah! The Wonder House! Can any enter?'
'It is written above the door - all can enter.'
'Without payment?'
'I go in and out. I am no banker,' laughed Kim.
'Alas! I am an old man. I did not know.' Then, fingering his rosary, he half turned to the Museum.
'What is your caste? Where is your house? Have you come far?' Kim asked.
'I came by Kulu - from beyond the Kailas - but what know you? >From the Hills where' - he sighed - 'the air and water are fresh and cool.'
'Aha! Khitai [a Chinaman],' said Abdullah proudly. Fook Shing had once chased him out of his shop for spitting at the joss above the boots.
'Pahari [a hillman],' said little Chota Lal.
'Aye, child - a hillman from hills thou'lt never see. Didst hear of Bhotiyal [Tibet]? I am no Khitai, but a Bhotiya [Tibetan], since you must know - a lama - or, say, a guru in your tongue.'
'A guru from Tibet,' said Kim. 'I have not seen such a man. They be Hindus in Tibet, then?'
'We be followers of the Middle Way, living in peace in our lamasseries, and I go to see the Four Holy Places before I die. Now do you, who are children, know as much as I do who am old.' He smiled benignantly on the boys.
And shortly afterQuote:
Kim followed like a shadow. What he had overheard excited him wildly. This man was entirely new to all his experience, and he meant to investigate further, precisely as he would have investigated a new building or a strange festival in Lahore city. The lama was his trove, and he purposed to take possession. Kim's mother had been Irish too.
That exchange not onnly shows Kim's fascination but dramatises the dfferences between the two, one who knows the world of asceticism, the other who knows the world of the people. And as they talk, the Lama brings up the passing of his disciple, his chela, and of the boy (who was Kim) who had helped the old man and who he wishes to teach the boy of his spiritual ways, and that inspires Kim to become the lama's new disciple.Quote:
'And whom didst thou worship within?' said Kim affably, squatting in the shade beside the lama.
'I worshipped none, child. I bowed before the Excellent Law.'
Kim accepted this new God without emotion. He knew already a few score.
'And what dost thou do?'
'I beg. I remember now it is long since I have eaten or drunk. What is the custom of charity in this town? In silence, as we do of Tibet, or speaking aloud?'
'Those who beg in silence starve in silence,' said Kim, quoting a native proverb. The lama tried to rise, but sank back again, sighing for his disciple, dead in far-away Kulu. Kim watched head to one side, considering and interested.
'Give me the bowl. I know the people of this city - all who are charitable. Give, and I will bring it back filled.'
Simply as a child the old man handed him the bowl. [start here]
'Rest, thou. I know the people.'
There is a mutual need, an old man in need of making his way through the ways of the world and a boy in need for learning the way of compassion. And so, the boy of the world and the old man of the spirit go off together in search for the holy river.Quote:
'It was a boy who came to me in place of him who died, on account of the merit which I had gained when I bowed before the Law within there.' He pointed towards the Museum. 'He came upon me to show me a road which I had lost. He led me into the Wonder House, and by his talk emboldened me to speak to the Keeper of the Images, so that I was cheered and made strong. And when I was faint with hunger he begged for me, as would a chela for his teacher. Suddenly was he sent. Suddenly has he gone away. It was in my mind to have taught him the Law upon the road to Benares.'
Kim stood amazed at this, because he had overheard the talk in the Museum, and knew that the old man was speaking the truth, which is a thing a native on the road seldom presents to a stranger.
'But I see now that he was but sent for a purpose. By this I know that I shall find a certain River for which I seek.'
'The River of the Arrow?' said Kim, with a superior smile.
'Is this yet another Sending?' cried the lama. 'To none have I spoken of my search, save to the Priest of the Images. Who art thou?'
'Thy chela,' said Kim simply, sitting on his heels. 'I have never seen anyone like to thee in all this my life. I go with thee to Benares. And, too, I think that so old a man as thou, speaking the truth to chance-met people at dusk, is in great need of a disciple.'
I just can't get into this book. :-/
It has been a while since I read the book so my memory is fuzzy on some of the intericate details, but I thought I would pop in for what my 2 cents is worth. I really enjoyed the book, perhaps not the best thing I ever read, but it was a charming little adventure story, and I do have something of a fascination with India.
Kim was quite the clever and gifted boy and I enjoyed reading the tales of his adventures and his interactions, and I just loved the expression "Let the hand of friendship turn aside the whip of calamity"
And Kim also has two very special relationships to the two people who are also at the centre of the two worlds, Mahbub Ali for the Great Game, and the lama for the spiritual world, who both become kind of father figures for him, providing for his education but also expecting something from him in return.Quote:
Originally Posted by Virgil
What I also found very interesting while reading is the fact that Kim is not only white, but actually white and *not* privileged; he is an orphan and described as a "poor white of the very poorest" (second paragraph in the book). Kim being the focalizer creates a very interesting perspective on British India, one that is different from the perspective of the white protagonists of, say, Forster's Passage to India or Orwell's short stories, whose Anglo-Indians move in exactly those circles you would expect them to.Quote:
Originally Posted by Virgil
Another interesting passage concerning Kim's identity, I think, is the opening paragraph:
Kim sits on the gun, symbol for ruling the Punjab, and chooses to assert his whiteness and his Englishness in this situation to gain the upper hand. But at the same time he is describes as having native characteristics, all making him very ambiguous right from the start.Quote:
He sat, in defiance fo municipal orders, astride the gun Zam-Zammah on her brick platform opposite the old Ajaib-Gher - [...]. Who hold the Zam-Zammah, that 'fire-breathing dragon', hold the Punjab; [...]
