Kim

Delightful. Unexpectedly so! This struck a chord with me.

I hesitated reading this since this is Kipling, and I assumed it would be dated colonialist claptrap. But not so! Quite something else. Though I am VERY curious to hear about the responses from these three groups of readers:
(1) Readers who don't speak Hindi/have never been to India/don't know much about India.
(2) Readers who DO speak Hindi/have spent time there, but aren't ethnically Indian.
(3) Readers who are ethnically Indian.
Plz let me know.

This book is very much in camp (2). Kipling was clearly in camp (2) - he spoke Hindi (or Hindustani/Urdu, at any rate), was born and lived in India/Pakistan for many years (quick wikipedia), and clearly was in love. I am, for better or worse, also very much in camp (2) - hence why this book struck such a chord. Dude. I loooove India. I lived there for 1 year, and then returned for 2- or 3-month trips for the next several years. I speak Hindi conversationally (सच!) and have tramped around it on the glorious Indian railway system - these are some of my fondest memories.

Kim - the titular protagonist - is also very much in camp (2). The orphaned child of an Irish colonial officer and some random other Euro lady (never got clarity on this), we meet him as a tween street scamp living in Lahore (present-day Pakistan). He is an extroverted lover of life, full of bonhomie and panache and brio and other French words for that vibe. He is excellent at code switching; or rather, he's completely culturally South Asian. One day in Lahore, he meets a wandering Tibetan lama. He has never met such an interesting person (someone from Tibet! and a lama, no less!) and immediately ingratiates himself and busies himself with guiding/helping the elderly mendicant.

And thus begins adventure 1. Because this is an adventure book, and it follows two adventures that periodically diverge and rendezvous throughout the subcontinent. Adventure 1 is: Kim attaching himself to the lama's side as his “chela” (Buddhist disciple) and helping him in his quest to find a mythical river (SOMEWHERE in India). Since tween Kim ain't got anything better to do, he is totally game to go wandering around such a very large area indeed - see new sights! Meet new people!

Adventure 2 - which I found a lot less interesting but I suppose could not be avoided - is Kim being (a) discovered as a “Sahib” (white guy), (b) getting the whole “son of a Sahib is a Sahib” sermon, i.e. being made to get properly educated at a fancy school in northern India somewhere (Dehradun?), and (c) getting pulled into the Great Game - aka the late 19th century diplomatic/intelligence war between Russia and the UK over central Asia (specifically Afghanistan). Kim is a feisty mischief-lover, and is multi-lingual to boot, so being enlisted as a teen spy by similarly-fluidly-code-switching Britishers and South Asians is totally his most optimal career path. But I, dear reader, found it a little less enchanting than wandering around with the Tibetan lama listening to Buddhist sermons and meeting interesting people. (And I hasten to add that adventure 2 is not as corny as I'm making it sound; it felt legitimately believable and was mildly thrilling in its 19th century espionage intrigue.)

Kipling's portrayal of race and culture is: he clearly celebrates Kim. And he celebrates all the characters who can navigate multiple cultural worlds fluidly and passionately: the lama, Colonel Creighton (the chief British spymaster), Hurree Babu (the Bengali middle management spy), and - to an extent - Mahbub Ali (the Pashtun horse-trader spy). Kipling excoriates several clearly racist, ignorant characters: the idiotic British schoolboy that Kim loathes, the Russian spies, even the well-meaning-ish Anglican minister. Basically, anyone who is rigidly “apart”, who is mono-lingual and holds themselves “above”, is - in this story - absolutely destroyed. There's a cringing schadenfreude in watching these characters get, well, their just comeuppance. I'm thinking especially of the Russian spies, ignorantly wandering through Himachal Pradesh while a network of village gossip is tracking their every move and colluding with Kim and his team on whether and how to help them. Kipling is clearly a fan of the big melting pot. (Which is why his poem, “The White Man's Burden”, is so confusing: “East is east and west is west and never the twain shall meet” - this entire book is celebrating that meeting!?)

