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    Kim
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    Kim
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    Kim
    Ebook74 pages48 minutes

    Kim

    By Graphic Novels Campfire

    4/5

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    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    A graphic novel adaptation of Rudyard Kipling's Kim from Campfire.

    Kimball O’Hara was a child, like many others, living on the streets of India in the early 1900s. That was, until he befriended a Buddhist lama and became his disciple.

    The story of Kim follows our cheeky, fun-loving hero as he journeys across northern India – from Lahore to the vast beauty of the Himalayan mountains – in the company of the lama. The two of them have different goals, but the physical paths they follow are very similar.

    Before leaving Lahore, Kim is entrusted by one of his father’s friends to deliver a very special message. Through this he meets a member of the British Secret Service and discovers secrets he couldn’t have imagined. As the story progresses and his journey continues, Kim begins to learn more and more about what is known as the Great Game.

    As we follow Kim, we see him transformed from a simple vagabond into a sharpened operative in the dangerous world of politics, betrayal and death. All the excitement of Kim’s adventures takes place in the backdrop of a beautiful country full of amazing sights, incredible sounds and an extremely rich culture.

    In what is considered by many to be Kipling’s finest work, he draws on his own experiences of living in India to tell an unforgettable and action-packed story within a vivid and accurate setting.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherGraphic Novels Campfire
    Release dateSep 2, 2009
    ISBN9788190732635
    Unavailable
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    Reviews for Kim