There was some justification for Kim - he had kicked Lala Dinanath's boy off the trunnions - since the English held the Punjab and Kim was English. Though he was turned black as a native;
Oh that is true. It did not occur to me that the novel could be structured as Kim in between the Lama and Mahbub Ali. I will have to look for this as I continue to read. Here's how we are introduced to Mahbub:Quote:
Originally Posted by Schokokeks
Horse-trader is such a worldly occupation that clearly Mahbub deals with the physical world. And so much of the paragrah links Mahbub's identity to money, trade, goverment, jobs, and law and order.Quote:
But Kim did not suspect that Mahbub Ali, known as one of the best horse-dealers in the Punjab, a wealthy and enterprising trader, whose caravans penetrated far and far into the Back of Beyond, was registered in one of the locked books of the Indian Survey Department as C25 IB. Twice or thrice yearly C25 would send in a little story, baldly told but most interesting, and generally - it was checked by the statements of R17 and M4 - quite true. It concerned all manner of out-of-the-way mountain principalities, explorers of nationalities other than English, and the guntrade - was, in brief, a small portion of that vast mass of 'information received' on which the Indian Government acts. But, recently, five confederated Kings, who had no business to confederate, had been informed by a kindly Northern Power that there was a leakage of news from their territories into British India. So those Kings' Prime Ministers were seriously annoyed and took steps, after the Oriental fashion. They suspected, among many others, the bullying, red-bearded horsedealer whose caravans ploughed through their fastnesses belly-deep in snow. At least, his caravan that season had been ambushed and shot at twice on the way down, when Mahbub's men accounted for three strange ruffians who might, or might not, have been hired for the job. Therefore Mahbub had avoided halting at the insalubrious city of Peshawur, and had come through without stop to Lahore, where, knowing his country-people, he anticipated curious developments.
It's almost as if Kipling wanted to make Kim all cultures, but he doesn't go that far. While clearly Kim is comfortable and blends into all cultures, Kipling does insist he's British.Quote:
What I also found very interesting while reading is the fact that Kim is not only white, but actually white and *not* privileged; he is an orphan and described as a "poor white of the very poorest" (second paragraph in the book). Kim being the focalizer creates a very interesting perspective on British India, one that is different from the perspective of the white protagonists of, say, Forster's Passage to India or Orwell's short stories, whose Anglo-Indians move in exactly those circles you would expect them to.
Yes the gun is important as a theme to the novel, representing the real world of governence. But does the gun contrast with the Wheel and River of the Lama? I think it does. Further into the first chapter the Lama sits by the gun himself and has this discussion with Kim:Quote:
Kim sits on the gun, symbol for ruling the Punjab, and chooses to assert his whiteness and his Englishness in this situation to gain the upper hand. But at the same time he is describes as having native characteristics, all making him very ambiguous right from the start.
The passage is striking for its contrast of the gun and the Lama, but I do not know what to make of it or that last statement by the holy man.Quote:
The old man halted by Zam-Zammah and looked round till his eye fell on Kim. The inspiration of his pilgrimage had left him for awhile, and he felt old, forlorn, and very empty.
'Do not sit under that gun,' said the policeman loftily.
'Huh! Owl!' was Kim's retort on the lama's behalf 'Sit under that gun if it please thee. When didst thou steal the milkwoman's slippers, Dunnoo?'
That was an utterly unfounded charge sprung on the spur of the moment, but it silenced Dunnoo, who knew that Kim's clear yell could call up legions of bad bazar boys if need arose.
'And whom didst thou worship within?' said Kim affably, squatting in the shade beside the lama.
'I worshipped none, child. I bowed before the Excellent Law.'
Hello everyone,
I’m new to this forum, and I’ve been reading Kim. Good choice. It’s my mother’s favorite book that she read when she was a kid, and she always wanted me to read it. When I was a kid I must have checked it out of the library half a dozen times but I just couldn’t get into it. Reading it now I see I was too young for it – fourth grade or fifth. But reading it now I also wonder how it’s in the young adult category at all…. But I guess it can be enjoyed on more levels than one. It’s young adult in the delight that it takes in adventure, but it’s also subtle. There’s definitely more than I would have picked up on before I was a senior in high school.
The first five chapters reminded me very much of Don Quixote, the lama off to tilt with windmills (find a mythical river) and Kim as his Sancho Panza. I wonder if this book is often compared to Don Quixote, or if it is known to have been an influence?
You guys have already written about the contrast between lama and the horse trader, the wheel and the arrow or river. The Wheel of Karma is the cycle of birth and death that we are all caught in until we break it and become buddhas (or something similar, for the Tibetan tradition). Being caught in the Wheel of Karma is ignorance of the Way. Wheels are ignorance, blindness, and being stuck. Rivers and arrows are enlightenment, and freedom, like the “straight and narrow” from the Christian tradition.
I think the symbolism in the book extends from wheels to rings. At the end of chapter 9, the lama explains that he will never find his river without his chela. To support this assertion, he tells the story of the elephant “beringed with a grievous leg-iron”, and how this elephant protects an orphaned baby elephant who grows up and removes the ring, freeing the older elephant who protected him. He implies that he cannot find the river until his own ring is removed by his chela, Kim.
If rings are ignorance, then we can get a sense of Kipling’s judgment on imperialsm in an earlier passage:
(I’m not sure what literal meaning the rings have here.)Quote:
Bennet looked at him with the triple-ringed indifference of the creed that lumps nine-tenths of the world under the title "heathen".
I thought the story of the orphaned elephant showed a big change in the lama from earlier chapters. Earlier he is bothered by his attachment to Kim, as against his religious commitment to non-attachment. It’s possible that his fondness for Kim has changed him a great deal. I was surprised when the Babu said the lama was agnostic, but possibly this was just foreshadowing the change that we would soon see in the lama.
But – I haven’t finished the book yet so I don’t know for sure how the lama has changed while Kim was in school…
This is a wonderful book and I’m so glad this forum inspired me to give it another try.
Well, welcome Meeber to lit net. I hope you stick around and enjoy the forum. We have some lively discussions. Yes I agree, while this tends to be read as a young adult book, I do think it's way more than that. There is a lot of complexity.Quote:
Originally Posted by meeber
Good point, but actually I thought of Huck Finn and Jim from Huckleberry Finn. For those that didn't know, Kipling lived in the US (he may have even started this novel while in the US) for a while and had become friends with Mark Twain. Kim very much reminds me of Huck (he even smokes tobacco like Huck) and while there are differences between Jim and the Lama, they are both older people who provide a moral framework for the young eccentric and semi wild boy.Quote:
The first five chapters reminded me very much of Don Quixote, the lama off to tilt with windmills (find a mythical river) and Kim as his Sancho Panza. I wonder if this book is often compared to Don Quixote, or if it is known to have been an influence?
I think a good college paper can be written on the similarities and differences of the religions in Kim. There are all sorts of contrasts going on between Hindu, Islam, Christianity, and Tibetan Buddism (if that's what the Lama is, though to be honest I'm not sure). There are even references to Free Masonry in the novel.Quote:
You guys have already written about the contrast between lama and the horse trader, the wheel and the arrow or river. The Wheel of Karma is the cycle of birth and death that we are all caught in until we break it and become buddhas (or something similar, for the Tibetan tradition). Being caught in the Wheel of Karma is ignorance of the Way. Wheels are ignorance, blindness, and being stuck. Rivers and arrows are enlightenment, and freedom, like the “straight and narrow” from the Christian tradition.
