February / Young Adult Reading: Kim by Rudyard Kipling

[Scheherazade]

In February, we will be reading Kim by Rudyard Kipling.

Please post your thoughts and questions in this thread.

[Virgil]

Yay!!! I'm going to finish Ghosts from The New York Triology and then get to Kim. Hopefully next weekend.

[NickAdams]

I will begin next week.

[Thespian1975]

Just started. He put his own father into the opening as the curator of the museum.

[HerGuardian]

Hi

I'll start reading it today.

[NEEMAN]

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.

[Virgil]

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:

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.

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.

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.

'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.

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.

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.

And shortly after

'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.'

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.

'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.'

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.

[Scheherazade]

I just can't get into this book. :-/

[Dark Muse]

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"

[Schokokeks]

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 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.

And who is Kim? [...] 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.

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.

Another interesting passage concerning Kim's identity, I think, is the opening paragraph:

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;

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.

[Virgil]

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.

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:

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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:

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.'

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.

[meeber]

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:

Bennet looked at him with the triple-ringed indifference of the creed that lumps nine-tenths of the world under the title "heathen".

(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.

[Virgil]

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.

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.

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?

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.

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 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.

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.

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.

[applepie]

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.

[Virgil]

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.