    4/5

    1,215 ratings67 reviews

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    • 5/5
      Kipling is under-appreciated these days. Kim is a wonderful book which I have read a few times now, and had to keep. :) Like Haggard, Kipling wrote about "the Great Game." Spy stuff early on, and overlaid with the gentle story of the Tibetan Monk on his way to his forever home. These old guys from the turn of the 20th century could write - many of them wrote so well and always lucidly and with a vocabulary that they used in even the pulp fiction of the day (Example - Sax Rohmer stuff). It is an extraordinary pleasure to read a well written book.
    • 3/5
      I'd never read Kim or, in fact, anything by Rudyard Kipling before. I've been told that Kipling is the "poster boy" supporting colonialism, as well as racist so I started this book with some trepidation. It would be nice to be able to say simply "this is a story of a great quest" and enjoy it on its own terms, but I think we have to be aware of at least some of the assumptions Kipling is asking us to make about the world. While I noted some references that are clearly racist (especially by today's standards), I could live with those because most major characters, of all races, were presented as multi-dimensional human beings. What was harder for me to accept is the way the author, and his characters, refuse to consider any challenges to the status quo of colonialism. In Kim himself, we have someone who has grown up in an Indian cultural environment, having lost his European parents at a very young age, but who nevertheless has a special destiny because of his racial origins. I don't think we can absolve Kipling of racism on this point.The debate on whether to continue to read Kipling has a parallel in today's debate over the naming of schools after our first Prime Minister, Sir John A. Macdonald. As Senator Murray Sinclair said in a CBC Radio interview, I think it is important to understand and learn from history. That is why we must read Kim as a product of its time, not as a product of today. That is why it is better to use Kim (and Kipling) as a launching pad for discussion of our history and how it influences our present rather than hiding them in a dark closet. I enjoyed Kim as a character. His character is pulled in opposite directions which parallels the broader geopolitical situation around him. But as a story, Kim was, at best, adequate. The part of the book dealing with espionage was juvenile. I strongly preferred the part dealing with Kim's relationship and quest with the lama.Mr. Kipling's writes well; his descriptions are fantastic, and I really felt like I was on the train with Kim and the lama.On balance, there are good points: the writing, the rich detail of Indian culture, Kim himself and his search for his identity, the quest story. There are also bad points: the colonialism for sure, and the plot, especially the spy story, left something to be desired.
    • 3/5
      The strongest impressions I got from this novel were vivid descriptions of India and the wide variety of people who lived in there in the late 19th century. Told from the perspective of Kim, an orphan of Irish descent on his own in this vast land, he quickly embarks on an adventure by joining a holy man, a lama, as his disciple, and traveling through a diverse landscape. This book is good reading for anyone interested in British India.
    • 4/5
      This is a more personal review rather than a larger overview of the work. Others may have a similar take.This book is well-written and the characters are vividly created. By vivid, I mean Fuji Velvia vivid. Some will find the characters overdone, others will find the color highly pleasing. This vividness maintains the high sense of motion, even though most of the novel had very little real action. Face it - like Lord of the Rings, this is a story of people just walking.Colloquial language made the story valuable to its contemporaries and brings out the characters, but kills it for modern readers. I can step into Chaucer or Shakespeare and, after a bit, my mind kicks over and I don't have to mentally translate. Did not happen here. The many end-notes are essential but break the story's flow. The impact of the dead slang (much of the dialog) combined with all of the nod, nod, wink, wink, nudge, nudge implications and cultural assumptions means that many interactions went over my head. You can tell this is a work of love and Kipling loved India and his boyhood there. These are his heart's treasures and he wished to share that with others. Sadly for me, all of the amazing detail is squandered and the story transforms from being realistic to impressionistic.
    • 5/5
      Few characters in literature will capture your heart the way the 13-year-old imp Kim will. Few literary relationships will move you as much as the one that springs up between the Irish-Indian imp and the Buddhist Lama. In three days, the old Lama's heart goes out to his chela (disciple) for his courtesy, charity and wisdom of his little years. So did mine. Kipling's love for India, its people, its customs and traditions, its riches and its poverty shines through in this novel. There is humor, pathos, love and mischief. And plenty of adventure. India's Grand Trunk Road, a river of life, is like Huck Finn's Mississippi River. Kim is a descendant of Huck. And from Kim comes the delightful Hindustaniwallah Hatterr (G V Desani's hero) and Saleem Sinai (Midnight's Children). A real masterpiece.
    • 4/5
      Kim (1901) is one of Kipling's masterpieces. Through the story of the young orphan Kimball O'Hara, and his vocation in the Secret Service, Kipling presents a vivid picture of India, its teeming populations, religions, and superstitions, and the life of the bazaars and the road.
    • 4/5
      An enjoyable and engaging novel about an orphan growing up in British India.
    • 4/5
      #6, 2004I enjoyed this book . . . the story is lovely; however, it took me a long time to read, as I had trouble "processing" the language . . . partly, I think, because of the "archaic" style of writing, but also because much of the book is dialogue written to reflect a variety of Indian "dialects" (I hope that's the right word) . . . lots of flowery language, and sentences constructed in ways very different from English as I'm familiar with it. I had to read this book in short spurts . . . after a while, I would find I just wasn't grasping the meaning anymore of what I was reading, and I'd have to put it down and pick it up again later, when my mind was a bit "fresher." ::grin::Having said that, it was worth the effort . . . Set in India in around the turn of the 20th century (at least, that's when it was written), it's a lovely story about a "Sahib" (English) boy who is orphaned, and grows up on the streets, as a native. Well, not even as any one type of native; he's very good at blending in with just about anyone (something that becomes very important later on). He attaches himself to a Tibetan lama, who has come to India in search of a sacred river which will free him off all sin . . . the story follows the boy, Kim, as well as the lama and a number of other people he meets along the way. It's about spying and politics and spirituality, and interactions between people with different backgrounds and beliefs. Very rich, and the way the people are with one another is so different from what I'm used to in my own time and culture . . . very interesting to read.I think the single thing that had the most impact was the relationship between Kim and the lama . . . it's a really interesting, loving and deep relationship. Kim actually has a number of very strong friendships in the portion of his life that we follow, and it's lovely to read about people who care about one another and the interactions they have. I don't want to say too much more, or I'd be going into spoiler terrritory.I would recommend this book, even though I found it a bit difficult to read. I tend to have trouble with that sort of thing anyway (I don't like Tolkien, either), so I suspect that's more something about the way my own brain is "wired" than an issue that most other people would have with the book.LJ Discussion
    • 2/5
      1.5 starsKim is an orphan. Apparently, this is 19th century India. This is all I know. What’s a baboo? What’s a lama? (I know Dalai Lama is a title, but I still don’t know what a lama is.) Mack Boob. Mack Bow Valley (or Mack Bow Bally?) - these are what might have been names (or what sounded like it on the audio). Thou and thee. I heard these words over and over. Beyond that, nothing registered. It just didn’t interest me enough to keep my attention… not even a little bit. I did catch, at the very start, that Kim was an orphan. That’s it. That’s all I know. It got an extra .5 because I didn’t hate it. I didn’t hate it because I wasn’t paying attention. Hate is strong.
    • 4/5
      I am pretty sure I didn't understand this book, but I still enjoyed it.