I haven't gotten up to the rings yet and I don't recall from prior readings. Thanks for the heads up and I'll look for it when I get there. :)Quote:
I think the symbolism in the book extends from wheels to rings. At the end of chapter 9, the lama explains that he will never find his river without his chela. To support this assertion, he tells the story of the elephant “beringed with a grievous leg-iron”, and how this elephant protects an orphaned baby elephant who grows up and removes the ring, freeing the older elephant who protected him. He implies that he cannot find the river until his own ring is removed by his chela, Kim.
If rings are ignorance, then we can get a sense of Kipling’s judgment on imperialsm in an earlier passage:
(I’m not sure what literal meaning the rings have here.)
I thought the story of the orphaned elephant showed a big change in the lama from earlier chapters. Earlier he is bothered by his attachment to Kim, as against his religious commitment to non-attachment. It’s possible that his fondness for Kim has changed him a great deal. I was surprised when the Babu said the lama was agnostic, but possibly this was just foreshadowing the change that we would soon see in the lama.
But – I haven’t finished the book yet so I don’t know for sure how the lama has changed while Kim was in school…
This is a wonderful book and I’m so glad this forum inspired me to give it another try.
Ah Virgil:) I remember you saying that you lvoed this book, but I'm having some trouble finding the time to really get into it. I've not been able to find the time to really sit and read, so while the snippets I've read are intriguing I'm not hooked... yet. We'll see if I can find some time this weekend to catch the bug.
Ok Meg. I've actually was diverted this week to do te Shakespeare play discussion o n Richard II. I plan to get back to Kim this weekend.
Rats, it's already March and I haven't even started Kim yet. I guess I was naive to think I'd be able to make time amidst school and work. *sighs* maybe this weekend...
Hi there :wave:
I've just finished reading Kim, and I really enjoyed it :) It sucked me into another world, and I can imagine I have gotten a good image of India at the end of the 19th century. I can't be sure of course, as I never had this in history class - but I guess with Kipling having lived over there and this being such a well known book... It won't be too inaccurate ;)
Seeing the world from Kim's eyes is wonderful. And how his perception changes while being with the English or the natives, the difference between being a Sahib or ... well, whatever caste he chooses to be really :p Sweet to read about his ways of "disguise" and how he can crawl into another persons skin.
I do have a little question though - it's about just one sentence in the book :goof: I tend to get stuck on details ;)First time I read this, I was sure Kipling means a person isn't able to learn that well anymore after reaching the age of 22/23. But that isn't really agreeable with the notion of "first rush of minds developed by sun and surroundings", that doesn't indicate age at all :confused: So then I thought maybe it meant the time of day ... but who in their right mind would study all day (during the sunlight) and NOT be too tired when it is after 10 o'clock in the evening. :( Don't think that's the clue either...Quote:
Originally Posted by chapter 7
Any ideas?
Well I finally finished yesterday and I want to close out my thoughts. This was the third time now that I have read Kim and each time it has grown in my estimation as a work of art. This is a fascinating work, an incredible picturesk view of India and her people and her voices, a bildungsroman, and the wonderful love between an old spiritual man and a boy. I wish I had been able to post comments of my thoughts as I read along instead of just inundate here at the end. Unfortunately I was not able to with my schedule. I've already talked about tension between the material world and the spirtual world for Kim, so I won't reiterate that theme. It is also interesting to note how there are at least five religions that surrond Kim, the Protestantism of the English, the Catholicism of Kim's Irish roots, the Islam of Mahbub Ali, the various Hindus that come in and out, and of course the Tibetan Buddhism of the Lama. Except for the Buddhism, all the other relgions are portrayed as caught in the material world, lacking of any real spiritual dimension.
There five other elements of the novel I wish to highlight: the picturesk culture of India that kipling presents, the tensions within and development of Kim's identity, the search for enlightment, the love between Kim and the Lama, and finally the berauty of Kipling's prose. Since I have available an electronic text from which i can cut and paste, I will be generous in examples, and so this may take several posts given the length.
Perhaps there is no other culture on the earth that is as vast and diverse as that of India. Included here of course is what today is Pakastan, Bengali, Tibet, and the India proper. In such a small, just over three hundred pages, Kipling spans an incredible scope, encompassing all, or appearing to. Here is Kim at the school of learning how to play the Great Game (espionage) and all the various elements of local culture:
[from cahpter 9]Quote:
They were a most mad ten days, but Kim enjoyed himself too much to reflect on their craziness. In the morning they played the Jewel Game - sometimes with veritable stones, sometimes with piles of swords and daggers, sometimes with photo-graphs of natives. Through the afternoons he and the Hindu boy would mount guard in the shop, sitting dumb behind a carpet-bale or a screen and watching Mr Lurgan's many and very curious visitors. There were small Rajahs, escorts coughing in the veranda, who came to buy curiosities - such as phonographs and mechanical toys. There were ladies in search of necklaces, and men, it seemed to Kim - but his mind may have been vitiated by early training - in search of the ladies; natives from independent and feudatory Courts whose ostensible business was the repair of broken necklaces - rivers of light poured out upon the table - but whose true end seemed to be to raise money for angry Maharanees or young Rajahs. There were Babus to whom Lurgan Sahib talked with austerity and authority, but at the end of each interview he gave them money in coined silver and currency notes. There were occasional gatherings of long-coated theatrical natives who discussed metaphysics in English and Bengali, to Mr Lurgan's great edification. He was always interested in religions. At the end of the day, Kim and the Hindu boy - whose name varied at Lurgan's pleasure - were expected to give a detailed account of all that they had seen and heard - their view of each man's character, as shown in his face, talk, and manner, and their notions of his real errand. After dinner, Lurgan Sahib's fancy turned more to what might be called dressing-up, in which game he took a most informing interest. He could paint faces to a marvel; with a brush-dab here and a line there changing them past recognition. The shop was full of all manner of dresses and turbans, and Kim was apparelled variously as a young Mohammedan of good family, an oilman, and once which was a joyous evening - as the son of an Oudh landholder in the fullest of full dress. Lurgan Sahib had a hawk's eye to detect the least flaw in the make-up; and lying on a worn teak-wood couch, would explain by the half-hour together how such and such a caste talked, or walked, or coughed, or spat, or sneezed, and, since 'hows' matter little in this world, the 'why' of everything. The Hindu child played this game clumsily. That little mind, keen as an icicle where tally of jewels was concerned, could not temper itself to enter another's soul; but a demon in Kim woke up and sang with joy as he put on the changing dresses, and changed speech and gesture therewith.
