Rudyard Kipling Books

Martin Jarvis is a wonderful reader, and this audio book deserves full grades just for his performance. I did not find most of the stories very compelling, though. If you are looking for tales of adventure or for an Englishman's view of colonial India, you will probably be diappointed. The stories are very well written (and just note how young Kipling was when he wrote them...) but they mostly tell of uneventful vicissitudes of Englishmen in India that behave (or try) to behave as if they were in London. These tales are 70% about Victorian Englishmen, 20% about Englishmen in India, and 10% about India. But, again, Martin Jarvis is such an extraordinary performer that I would probably enjoy listening to him reading the phone book. If you like audio book, you should really look for his performances. I particularly liked his renderings of Dicken's novels (most of them UNabridged!!) and of "The Third Man".

In this day of political correctness, it is interesting to note the lessons and ideas of days gone past. If this book were written today, it might be seen as "refreshing," but since the original poems were penned in the 19th century (many from much older sources) it is a reminder of how it used to be. "The Betrothed" is the genesis of the famous line "A good woman is just a woman, but a good cigar is a smoke." The ideas presented are shocking, but convey a healthy exploration of the question "What is love worth?" Other poems include a picture of colonial India, a father's advice to his son, and stories of wars long forgotten. This is probably a better book for a man than a woman, but in either case, a really good book to peruse while having a cheroot

Kipling’s words give the key to understanding his real, but sadly limited, achievements. He was capable of an extraordinarily sensitive empathy with people, especially with those who did the work of the Empire, the doctors, engineers and administrators. But his political sympathies constrained his emotional sympathies. His love for the Empire was twisted in with a most unintelligent hero-worship of the scoundrels who ran it, and with hatred for those who opposed it.

His works reflect this ambiguity. Many of his writings are excellent, for instance the Jungle Book, some of his stories and many of his poems. Lycett has presented an amazingly detailed portrait of Kipling’s adopted class and milieu. But he lacks a novelist’s imagination and ease with language; the biography often just lists Kipling’s possessions, travels, guests and friends. In reflection of Kipling, he smothers his finer understandings in a blanket of conventions. We still need Angus Wilson’s fine book, ‘The strange ride of Rudyard Kipling’, to see the full peculiarity of Kipling’s career.

A beautiful exhibition catalog, especially for the Kipling collector, but also for anyone interested in British literature. Well illustrated with books and other artifacts from the exhibit; the text for each section is excellent and puts the illustrations in the context of Kipling's life. In addition to what is illustrated, there is a listing in each section of other items in the exhibit. The two essays on collecting Kipling are very well done.

Rudyard Kipling, author of the Jungle Books, also wrote this exciting account of two years at sea during World War I. "The main principles of sea-warfare," he begins, "hold good throughout all ages... For matters of detail the Navy, to whom all days are alike, has simply returned to the practice and resurrected the spirit of old days." This theme--that the march of time does not change the old spirit--is the leitmotif of Kipling's narrative, balanced upon the strange threshold of modern war, wherein cavalry detachments gallop toward the beach to exchange fire with submarines and wounded destroyers ram steel battleships as their crews leap into the sea, cheering for King and country. This tale only Kipling could tell, with numerous moments of suspense and fear illustrating the true face of warfare, yet with ironic glimpses of humor including old 19th-century naval songs set to new words that make this book also a wry commentary on a warfare that changes but yet remains the same. (--Lost Treasure Book Company).

Rudyard Kipling, author of the Jungle Books, also wrote this exciting account of two years at sea during World War I. "The main principles of sea-warfare," he begins, "hold good throughout all ages... For matters of detail the Navy, to whom all days are alike, has simply returned to the practice and resurrected the spirit of old days." This theme--that the march of time does not change the old spirit--is the leitmotif of Kipling's narrative, balanced upon the strange threshold of modern war, wherein cavalry detachments gallop toward the beach to exchange fire with submarines and wounded destroyers ram steel battleships as their crews leap into the sea, cheering for King and country. This tale only Kipling could tell, with numerous moments of suspense and fear illustrating the true face of warfare, yet with ironic glimpses of humor including old 19th-century naval songs set to new words that make this book also a wry commentary on a warfare that changes but yet remains the same. (--Lost Treasure Book Company).

Whether you are a fan of the greatest short story writer in history or someone looking for an introduction, this volume is the best selection of his stories that I have come across. I have about three other collected works at home and this is the edition that I carry overseas on trip to while away hours late at night. It ecapsulates all eras and genres of Kipling's unique gift of story telling. It is more or less chronological and evinces a sort of pervasive enuie for the human condition, pathos, and at times brilliance and adulation.