      I enjoyed the journey on foot and by rail through India, a country I find intriguing but way too scary to actually visit. And anyway, I won't ever be able to visit this particular India since this one existed what, 150 years ago or so?

      I enjoyed the interactions of the many different cultures in the book. Multiple religions and ethnic backgrounds and languages all met at different points along the road, and Kipling really made these differences come alive in a way that allowed me to see the person underneath. I never really had a sense for how mixed the population of India is (or perhaps just was? I don't know how different Kipling's India is from India of the 21st century). Kipling lets us see inside the characters through direct access to their thoughts and through often hilarious asides and sarcastic remarks in other languages.

      I especially enjoyed the developing relationship between Kim and the lama as the orphan boy grows to trust and to love the holy man. This development seems to mirror the way that going through the outward motions of a spiritual practice eventually leads to internal change. Their relationship develops alongside the spiritual journey, and both involve themes of sacrifice and of bearing burdens for the sake of love.

      There is in this novel an element of trust that I also find in narratives of long foot journeys set in the United States, like those along the Appalachian Trail or the Pacific Crest Trail. No matter where they went, Kim and the lama trusted that what they needed would be provided, and it was, if not always in the way they originally expected. I find the freedom in that perspective compelling.

      One of my favorite passages:

      "And so [the lama] 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 evils." (p 334)

      Kim can blend in, chameleon-like, in almost any situation. He studies others closely and is a natural at trying on different personalities, classes, and ethnicities. This opens up some interesting career options, but it also highlights this idea of the body being an illusion. The lama fasts and meditates in an attempt to liberate himself from his body in the traditional Buddhist way, but Kim dips in and out of different identities, and in this way frees himself from his body and finds his soul.