And along with the various elements of the culture, which seems to come up scene upon scene, are the various voices. Each character, major and minor seems to resonate with his individual voice. One can just hear the indian accents. Here is the voice of Hurree Babu, an hindu man working with Kim as a spy.
[from chapter 10]Quote:
About third cockcrow, Kim woke after a sleep of thousands of years. Huneefa, in her corner, snored heavily, but Mahbub was gone.
'I hope you were not frightened,' said an oily voice at his elbow. 'I superintended entire operation, which was most interesting from ethnological point of view. It was high-class dawut.'
'Huh!' said Kim, recognizing Hurree Babu, who smiled ingratiatingly.
'And also I had honour to bring down from Lurgan your present costume. I am not in the habit offeecially of carrying such gauds to subordinates, but' - he giggled - 'your case is noted as exceptional on the books. I hope Mr Lurgan will note my action.'
Kim yawned and stretched himself. It was good to turn and twist within loose clothes once again.
'What is this?' He looked curiously at the heavy duffle-stuff loaded with the scents of the far North.
'Oho! That is inconspicuous dress of chela attached to service of lamaistic lama. Complete in every particular,' said Hurree Babu, rolling into the balcony to clean his teeth at a goglet. 'I am of opeenion it is not your old gentleman's precise releegion, but rather sub-variant of same. I have contributed rejected notes To Whom It May Concern: Asiatic Quarterly Review on these subjects. Now it is curious that the old gentleman himself is totally devoid of releegiosity. He is not a dam' particular.'
'Do you know him?'
Hurree Babu held up his hand to show he was engaged in the prescribed rites that accompany tooth-cleaning and such things among decently bred Bengalis. Then he recited in English an Arya-Somaj prayer of a theistical nature, and stuffed his mouth with pan and betel.
'Oah yes. I have met him several times at Benares, and also at Buddh Gaya, to interrogate him on releegious points and devil-worship. He is pure agnostic - same as me.'
Notice Babu's voice: "'I superintended entire operation, which was most interesting from ethnological point of view. It was high-class dawut.'" I can hear the voice of Indians, the frequent multi syllabic words that pile up, "superintended," "ethnological." "Complete in every particular." And further down the chapter Babu explains excitedly the goings on behind the scenes:
"Thatt," "unoffeecial," "I am a fearful man - most fearful," "Veree good." Haha, Kipling is great at capturing the local color.Quote:
'Huneefa she makes them for two rupees twelve annas with - oh, all sorts of exorcisms. They are quite common, except they are partially black enamel, and there is a paper inside each one full of names of local saints and such things. Thatt is Huneefa's look-out, you see? Huneefa makes them onlee for us, but in case she does not, when we get them we put in, before issue, one small piece of turquoise. Mr Lurgan he gives them. There is no other source of supply; but it was me invented all this. It is strictly unoffeecial of course, but convenient for subordinates. Colonel Creighton he does not know. He is European. The turquoise is wrapped in the paper . . . Yes, that is road to railway station . . . Now suppose you go with the lama, or with me, I hope, some day, or with Mahbub. Suppose we get into a dam'-tight place. I am a fearful man - most fearful - but I tell you I have been in dam'-tight places more than hairs on my head. You say: "I am Son of the Charm." Verree good.'
And then we have the development of Kim's identity. What a marvelous bildungsroman this is. A fascinating comaprsion could be made of Kim and his development with that of Pip in Dickens' Great Expectations, Steven Daedelus in Joyce's Portrait of the Artist, and Paul Morell in Lawrence's Sons and Lovers, all outstanding Bildungsromans. Kim's development does not lead to the knowledge of the inherent sadness to life as Pip learns, or to a conscious rejection of one's culture as Daedulus does, or a violent unconscious contortion to the adult world's passions as Paul Morell experiences. Kim learns that his true identity is in all of India herself, the absorbtion of every element of the physical and spiritual nature of his environment. Here is Kim, graduated from school and has starts his trip to go to his beloved Lama, who has paid for his education.
[from chapter 11]Quote:
Followed a sudden natural reaction.
'Now am I alone all alone,' he thought. 'In all India is no one so alone as I! If I die today, who shall bring the news -and to whom? If I live and God is good, there will be a price upon my head, for I am a Son of the Charm - I, Kim.'
A very few white people, but many Asiatics, can throw themselves into a mazement as it were by repeating their own names over and over again to themselves, letting the mind go free upon speculation as to what is called personal identity. When one grows older, the power, usually, departs, but while it lasts it may descend upon a man at any moment.
'Who is Kim - Kim - Kim?'
He squatted in a corner of the clanging waiting-room, rapt from all other thoughts; hands folded in lap, and pupils contracted to pin- points. In a minute - in another half-second - he felt he would arrive at the solution of the tremendous puzzle; but here, as always happens, his mind dropped away from those heights with a rush of a wounded bird, and passing his hand before his eyes, he shook his head.
A long-haired Hindu bairagi [holy man], who had just bought a ticket, halted before him at that moment and stared intently.
'I also have lost it,' he said sadly. 'It is one of the Gates to the Way, but for me it has been shut many years.'
'What is the talk?' said Kim, abashed.
'Thou wast wondering there in thy spirit what manner of thing thy soul might be. The seizure came of a sudden. I know. Who should know but I? Whither goest thou?'
'Toward Kashi [Benares].'
'There are no Gods there. I have proved them. I go to Prayag [Allahabad] for the fifth time - seeking the Road to Enlightenment. Of what faith art thou?'
'I too am a Seeker,' said Kim, using one of the lama's pet words. 'Though'- he forgot his Northern dress for the moment - 'though Allah alone knoweth what I seek.'
The old fellow slipped the bairagi's crutch under his armpit and sat down on a patch of ruddy leopard's skin as Kim rose at the call for the Benares train.
'Go in hope, little brother,' he said. 'It is a long road to the feet of the One; but thither do we all travel.'
