Kim (Rudyard Kipling)
Aug. 16th, 2004 10:14 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
aseThere is nothing more beautiful than the university library's copies of good books. They feel like the library. They smell like my paternal grandparents' guest bedroom. And they endure grab and go abuse much better than modern paperbacks. (Which I shouldn't be saying, after the grief I've handed out to people who hurt my books.)
Anyway. Classic adventure story of espionage in British India. The plot wanders across India in ways that made me long for a map. Very much rooted in its time; British rule of India is an unquestioned constant, opposed only by evil Russian agents and the mad, and women are extremely secondary to the plot. A variety of characters are vividly drawn on a dizzying background of casually mentioned cultural subgroups (religions, castes, etc). Seeing India from Kim's point of view is great fun - he's an irrepressibly cheerful character who's willing to talk to anyone. The novel makes me think Kipling really loved India, even if he did lay on the "hail Britannia" stuff pretty thick. The descriptions alone make me long to travel there and see the Himalayas rising from the hot, dusty plains with my own eyes. What's a paltry century or two going to do to that sight?
Anyway. Classic adventure story of espionage in British India. The plot wanders across India in ways that made me long for a map. Very much rooted in its time; British rule of India is an unquestioned constant, opposed only by evil Russian agents and the mad, and women are extremely secondary to the plot. A variety of characters are vividly drawn on a dizzying background of casually mentioned cultural subgroups (religions, castes, etc). Seeing India from Kim's point of view is great fun - he's an irrepressibly cheerful character who's willing to talk to anyone. The novel makes me think Kipling really loved India, even if he did lay on the "hail Britannia" stuff pretty thick. The descriptions alone make me long to travel there and see the Himalayas rising from the hot, dusty plains with my own eyes. What's a paltry century or two going to do to that sight?