      My nine-year-old and I read this book aloud together, and I think it was a combination of her persistent nature and the interesting and amusing little bits Kipling works into the novel that enabled her to stick with it chapter by chapter each evening. (She also enjoyed trying to trace Kim and the lama's travels in our atlas, which was difficult at times because the spellings of the city names in the atlas were often different from those in the novel.) Accepting that we didn't understand what was going on sometimes and just trusting that something resembling understanding would come eventually, we trucked along. We both got something different out of this book, but I think we both enjoyed it.
    • 5/5
      I'm hard put to explain why I like this novel so much, except that it makes India come alive to me. The travellers on the road, the men of the Hills, the Lama and all the other characters live and breathe.
    • 5/5
      A wonderful and ambitious story: a Bildungsroman, a travelogue, a spy adventure. Definitely marred by Kipling's belief in the magical wonderfulness of the British Empire and evident sexism, but filled with lovely details, excitement, and humour.Far more polished and interesting than his Jungle Book stories, containing many fewer Kipling literary tics.
    • 4/5
      My first book of 2014! This was 3.5 stars. So. Kim is an orphan who has survived quite well on the streets of Lahore. He ends up a disciple to a kindly old Tibetan lama who is on a spiritual quest to find the river that will cleanse him of his sins. HOWEVER, Kim is also friends with a Muslim horse trader who also happens to be a spy for the British and he recruits Kim to do some work for him which eventually results in Kim's true Sahib-ness being discovered -- Kim is actually Kimball O'Hara. Kim is sent away to a school for English boys (paid for by his lama) and the British decide to use Kim's street smarts and natural intelligence to become an agent in The Great Game. Which sounds way more exciting than what it actually is -- some kind of beef between England and Russia for domination in Central Asia. Oh, imperialism. Kim goes on many adventures along India and meets lots of people, thus making Kim notable for its diverse portrait of the people, culture, regions, and religions of India. Which would be wonderful except that I am an ignorant dummy: I have some basic and hazy concepts of Buddhists, Hindus, Sikhs, Bengalis, Jains, people from the hill vs. the plains, Lahore vs. Bombay, etc. but I think I missed some of those nuances that, in part, makes the book so enjoyable. I really did like Kim: he was smart, loyal, and endearingly lovely to and protective of his lama. Reading about a teenager being kind and respectful to an elderly person is a nice change, even if it's only fiction. Kim is not exactly introspective, but he definitely changes over the course of the novel -- he starts off as a street smart, independent 13 year old orphan living on the streets and ends the novel as a 17 year old British spy with a father figure who loves and cares for him. Oh, and I also love Hurree and Muhbub Ali. Happy endings!
    • 4/5
      Kipling is a controversial author these days, seen as an unapologetic imperialist booster of the British Empire and even racist. Yet Indian authors such as Arundhati Roy, V.S. Naipaul and Salman Rushdie have found Kipling impressive and even influential. Kipling can be a wonderful storyteller. Rushdie has said Kipling's writing has "the power simultaneously to infuriate and to entrance." I found that the case in both The Jungle Books and now Kim. And yes, you can see a, shall we say, very un-PC sensibility there, but my overall impression was Kipling's great love for India, which he knew intimately:The diamond-bright dawn woke men and crows and bullocks together. Kim sat up and yawned, shook himself, and thrilled with delight. This was seeing the world in real truth; this was life as he would have it - bustling and shouting, the buckling of belts, and beating of bullocks and creaking of wheels, lighting of fires and cooking of food, and new sights at every turn of the approving eye. The morning mist swept off in a whorl of silver, the parrots shot away to some distant river in shrieking green hosts: all the well-wheels within ear-shot went to work. India was awake, and Kim was in the middle of it.Kim is an orphan who was born Kimball O'Hara, the son of an Irishman who served as a sergeant in the British Army in India. He grows up in the streets of Lahore in the Punjab, where he is known as "the Little Friend of the World" and more fluent in the languages of India than English. If there's one indelible impression the book makes, it's in how it depicts the richness and diversity of India, with so many different languages, ethnicities and faiths. And in this book at least, the Indians and Asians certainly do not come across as stereotypes and those Europeans who refuse to learn from them are scorned. Kim also is about the "Great Game" of espionage and a coming of age adventure story about an unforgettable character not yet seventeen at the end of the book. I certainly can see traces of Kim in books as diverse as Robert Heinlein's Citizen of the Galaxy and Kaye's The Far Pavilions. This was a completely absorbing read.
    • 5/5
      As enchanting as I remembered, and given his attitudes toward the British Empire, surprisingly open-minded about India and its inhabitants. Unlike some writers who just trafficked in exoticism and Orientalism, Kipling took the time to flesh out his native characters (who are often more clued-in than several of the supercilious but supremely ignorant Westerners). Kim is a wonderful creation, curious, cheeky and savvy beyond his years, and I loved joining him on his adventures throughout a country I know too little about. I'm glad Kipling didn't write more Kim stories, as it might have diluted the uniqueness of this one -- but I'm also sorry he didn't, because I wasn't ready for it to end!
    • 3/5
      Well, even though I had been a member of the scouting movement, this was my first reading of this taut, well thought-out spy novel. It's proof that Kipling was a writer capable of adult themes, and with a good eye for details. There are many parallels with the later figure of "James Bond", the creation of a false familial relationship, the need for a father figure, and the recruitment of those with great emotional needs to serve national ends. Come to think of it, John Le Carre is also another obvious student. Suitable for young adults, and a good place for adult discussions of espionage to begin.this book was originally published in 1901.
    • 5/5
      I read this as a child and still enjoyed it later when I read it as an adult. I think Kipling is grossly misunderstood as being responsible for promulgating the concept of "the white man's burden." A book to read if you want to read another in the same vein is Kunzru's _The Impressionist_ (Kunzru actually quotes from _Kim_ quite a bit in his book.) - a _Kim_ for adults.
    • 4/5
      This book is pure fun. And not racist! I was pretty worried it was gonna be racist, but Kipling shows pretty much equal disdain to every ethnic group, referring to whites contemptuously as "the creed that lumps nine-tenths of the world under the title of 'heathen'" (88).

      I'm giving it four stars for now because, I dunno, I guess it doesn't feel quite as Important as some of the other books I've been reading recently. But that might change. It's a perfectly crafted adventure novel, and that ain't nothing to sneeze at.