Kim did not feel so lonely after this, and ere he had sat out twenty miles in the crowded compartment, was cheering his neighbours with a string of most wonderful yarns about his own and his master's magical gifts.
and then when Kim and the lama are on their journey
The journey, the languages, the disguises and costumes Kim wears all are separate to his identity but in total become his identity. Who is Kim? Kim is all of India. At the end, when Kim and the Lama have been through an exhauting physical and spirtual journey, after Kim has slept for days in and out of dreams, he wakes:Quote:
Each long, perfect day rose behind Kim for a barrier to cut him off from his race and his mother-tongue. He slipped back to thinking and dreaming in the vernacular, and mechanically followed the lama's ceremonial observances at eating, drinking, and the like. The old man's mind turned more and more to his monastery as his eyes turned to the steadfast snows. His River troubled him nothing. Now and again, indeed, he would gaze long and long at a tuft or a twig, expecting, he said, the earth to cleave and deliver its blessing; but he was content to be with his disciple, at ease in the temperate wind that comes down from the Doon. This was not Ceylon, nor Buddh Gaya, nor Bombay, nor some grass-tangled ruins that he seemed to have stumbled upon two years ago. He spoke of those places as a scholar removed from vanity, as a Seeker walking in humility, as an old man, wise and temperate, illumining knowledge with brilliant insight. Bit by bit, disconnectedly, each tale called up by some wayside thing, he spoke of all his wanderings up and down Hind; till Kim, who had loved him without reason, now loved him for fifty good reasons. So they enjoyed themselves in high felicity, abstaining, as the Rule demands, from evil words, covetous desires; not over- eating, not lying on high beds, nor wearing rich clothes. Their stomachs told them the time, and the people brought them their food, as the saying is. They were lords of the villages of Aminabad, Sahaigunge, Akrola of the Ford, and little Phulesa, where Kim gave the soulless woman a blessing.
There is no cynacism in Kim's acquiring of his identity. Perhaps if he had been limited to a single cultural identity he may have rejected it as Joyce has Daedulus, but his all absorbing nature leads him to embrace it all. "Things that rode meaningless on the eyeball an instant before slid into proper proportion." The roads, the houses, the men and women, the fields, the cattle they were all to be "believed in," "real and true." He is those fields and people and cattle. He acknowledges not cynical rejection but positve awareness, "I am Kim."Quote:
At first his legs bent like bad pipe-stems, and the flood and rush of the sunlit air dazzled him. He squatted by the white wall, the mind rummaging among the incidents of the long dooli journey, the lama's weaknesses, and, now that the stimulus of talk was removed, his own self-pity, of which, like the sick, he had great store. The unnerved brain edged away from all the outside, as a raw horse, once rowelled, sidles from the spur. It was enough, amply enough, that the spoil of the kilta was away - off his hands - out of his possession. He tried to think of the lama - to wonder why he had tumbled into a brook - but the bigness of the world, seen between the forecourt gates, swept linked thought aside. Then he looked upon the trees and the broad fields, with the thatched huts hidden among crops - looked with strange eyes unable to take up the size and proportion and use of things - stared for a still half-hour. All that while he felt, though he could not put it into words, that his soul was out of gear with its surroundings - a cog-wheel unconnected with any machinery, just like the idle cog-wheel of a cheap Beheea sugar-crusher laid by in a corner. The breezes fanned over him, the parrots shrieked at him, the noises of the populated house behind - squabbles, orders, and reproofs - hit on dead ears.
'I am Kim. I am Kim. And what is Kim?' His soul repeated it again and again.
He did not want to cry - had never felt less like crying in his life but of a sudden easy, stupid tears trickled down his nose, and with an almost audible click he felt the wheels of his being lock up anew on the world without. Things that rode meaningless on the eyeball an instant before slid into proper proportion. Roads were meant to be walked upon, houses to belived in, cattle to be driven, fields to be tilled, and men and women to be talked to. They were all real and true - solidly planted upon the feet - perfectly comprehensible - clay of his clay, neither more nor less. He shook himself like a dog with a flea in his ear, and rambled out of the gate. Said the Sahiba, to whom watchful eyes reported this move: 'Let him go. I have done my share. Mother Earth must do the rest. When the Holy One comes back from meditation, tell him.'
Another wonderful element of this novel is the seach for enlightment, outwardly dramatised as the lama's search for his river. The search for enlightenment goes from education to acquiring merit (doing good) to understanding the mystical elements of the Wheel of Life, to finding spirtual release. Here we have Kim, having completed his formal education returns to the Teshoo Lama and quickly heals a local's sick infant with some make shift medicine he learned:
[from chapter 11]Quote:
He [the Jat] moved away, crooning and mumbling. The lama turned to Kim, and all the loving old soul of him looked out through his narrow eyes.
'To heal the sick is to acquire merit; but first one gets knowledge. That was wisely done, O Friend of all the World.'
'I was made wise by thee, Holy One,' said Kim, forgetting the little play just ended; forgetting St Xavier's; forgetting his white blood; forgetting even the Great Game as he stooped, Mohammedan-fashion, to touch his master's feet in the dust of the Jain temple. 'My teaching I owe to thee. I have eaten thy bread three years. My time is finished. I am loosed from the schools. I come to thee.'
'Herein is my reward. Enter! Enter! And is all well?' They passed to the inner court, where the afternoon sun sloped golden across. 'Stand that I may see. So!' He peered critically. 'It is no longer a child, but a man, ripened in wisdom, walking as a physician. I did well - I did well when I gave thee up to the armed men on that black night. Dost thou remember our first day under Zam-Zammah?'
'Ay,' said Kim. 'Dost thou remember when I leapt off the carriage the first day I went to -'
'The Gates of Learning? Truly. And the day that we ate the cakes together at the back of the river by Nucklao. Aha! Many times hast thou begged for me, but that day I begged for thee.'
'Good reason,' quoth Kim. 'I was then a scholar in the Gates of Learning, and attired as a Sahib. Do not forget, Holy One,' he went on playfully. 'I am still a Sahib - by thy favour.'
'True. And a Sahib in most high esteem. Come to my cell, chela.'
And then he takes Kim into the heart of his temple and shows him his mystical drawings that conceptualize the metaphysical world:
And so they take to the road, and the Lama teaches Kim.Quote:
He [the Lama] drew from under the table a sheet of strangely scented yellow Chinese paper, the brushes, and slab of Indian ink. In cleanest, severest outline he had traced the Great Wheel with its six spokes, whose centre is the conjoined Hog, Snake, and Dove (Ignorance, Anger, and Lust), and whose compartments are all the Heavens and Hells, and all the chances of human life. Men say that the Bodhisat Himself first drew it with grains of rice upon dust, to teach His disciples the cause of things. Many ages have crystallized it into a most wonderful convention crowded with hundreds of little figures whose every line carries a meaning. Few can translate the picture- parable; there are not twenty in all the world who can draw it surely without a copy: of those who can both draw and expound are but three.