The stuff I found problematic was the perpetuation of those regional stereotypes - e.g. macho Pathans and effete, intellectual Bengalis - which I read somewhere (citation needed!) were largely an invention of the British anyway. At least, I loved Hurree Babu, and was like, “stop calling yourself a coward, you're awesome.” I also found the dated terms and confident generalizations - Kipling regularly refers to “Asiatic” and “Oriental traits” - jarring. Even if they were, for the most part, flattering: take it easy and be flexible, the “Eastern way”!?

Oh yes, and the pre-Sahibized travels with the lama, when Kim and the lama take the train from Lahore to Pathankot and wander around northern India for a while, to places I've been to, made my heart sing. It was so fascinating to see this window into quotidian 19th century India, and to see what's changed and what hasn't. And the long digressions on Buddhism was chef's kiss. Why are there not more adventure books set in India featuring kindly, quirky lamas!?

Hell is full of books like these.

This was as strange book for me.
I had looked forward to reading it (perhaps too much) due to its popularity amongst people who are friends and those whose reviews I follow. My enjoyment of the book changed a number of times throughout my reading of it - which took me a bit longer than normal, as I fitted another book or two in between - at those times I wasn't loving it.

Ultimately I enjoyed it a lot. A couple of times on the way I just found myself confused about what was going on, but not motivated enough to go back and reread sections, so I just battled through. Part of that was the archaic language that crept in in places, part of it was probably just the storyline. Yes, there was the dated racism in the writing, but 1901 is not the political correct minefield we tread now.

No plot outline required - there are plenty of others there, done better that I would, and the book summary does a pretty good job anyway.

I did enjoy the characters, although I admit to (still) not really understanding a lot about them from the descriptions given, and the machinations of the Great Game were excellent, but for me, there were not enough of them... was it written with further stories in mind? (OK if someone tells me there are more stories I am going to edit that so as to not look foolish).

Four stars from me.

3.5 stars, Metaphorosis Reviews

Summary
An orphaned son of an Irish soldier, raised by an Indian opium seller, agrees to become the helper of a Tibetan lama searching for a mythical river, but also becomes involved with British intelligence gathering.

Review
I first (and last) read Kim about 40 years ago. I recall that I liked it, but wasn't overwhelmed; I liked Kipling's other work better. Now, re-reading as an adult, I'm impressed that I did so well with it. The language is far more dense and allusive than I recall, and in this second reading, I had less patience for it.

Kipling grew up and worked in India, and he's clearly bringing his experiences and contemporary views to bear. There are plenty of stereotypes of Asians and Indians here, but there are also plenty about Britons and Europeans, and often just as unflattering. The impression is affectionate, though – while Kipling may use terms and phrases that we're no longer comfortable with, he's not mocking his stereotypes, just drawing them larger than life.

While there is a plot, the bulk of the book is a series of character sketches or descriptions – the impressions of Kim as he wanders around northern India with his lama. For those looking for an overview of an exotic landscape, I expect it was appealing. To be fair, Kim is a fairly well developed character, and his cohort is varied and fun. However, on this reading, I found the story difficult to engage with. As I've gotten older, I'm often impatient with description, and more interested in emotion; Kim's approach is generally the reverse. In visual terms, it's impressionistic – all color and little structure. The plot, while functional, is clearly intended as a carrier for the settings and characters, and not as an end in itself; it holds together, but doesn't bear too much attention. The characters are the book's strength, and frankly, there's more Kipling could have done here, especially if he'd been willing to go beneath the surface a little. The relationship between Kim and is lama is deep and textured, but it's largely hinted at rather than explored. As an adult, that's where I'd have liked to see the story go. As a child, I imagine that lack didn't bother me.

I didn't remember the book well, and had frankly expected something altogether different. While I first read this as a child, I find it hard to see as a children's book anymore. There's the clever protagonist to identify with, but the language is hard to follow. Then again, I did like it as a child, and we often underestimate children, so perhaps I'm doing that now. All in all, a colorful picture of a bygone India from a character and writer who cross boundaries.