      If you can find an edition with a map, go for that. I would have liked one.
    • 3/5
      I have always known Rudyard Kipling more by reputation than reading, so I have enjoyed recently getting into his material first-hand. I know Kipling is a wonderful word-smith, but I wasn't as sure of his capacity to write enduring fiction. I found "Kim" to be a great read. The first third of the book is a particular treat; the characters of Kim and the Lama are well drawn, and the sub-continental background is lovingly painted with rich detail of people and places. Parts of the rest of the book seem to have been more of a grind for the author - the pace varies, almost as if the plot had to be grafted on to this wonderful character he had created. Kipling has the contemporary reputation as an arch imperialist, but there are few jarring moments in this book. The people and the energy of the interactions are drawn with generous affection, with no condescension. Read in e-format August 2013.
    • 3/5
      Kim is a tale of spies and espionage, which I normally love, but I found the English vernacular difficult to follow and I think over-the-top, which made it a bit of a chore to read rather than pure enjoyment. The story itself is exciting and I did enjoy Kipling's passion for India, where he was born and raised, and its people. In this novel, he truly celebrates the rich diversity, sights, sounds and flavors of the country.
    • 1/5
      I usually enjoy books about Europe's colonial past and this author seemed to be in a privileged position to render here a memorable account. Certainly the descriptions of India are very thorough - but the writing style was too dense and absolutely positively utterly boring... I didn't manage more than 40 pages, I think...
    • 4/5
      Kim is an orphaned Irish boy, who has grown up under the care of an Indian woman. He's lived in the streets all his life, running amok just as the other Indian boys do, with little knowledge or care that he is white. When he meets a holy man, a lama on a quest to achieve enlightenment by bathing in a certain river, he is fascinated and decides to become the lama's apprentice. Together, as they walk the roads of India and meet many people, Kim also gets himself wrapped up in British espionage. This was a fun little romp that very much reminded me of the many adventures of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn, except on the roads of India instead of the riverside of the South. I don't know nearly enough about the intricate nature of India's many cultures to know where Kipling got it right and where he screwed it. Since Kipling grew up in India himself, it makes sense that he drew on his own experiences while writing. I'm sure there's a certain amount of Orientalizing and stereotyping going on, but not how much. In his favor though, Kipling seems to present most of the characters in multiple layers and to treat much of the events as entirely normal, while most Westerners would consider them strange. In some cases, he also flips to show how Indians and the lama are perceived through the white man's lens. For example, the lama, who is seen as a holy man to all the native peoples around him, is seen as just another dirty beggar to the white men. However, the fact remains that the British are clearly the good guys and colonialism is presented as, if not a good thing, then at least not a problem. Also, whenever "magic" came into play within the story, I kind of cringed a bit as it seemed to be the greatest indication of stereotyping the "mysterious and magical East".There are also some spiritual aspects to the book, as presented through the lama and his peaceful quest. He teaches Kim about the wheel of life and how everyone is tied to the wheel, how the body is illusion and he wishes to escape from illusion. This is mixed with the assemblage of Hindu and Muslim people and customs they meet along the road, all of which is very interesting (though again, I can't properly judge how much is accurate). On the whole, I enjoyed it quite a bit from an adventure standpoint with some reservations in regards to other aspects.
    • 3/5
      Kim is the classic tale of a young orphan boy who grows up in the streets of colonial India. Although Kim survives as a street urchin, he is the son of an Irish officer and is a mishmash of his British ancestry and his Indian upbringing. Throughout this book, Kim is torn between his two nationalities. Once it is discovered that he is a white English boy, he is sent to school to be educated and eventually become part of the 'Great Game' or the espionage plot between England and the other European power houses. At the same time, Kim meets a Tibetan Lama and wants to accompany him as his servant on his quest for enlightenment. Kim is miraculously able to do both and his travels take him through much of India and the Himalayas.