'I have a little learned to draw,' said Kim. 'But this is a marvel beyond marvels.'
'I have written it for many years,' said the lama. 'Time was when I could write it all between one lamp-lighting and the next. I will teach thee the art - after due preparation; and I will show thee the meaning of the Wheel.'
'We take the Road, then?'
'The Road and our Search. I was but waiting for thee. It was made plain to me in a hundred dreams - notably one that came upon the night of the day that the Gates of Learning first shut that without thee I should never find my River. Again and again, as thou knowest, I put this from me, fearing an illusion. Therefore I would not take thee with me that day at Lucknow, when we ate the cakes. I would not take thee till the. time was ripe and auspicious. From the Hills to the Sea, from the Sea to the Hills have I gone, but it was vain. Then I remembered the Tataka.'
He told Kim the story of the elephant with the leg-iron, as he had told it so often to the Jam priests.
'Further testimony is not needed,' he ended serenely. 'Thou wast sent for an aid. That aid removed, my Search came to naught. Therefore we will go out again together, and our Search sure.'
'Whither go we?'
'What matters, Friend of all the World? The Search, I say, is sure. If need be, the River will break from the ground before us. I acquired merit when I sent thee to the Gates of Learning, and gave thee the jewel that is Wisdom. Thou didst return, I saw even now, a follower of Sakyamuni, the Physician, whose altars are many in Bhotiyal. It is sufficient. We are together, and all things are as they were - Friend of all the World -Friend of the Stars - my chela!'
And when the Russian spy strikes the Lama in an attempt to rob him of his holy drawings, the Lama feels the evil in the world and goes through a spiritual crises and pushes the journey toward away from the mountains.Quote:
When the shadows shortened and the lama leaned more heavily upon Kim, there was always the Wheel of Life to draw forth, to hold flat under wiped stones, and with a long straw to expound cycle by cycle. Here sat the Gods on high - and they were dreams of dreams. Here was our Heaven and the world of the demi-Gods - horsemen fighting among the hills. Here were the agonies done upon the beasts, souls ascending or descending the ladder and therefore not to be interfered with. Here were the Hells, hot and cold, and the abodes of tormented ghosts. Let the chela study the troubles that come from over-eating - bloated stomach and burning bowels. Obediently, then, with bowed head and brown finger alert to follow the pointer, did the chela study; but when they came to the Human World, busy and profitless, that is just above the Hells, his mind was distracted; for by the roadside trundled the very Wheel itself, eating, drinking, trading, marrying, and quarrelling - all warmly alive. Often the lama made the living pictures the matter of his text, bidding Kim - too ready - note how the flesh takes a thousand shapes, desirable or detestable as men reckon, but in truth of no account either way; and how the stupid spirit, bond-slave to the Hog, the Dove, and the Serpent - lusting after betel-nut, a new yoke of oxen, women, or the favour of kings - is bound to follow the body through all the Heavens and all the Hells, and strictly round again. Sometimes a woman or a poor man, watching the ritual - it was nothing less - when the great yellow chart was unfolded, would throw a few flowers or a handful of cowries upon its edge. It sufficed these humble ones that they had met a Holy One who might be moved to remember them in his prayers.
[from chapter 14]Quote:
'With our long pencases as I could have shown . . . I say, we fought under the poplars, both Abbots and all the monks, and one laid open my forehead to the bone. See!' He tilted back his cap and showed a puckered silvery scar. 'Just and perfect is the Wheel! Yesterday the scar itched, and after fifty years I recalled how it was dealt and the face of him who dealt it; dwelling a little in illusion. Followed that which thou didst see - strife and stupidity. Just is the Wheel! The idolater's blow fell upon the scar. Then I was shaken in my soul: my soul was darkened, and the boat of my soul rocked upon the waters of illusion. Not till I came to Shamlegh could I meditate upon the Cause of Things, or trace the running grass-roots of Evil. I strove all the long night.'
'But', Holy One, thou art innocent of all evil. May I be thy sacrifice!'
Kim was genuinely distressed at the old man's sorrow, and Mahbub Ali's phrase slipped out unawares.
'In the dawn,' the lama went on more gravely, ready rosary clicking between the slow sentences, 'came enlightenment. It is here ... I am an old man . . . hill-bred, hill-fed, never to sit down among my Hills. Three years I travelled through Hind, but - can earth be stronger than Mother Earth? My stupid body yearned to the Hills and the snows of the Hills, from below there. I said, and it is true, my Search is sure. So, at the Kulu woman's house I turned hillward, over-persuaded by myself. There is no blame to the hakim. He - following Desire - foretold that the Hills would make me strong. They strengthened me to do evil, to forget my Search. I delighted in life and the lust of life. I desired strong slopes to climb. I cast about to find them. I measured the strength of my body, which is evil, against the high Hills, I made a mock of thee when thy breath came short under Jamnotri. I jested when thou wouldst not face the snow of the pass.'
'But what harm? I was afraid. It was just. I am not a hillman; and I loved thee for thy new strength.'
'More than once I remember' - he rested his cheek dolefully on his hand - 'I sought thy praise and the hakim's for the mere strength of my legs. Thus evil followed evil till the cup was full. Just is the Wheel! All Hind for three years did me all honour. From the Fountain of Wisdom in the Wonder House to' - he smiled -'a little child playing by a big gun - the world prepared my road. And why?'
'Because we loved thee. It is only the fever of the blow. I myself am still sick and shaken.'
'No! It was because I was upon the Way - tuned as are si-nen [cymbals] to the purpose of the Law. I departed from that ordinance. The tune was broken: followed the punishment. In my own Hills, on the edge of my own country, in the very place of my evil desire, comes the buffet - here!' (He touched his brow.) 'As a novice is beaten when he misplaces the cups, so am I beaten, who was Abbot of Such-zen. No word, look you, but a blow, chela.'
'But the Sahibs did not know thee, Holy One?'
'We were well matched. Ignorance and Lust met Ignorance and Lust upon the road, and they begat Anger. The blow was a sign to me, who am no better than a strayed yak, that my place is not here. Who can read the Cause of an act is halfway to Freedom! "Back to the path," says the Blow. "The Hills are not for thee. Thou canst not choose Freedom and go in bondage to the delight of life."'