Kipling gets some bad press because of some of his writing (most of it contemporary journalistic artcles) that seem to be a sideways adulation of imperialism. Ironic because if any person ever wanted an introduction to the dissillusion of imperialism, the corrosive influence it has on human relations, then Kipling offers the best samples. The poignant and heartwrenching tale of mixed marriage in "Without Benefit of Clergy" is something that stands out. Moods of loss as a result of WWI comes through in "The Gardener" and in what I think is some of the most intriguing prose is the fate of locals set in cicumstances where they clearly should not be... Kipling has an uncanny ability to describe female emotions which positively are really only akin to Katherine Mansfield "A Wayside Comedy."

There is also the dangers of getting lost in the land and the way that the land will always reclaim itself no matter what the power or the depredations of the white sahibs -- "The Man Who Would be King."

There are the course revelries of the working-class infantry blokes, their inability to understand the place, their irreverence of the locals and the prisons of their ignorance. My favourite "The Miracle of Purun Baghat", a tale of a former Princely dependence leader who, at the top of his career leaves it all to lead the life of extreme astheticism as a Sadhu and becomes a God.

There is a lot here to ponder and keep you company. Jingoism is about the furthest thing from one's mind when reading Kipling -- an extreme melancholy and pathos -- undoubtedly.

The gorgeous illustrations caught my eye and so I picked up the book for the first time. What a wonderful story. Kipling has a way of writing that just flows and makes reading the story out loud a pleasure just to hear the words.

I'll give this biography of Kipling a top rating but with a couple of reservations. First, "Strange Ride" is very, very English. Some of the references and phrasing are incomprehensible to Americans -- or at least this American. It's the old problem of two countries divided by a common language which is really not so common. Secondly, the author presumes a fair amount of advance knowledge about Kipling by the reader. If you think kipling is something the Brits eat for breakfast, you probably won't comprehend this book. Read some of Kipling's stories and poems and a simpler biography of his life before trying this one.

Reservations aside, this is an insightful literary biography in which the author derives most of his views from Kipling's own writing. Rather than focusing on daily events in Kipling's life or a chronology the author is more interested in broad themes. One theme, for example, to which he refers frequently is Kipling's lifelong apprehension about his place in society because he never went to a University or punched the other tickets to acceptance by Victorian society. A second theme is Kipling's interest in children and his own searing experiences as a child. A third is Kipling's concept of duty, "take up the White man's burden--send forth the best ye breed."

The author does some outstanding interpretations of many of Kipling's works, including his masterpiece, "Kim," and stories such as "Dayspring Mishandled" and "The Church that was at Antioch."

Clever and immensely talented, Kipling was also a flawed and incomplete artist which makes him more interesting as a person than the ordinary. He is surely one of the most maligned of all major literary figures, but only Shakespeare has produced more memorable and quotable lines of verse. Probably no other story by any author has had such an impact as "Mowgli's Brothers" from "The Jungle Book." Several movies, the Boy Scouts, and the Tarzan myth all derive from "The Jungle Book."

As noted above this is not always an easy book. The National Review selected "Strange Ride" as one of the top 100 non-fiction books of the 20th century. I'm not sure I agree, but it is a worthwhile biography about the most important writer of England's latter days of imperial glory.

Smallchief

I'll give this biography of Kipling a top rating but with a couple of reservations. First, "Strange Ride" is very, very English. Some of the references and phrasing are incomprehensible to Americans -- or at least this American. It's the old problem of two countries divided by a common language which is really not so common. Secondly, the author presumes a fair amount of advance knowledge about Kipling by the reader. If you think kipling is something the Brits eat for breakfast, you probably won't comprehend this book. Read some of Kipling's stories and poems and a simpler biography of his life before trying this one.

Reservations aside, this is an insightful literary biography in which the author derives most of his views from Kipling's own writing. Rather than focusing on daily events in Kipling's life or a chronology the author is more interested in broad themes. One theme, for example, to which he refers frequently is Kipling's lifelong apprehension about his place in society because he never went to a University or punched the other tickets to acceptance by Victorian society. A second theme is Kipling's interest in children and his own searing experiences as a child. A third is Kipling's concept of duty, "take up the White man's burden--send forth the best ye breed."

The author does some outstanding interpretations of many of Kipling's works, including his masterpiece, "Kim," and stories such as "Dayspring Mishandled" and "The Church that was at Antioch."

Clever and immensely talented, Kipling was also a flawed and incomplete artist which makes him more interesting as a person than the ordinary. He is surely one of the most maligned of all major literary figures, but only Shakespeare has produced more memorable and quotable lines of verse. Probably no other story by any author has had such an impact as "Mowgli's Brothers" from "The Jungle Book." Several movies, the Boy Scouts, and the Tarzan myth all derive from "The Jungle Book."

As noted above this is not always an easy book. The National Review selected "Strange Ride" as one of the top 100 non-fiction books of the 20th century. I'm not sure I agree, but it is a worthwhile biography about the most important writer of England's latter days of imperial glory.

Smallchief