      The descriptions of Colonial India were the best part of this book. Definitely, it was a crossroads for many cultures that all seemed to work well together and coexist peacefully. Also, the amazing friendship that Kim develops with the old Tibetan Lama was sweet and touching. But, this book is on quite a few of the notable 'books you MUST read' lists including, 1001 Books to Read Before You Die, Modern Library and the Radcliffe List. For me the book was sweet and even memorable, but not quite earth shattering.
    • 5/5
      Extraordinary, a beautiful, rich, moving story of a boy coming of age in British India. I had heard so much of what it was (Imperialist etc) and that is just not so. It is more a Buddhist book than an imperialist and the heart of it is the love between the Red Lama and the the orphan. The picture of India is drawn with passion and love and the richness of the people and life is contrasted often with the inadequacy of some of the British. I see echoes of Kim in many of my favourite books - look at the Shasta in the Horse and His Boy, at Lyra in His Dark Materials, at John Buchann's Sandy Arbuthnot and in real life at Lawrence of Arabia... And although the adventure and spy story drive the narrative the long trip into the himmalayas is a spiritual quest the culmination of the book one of spiritual fulfilment (and something of the feel of the last chapters of Lord of the Rings also) Highly recommended! (Oddly many of my friends said they were made to read it in Scouts - and it's full of what these days would be called strong language, violence, drug use and sexual references - go Kipling!)
    • 2/5
      I missed Kim when I was reading Kipling as a kid. I really like this, part spy and adventure story, part spiritual quest. There is something soothing about how Kipling writes, and he writes such great and real characters, full of flaws and charm.
    • 4/5
      Kim O'Hara is an orphan, living in the streets of Lahore, India like countless other unfortunate children. So dark is his skin from his prolonged exposure to the elements, that he has no notion at all that he is a 'sahib', a term used to designate a white man. He meets an elderly Buddhist monk who is on a mission to find the mythical river that has sprouted at the place where Buddha's arrow struck long ago, and Kim decides he must accompany the man and be his disciple, so he can beg for food for and shelter for the frail sage. Kim has his own destiny to fulfill: he must find a red bull in a green field, which will reveal to him great truths. And so the young boy and the old man embark on a long journey together that will take Kim from childhood to the life of an educated young man who is of great use as an agent of the British army, which seeks to keep a firm grasp on it's colonies with the use of spies as on of it's weapons. There are many sympathetic characters along the journey and it's a gripping adventure. But though our protagonist goes through a fascinating journey, I failed to be fully drawn into this story, as in the back of my mind there remained the insistent thought that through it all, Kippling might be upholding colonialism as an ideal and I often wondered whether the author considered the natives in the story fully as human beings or was rather parodying regional stereotypes. For example, with the Buddhist sage's continual references to 'The Way' and 'The Wheel', which must have seemed novel ideas to a Western readership at the beginning of the 20th century, was Kippling simply trying to teach Eastern Philosophy to his readers, or was he using the man's constant proselytizing in mockery? This is a book which would probably profit from a group reading to allow the opportunity for discussion on these matters.
    • 5/5
      I started this as an e-book and couldn't wait to get a print copy. Kim, short for Kimball O'Hara, is an Irish orphan in India during the Raj who gets up to all sorts of mischief until he meets a holy man, a lama from Tibet. He continues to get up to mischief but his adventures take him out across India, to school, and into contact with all sorts of interesting characters. It's an excellent story and was one of the many books that inspired Baden Powell as he started the Boy Scout movement. The issues relating to religion and caste would be good to discuss with younger (12 and under) readers.
    • 5/5
      Kim is another of those books that comes with a great deal of baggage: some of it reasonable, some not. It would be great to be able to say simply "this is a great adventure story" and enjoy it on its own terms, but I think the reader has to be aware of at least some of the assumptions Kipling is asking us to make about the world. Penguin clearly don't want us to enjoy the book at all, as their Penguin Modern Classics edition comes with a rather depressing introductory essay and some tediously pedantic notes by the late Edward Said.Is it a great spy story? I don't think so - although I heard Dame Stella Rimington, who may be presumed to know a thing or two about spying in India, talking it up as such on the BBC the other day. Whilst Kim's training with Lurgan Sahib is plausible, Kim's big success against the French and Russian agents is a direct consequence of their incompetence - if they'd taken any sensible precautions against counter-espionage at all, Kim and his friends would never have been able to foil their dastardly plans. Some of the tradecraft Kim is taught seems a bit suspect too - what intelligence organisation would be daft enough to give all of its