And finally the Lama finds his river and reaches spirtual release, but Kipling doesn't even dramatise. Kim has been asleep for days and the Lama wonders and finds the holy river and returns to Kim to tell of his experience. (Actually the lama returns instead of total release from life because he fears Kim will die.) It's in recounting narrative mode rather than direct anrrative. It has all happened while Kim has been asleep and the Lama recounts.
The lama held his peace. Except for the click of the rosary and a faint clop-clop of Mahbub's retreating feet, the soft, smoky silence of evening in India wrapped them close.
'Hear me! I bring news.'
'But let us -'
Out shot the long yellow hand compelling silence. Kim tucked his feet under his robe-edge obediently.
[from chapter 15]Quote:
'Hear me! I bring news! The Search is finished. Comes now the Reward ... Thus. When we were among the Hills, I lived on thy strength till the young branch bowed and nigh broke. When we came out of the Hills, I was troubled for thee and for other matters which I held in my heart. The boat of my soul lacked direction; I could not see into the Cause of Things. So I gave thee over to the virtuous woman altogether. I took no food. I drank no water. Still I saw not the Way. They pressed food upon me and cried at my shut door. So I removed myself to a hollow under a tree. I took no food. I took no water. I sat in meditation two days and two nights, abstracting my mind; inbreathing and outbreathing in the required manner . . . Upon the second night - so great was my reward - the wise Soul loosed itself from the silly Body and went free. This I have never before attained, though I have stood on the threshold of it. Consider, for it is a marvel!'
'A marvel indeed. Two days and two nights without food! Where was the Sahiba?' said Kim under his breath.
'Yea, my Soul went free, and, wheeling like an eagle, saw indeed that there was no Teshoo Lama nor any other soul. As a drop draws to water, so my Soul drew near to the Great Soul which is beyond all things. At that point, exalted in contemplation, I saw all Hind, from Ceylon in the sea to the Hills, and my own Painted Rocks at Such-zen; I saw every camp and village, to the least, where we have ever rested. I saw them at one time and in one place; for they were within the Soul. By this I knew the Soul had passed beyond the illusion of Time and Space and of Things. By this I knew that I was free. I saw thee lying in thy cot, and I saw thee falling downhill under the idolater - at one time, in one place, in my Soul, which, as I say, had touched the Great Soul. Also I saw the stupid body of Teshoo Lama lying down, and the hakim from Dacca kneeled beside, shouting in its ear. Then my Soul was all alone, and I saw nothing, for I was all things, having reached the Great Soul. And I meditated a thousand thousand years, passionless, well aware of the Causes of all Things. Then a voice cried: "What shall come to the boy if thou art dead?" and I was shaken back and forth in myself with pity for thee; and I said: "I will return to my chela, lest he miss the Way." Upon this my Soul, which is the Soul of Teshoo Lama, withdrew itself from the Great Soul with strivings and yearnings and retchings and agonies not to be told. As the egg from the fish, as the fish from the water, as the water from the cloud, as the cloud from the thick air, so put forth, so leaped out, so drew away, so fumed up the Soul of Teshoo Lama from the Great Soul. Then a voice cried: "The River! Take heed to the River!" and I looked down upon all the world, which was as I had seen it before - one in time, one in place - and I saw plainly the River of the Arrow at my feet. At that hour my Soul was hampered by some evil or other whereof I was not wholly cleansed, and it lay upon my arms and coiled round my waist; but I put it aside, and I cast forth as an eagle in my flight for the very place of the River. I pushed aside world upon world for thy sake. I saw the River below me - the River of the Arrow - and, descending, the waters of it closed over me; and behold I was again in the body of Teshoo Lama, but free from sin, and the hakim from Decca bore up my head in the waters of the River. It is here! It is behind the mango- tope here - even here!'
What is evident through the journey is the love between the Lama and Kim and this forms the core of the novel. I think several of the quotes I've already provided show this love. I think this one just makes my heart melt. The two are struggling through the journey and the Lama is in his spirtual crises and is feeling his mortality and believes his death is imminent. He tells Kim to go to the Kulu woman, an old woman who has taken care of them in the past.
and then Kim tells him that he has made arrangements with the Kulu woman and the Lama responds:Quote:
It was never more than a couple of miles a day now, and Kim's shoulders bore all the weight of it - the burden of an old man, the burden of the heavy food-bag with the locked books, the load of the writings on his heart, and the details of the daily routine. He begged in the dawn, set blankets for the lama's meditation, held the weary head on his lap through the noonday heats, fanning away the flies till his wrists ached, begged again in the evenings, and rubbed the lama's feet, who rewarded him with promise of Freedom - today, tomorrow, or, at furthest, the next day.
'Never was such a chela. I doubt at times whether Ananda more faithfully nursed Our Lord. And thou art a Sahib? When I was a man - a long time ago - I forgot that. Now I look upon thee often, and every time I remember that thou art a Sahib. It is strange.'
'Thou hast said there is neither black nor white. Why plague me with this talk, Holy One? Let me rub the other foot. It vexes me. I am not a Sahib. I am thy chela, and my head is heavy on my shoulders.'
'Patience a little! We reach Freedom together. Then thou and I, upon the far bank of the River, will look back upon our lives as in the Hills we saw our days' marches laid out behind us. Perhaps I was once a Sahib.'
[from chapter 15]Quote:
'I am content. She is a woman with a heart of gold, as thou sayest, but a talker - something of a talker.'
'She will not weary thee. I have looked to that also. Holy One, my heart is very heavy for my many carelessnesses towards thee.' An hysterical catch rose in his throat. 'I have walked thee too far: I have not picked good food always for thee; I have not considered the heat; I have talked to people on the road and left thee alone ... I have - I have ... Hai mai! But I love thee ... and it is all too late ... I was a child . . . Oh, why was I not a man? . . .' Overborne by strain, fatigue, and the weight beyond his years, Kim broke down and sobbed at the lama's feet.
'What a to-do is here!' said the old man gently. 'Thou hast never stepped a hair's breadth from the Way of Obedience. Neglect me? Child, I have lived on thy strength as an old tree lives on the lime of a new wall. Day by day, since Shamlegh down, I have stolen strength from thee. Therefore, not through any sin of thine, art thou weakened. It is the Body - the silly, stupid Body - that speaks now. Not the assured Soul. Be comforted! Know at least the devils that thou fightest. They are earth-born - children of illusion. We will go to the woman from Kulu. She shall acquire merit in housing us, and specially in tending me. Thou shalt run free till strength returns. I had forgotten the stupid Body. If there be any blame, I bear it. But we are too close to the Gates of Deliverance to weigh blame. I could praise thee, but what need? In a little - in a very little - we shall sit beyond all needs.'
And so he petted and comforted Kim with wise saws and grave texts on that little-understood beast, our Body, who, being but a delusion, insists on posing as the Soul, to the darkening of the Way, and the immense multiplication of unnecessary devils.
"But I love thee." And a little further down Kim states the relationship between the two as interdependent:
Kim leads the Lama through the physical world and the Lama leads Kim through the spirtual.Quote:
With a laugh across his tears, Kim kissed the lama's feet, and set about the tea-making.
'Thou leanest on me in the body, Holy One, but I lean on thee for some other things. Dost know it?'
'I have guessed maybe,' and the lama's eyes twinkled. 'We must change that.'
And finally I think from the quotes one can see Kipling brilliant prose. I find it amazing that this novel with such a huge scope is only three hundred pages. Kipling's prose is succinct, lively, captures so much with so little, and runs sentences with a succesion of additive nouns. Here are a couple of wonderful passages to close this out:
[from chapter 13]Quote:
'Who goes to the hills goes to his mother.'
They had crossed the Siwaliks and the half-tropical Doon, left Mussoorie behind them, and headed north along the narrow hill-roads. Day after day they struck deeper into the huddled mountains, and day after day Kim watched the lama return to a man's strength. Among the terraces of the Doon he had leaned on the boy's shoulder, ready to profit by wayside halts. Under the great ramp to Mussoorie he drew himself together as an old hunter faces a well-remembered bank, and where he should have sunk exhausted swung his long draperies about him, drew a deep double-lungful of the diamond air, and walked as only a hillman can. Kim, plains-bred and plains-fed, sweated and panted astonished. 'This is my country,' said the lama. 'Beside Such-zen, this is flatter than a rice-field'; and with steady, driving strokes from the loins he strode upwards. But it was on the steep downhill marches, three thousand feet in three hours, that he went utterly away from Kim, whose back ached with holding back, and whose big toe was nigh cut off by his grass sandal-string. Through the speckled shadow of the great deodar-forests; through oak feathered and plumed with ferns; birch, ilex, rhododendron, and pine, out on to the bare hillsides' slippery sunburnt grass, and back into the woodlands' coolth again, till oak gave way to bamboo and palm of the valley, the lama swung untiring.
Glancing back in the twilight at the huge ridges behind him and the faint, thin line of the road whereby they had come, he would lay out, with a hillman's generous breadth of vision, fresh marches for the morrow; or, halting in the neck of some uplifted pass that gave on Spiti and Kulu, would stretch out his hands yearningly towards the high snows of the horizon. In the dawns they flared windy-red above stark blue, as Kedar- nath and Badrinath - kings of that wilderness - took the first sunlight. All day long they lay like molten silver under the sun, and at evening put on their jewels again. At first they breathed temperately upon the travellers, winds good to meet when one crawled over some gigantic hog's-back; but in a few days, at a height of nine or ten thousand feet, those breezes bit; and Kim kindly allowed a village of hillmen to acquire merit by giving him a rough blanket-coat. The lama was mildly surprised that anyone should object to the knife-edged breezes which had cut the years off his shoulders.
and further in chapter 13.
This is a novel of shear magnificence, subtley crafted, precisely structured, character of incredible richness, prose of wonderous beauty. I admit some of the Indian terms were lost on me, and the espionage element of the novel is a little confusing, but the Indian terms add to the vastness of the novel's scope and the espionage is relatively minor as a controlling element to the novel's structure. Although I know it's not for possibly ideological dissatisfaction with Kipling by contemporary critics, or perhaps because of its affirmative values in a cynical age, this novel should be part of the cannon of English literature. I highly recommend it.Quote:
They crossed a snowy pass in cold moonlight, when the lama, mildly chaffing Kim, went through up to his knees, like a Bactrian camel - the snow-bred, shag-haired sort that came into the Kashmir Serai. They dipped across beds of light snow and snow-powdered shale, where they took refuge from a gale in a camp of Tibetans hurrying down tiny sheep, each laden with a bag of borax. They came out upon grassy shoulders still snow-speckled, and through forest, to grass anew. For all their marchings, Kedarnath and Badrinath were not impressed; and it was only after days of travel that Kim, uplifted upon some insignificant ten-thousand-foot hummock, could see that a shoulder-knot or horn of the two great lords had - ever so slightly changed outline.
At last they entered a world within a world - a valley of leagues where the high hills were fashioned of a mere rubble and refuse from off the knees of the mountains. Here one day's march carried them no farther, it seemed, than a dreamer's clogged pace bears him in a nightmare. They skirted a shoulder painfully for hours, and, behold, it was but an outlying boss in an outlying buttress of the main pile! A rounded meadow revealed itself, when they had reached it, for a vast tableland running far into the valley. Three days later, it was a dim fold in the earth to southward.
'Surely the Gods live here!' said Kim, beaten down by the silence and the appalling sweep and dispersal of the cloud-shadows after rain. 'This is no place for men!'
'Long and long ago,' said the lama, as to himself, 'it was asked of the Lord whether the world were everlasting. o this the Excellent One returned no answer ... When I was in Ceylon, a wise Seeker confirmed that from the gospel which is written in Pali. Certainly, since we know the way to Freedom, the question were unprofitable, but - look, and know illusion, chela! These- are the true Hills! They are like my hills by Suchzen. Never were such hills!'
Above them, still enormously above them, earth towered away towards the snow-line, where from east to west across hundreds of miles, ruled as with a ruler, the last of the bold birches stopped. Above that, in scarps and blocks upheaved, the rocks strove to fight their heads above the white smother. Above these again, changeless since the world's beginning, but changing to every mood of sun and cloud, lay out the eternal snow. They could see blots and blurs on its face where storm and wandering wullie-wa got up to dance. Below them, as they stood, the forest slid away in a sheet of blue-green for mile upon mile; below the forest was a village in its sprinkle of terraced fields and steep grazing-grounds. Below the village they knew, though a thunderstorm worried and growled there for the moment, a pitch of twelve or fifteen hundred feet gave to the moist valley where the streams gather that are the mothers of young Sutluj.
for any age group.