agents a common recognition signal? One traitor would be enough to blow the whole organisation.Is it a handbook for military adventures on the North-West frontier? If that's how it is being used, it might explain the current lack of progress of NATO forces in Afghanistan. Anyone who's read Peter Hopkirk's books knows that by the time Kim was written, the danger of Russian incursions into India and Afghanistan, if it ever existed, was long past. There was, as there always has been, unrest among some of the Muslim communities in the area, but Kipling doesn't tell us anything about that. Kipling's view of the Great Game is a fantasy, and probably has more to do with the costly and unsuccessful colonial war of the moment (South Africa) than with India.Is it a primer in basic Buddhism? Probably not. There is no coherent explanation of what Buddhists actually believe, or why. We do get glimpses of the way the lama's religious beliefs help him to deal with concrete situations, but we are led to attribute his qualities to his own strength of character, as much as to his Buddhism. He is really a kind of generic holy man - he would be just as plausible if he were a Baptist or a Benedictine.Is it imperialist? Yes, of course it is. Kipling was firmly convinced that it was the duty of the British to run India, because he felt that they could do a better job than anyone else. This was a minority view (especially in Britain itself), but it was considered a perfectly respectable political standpoint at the time, and Kipling at least had some experience of the realities of colonial India from his time as a journalist. Said is right, of course, to draw attention to the way that Kipling selectively shows us Indians who support the British Raj, and ignores other viewpoints.Is it racist? Certainly, although the passages Said draws attention to are mostly just evidence of a failure to distinguish between racial and cultural characteristics, which is common to most writers of the period. Kipling compensates for this laziness to a large extent by the way the two most important Indian characters, Mahbub Ali and the Babu, are drawn as individuals who transcend racial stereotypes (in fact, both of them are conscious of the way Europeans stereotype them, and exploit this perception for their own ends). However, in the case of Kim, we have someone who as grown up to all intents and purposes in an Indian cultural environment, having lost his European parents at a very young age, but who nevertheless has a special destiny because of his racial origins. I don't think we can absolve Kipling of racism on this point: on the other hand, it is an assumption Kipling pushes so far into the foreground that I don't see how any modern reader of the book could fail to be conscious of it: it's simply a point that we have to accept as one of the underlying assumptions of the book. Is it a great novel? Yes, of course! Kipling wasn't very successful with the novel in general, but this is the one place where he produced a full length novel that can stand up with the best of them. Interestingly, Said chooses to compare Kim side-by-side not with other adventure stories, but with Hardy's Jude the obscure, making the point that most novels of the period were about frustrated hopes and ambitions, but that the freedom of movement offered by a colonial setting allowed Kipling to write a novel about possibilities seized and opportunities exploited. Hardy can be put side-by-side with Kipling in other ways too: both were fascinated by the voices of ordinary working people, and produced rich, if idealised, views of traditional societies confronted by the modern age. You can certainly imagine Mahbub Ali the horse trader doing business with Michael Henchard the corn merchant. It's probably not a huge exaggeration to say that Hardy's rural Wessex would have been as remote and exotic as Kipling's India to the average urban middle-class reader in 1901.
    • 4/5
      My first Kipling since "The Jungle Book" so many years ago, and not at all what I was expected. As a child, I adored "The Jungle Book", but as an adult I put Kipling firmly into the imperialist/racist category, and expected his work to be mostly imperialist blather. It's not that at all; what really stands out in "Kim", as many other reviewers have noted, is Kipling's passion for India with all its kaleidoscope of peoples, religions, languages, and everything else. A lot of it, of course, does sound imperialist to a 21rst century ear. "Kim" appeared in 1901, and he doesn't question the right of the "sahibs" to rule India. But in the context of the time, some of his attitudes seem remarkably non-imperialist. Some of the least sympathetic characters in the book are British, including a Church of England minister, who, upon meeting Tibetan holy man "looked at him with the triple-ringed uninterest of the creed that lumps nine-tenths of the world under the title 'heathen' " Kipling is not "uninterested" in anything about India; he revels in it in what one reviewer termed "Orientalism". That's a fair criticism, but I don't think that it means that one should forego Kipling. I will certainly read more, after having read "Kim".
    • 2/5
      This is my dad's favorite book and he has been telling me to read this one for years. I loved the relationship aspect of this story. Kim's attachment to the Lama and vice-versa is truly inspiring. I also loved Kim's resourcefulness, he takes any situation and comes out on top. I understand now why my dad has to go back every few years to read it.