Kim by Rudyard Kipling ~ January Book Club Online

[BooksAdmin]

The Book Club Online is  the oldest  book club on the Internet, begun in 1996, open to everyone.  We offer cordial discussions of one book a month,  24/7 and  enjoy the company of readers from all over the world.  everyone is welcome to join in.

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Kim by Rudyard Kipling You may have read "Kim" as a young adult, but it's a whole different book for grown-ups.  Join us on January 1 to find out why "Kim" has been beloved by young and old for over 100 years.

He sat, in defiance of municipal orders, astride the gun Zam-Zammah on her brick platform opposite the old Ajaib-Gher--the Wonder House, as the natives call the Lahore museum.

SCHEDULE January 1-8:     Chapters 1-4 January 9-15:    Chapters  5-8 January 16-22:  Chapters 9-12 January 23-29:  Chapters 13-15 January 30-31:  Overview

DIscussion Leaders:  
JoanK & PatH

Online Texts of Kim

Project Gutenberg  ~  The Literature Network ~ Read Books Online

Questions Week 1 1. Kim is called "little friend of all the world". What in his circumstances enables him to play this role? What in his character? 2. We see Kim serving  two very different masters: Mahbub Ali, the horse-trader and spy, and the unworldly lama. Which do you find more interesting. Which do you think will have more influence on Kim's future (don't answer if you've read the book)? What attracts Kim to each, and each to Kim? 3. The descriptions of India in this section are very vivid. Which scene made the biggest impression on you? 4. There are very few women in Kim's world. What do the few women we see tell us about Kipling's idea of the role of women in India? 5.  If you have read some background material, what is the battle for which 8000 British soldiers will be needed? 6. Why do you think this book is so fascinating for children?

[PatH]

WELCOME, EVERYONE!

A New Year, and time to take to the road and see where it leads--some of the places will surprise us.  Lets sit together and talk about what we've found.

[JoanK]

Finally, it's time to start our journey through India: the sights, the sounds, the smells are already swirling around me. I'm going to see if I can't go at least partway on an elephant (always wanted to ride on an elephant) -- who wants to climb up with me.

But elephant or no, we're going to have a great time in Kipling's India. Come and join us. We can sit around the campfire at night  and exchange stories and food.

[mrssherlock]

And we'll magically have translators so we can understand the gossip as it flows from fire to fire. 

[Frybabe]

marking

[Frybabe]

I am still researching question #5, but if it occurred 30yrs. after the Great Mutiny of 1857, then it was likely either the rescue or subsequent retaliation of the capture of Chitral Fort during a coup in 1895.  Chitral was at the time at the border of India, China and Russia. This would have been very fresh in Kipling's mind when he wrote Kim.

http://www.virtualtourist.com/travel/Asia/Pakistan/North_West_Frontier_Province/Chitral-1316466/Things_To_Do-Chitral-Chitral_Fort-BR-1.html

[Ella Gibbons]

Elephants, JOAN?  I have read the first few chapters and don't recall reading a thing about elephants; perhaps I am too interested in the characters.  You asked which was the most interesting and I am fascinated by the 'lama - the Buddhist monk from far away.  Did he come from a monastery?  I know he came from a simple life as the story, as I recall, mentions that he slept on the ground and eats very simple foods.  

Sounds and sights of India, yes, JOAN.  

Is it right, was it right, to "beg" your way on a journey, and a spiritual journey at that?  Of course, Christ must have done so numerous times, relying on people, friends, fellow Christians along the way.

It wouldn't do in our America would it?

"Little Friend of the World."  KIM  He is a 'street-smart" boy - about l3 years of age, don't you think?  Having had to make his own way in the world he did it well, didn't he?

There is so much to talk about in the book, and I am looking forward to everyone's posts.

[Jonathan]

'Nirad Chaudhuri has said that KIM is the very best picture of India by an English author....'

Was that the roar of Zam-Zammah that I heard at midnight? What a splendid way to begin the discussion of KIM. How nice to have the municipal authorities of Lahore get the discussion underway with such a mighty boom. Or was it the celebrating teenager next door backfiring his hotrod. I like to think it was Kim and his friends who brought the great gun back to life. Let it be the second shot heard round the world.

KIM was my introduction to India so many years ago. What a land of mystery and adventure. I could never decide  which of Kims activities fascinated me more...spying for the British, or playing the role of chelah to the peaceful lama.

Have I got the book for you, Joan. After we've travelled India on foot with the lama and Kim, or with the trains which leave the lama a nervous wreck. If it's travel with an elephant, why don't you try Mark Shand's TRAVELS ON MY ELEPHANT: 'an epic journey across the dusty back roads of India.'

Happy New Year everybody. The holiday season was absolutely wild and left me little time to read. But it's over and the armchair beckons. What a way to travel!

[JoanK]

Happy 2010, everyone. Yes, Jonathan: then they moved Zam-Zammah West, I heard it at Midnight, too.

Yes, I HAVE to get that book. ELLA, you're right, none of Kim's fellow travelers seem to have an elephant. Perhaps you have to be royalty to ride on one. I think I'd rather stay by the campfire, with Kim and the lama.

I've brought three different interpreters, to handle the different languages we meet on the way. But mostly, we'll speak "the vernacular". Neither Kipling nor my notes tell us what vernacular that was -- does anyone know?

Fascinating info on the Fort, Fry. That could have been it. What do others think? 

You're right,
 

[mrssherlock]

Fry:  I'm just finishing 1857, after experiencing 1842, so I have that one to look forward to.  As we accompany Kim and the lama I am struck by the richness of the spectacle of the road itself.  What a venue for people watching!  Kipling seems to me to have had a keen ear for the subtleties of the native life in India.  As to the questions of the elephants, perhaps they were ted in their geographic distribution, perhaps the more tropical south and east?

[JoanK]

Probably. I'm being like the tourists who go to Alaska and expect to see penguins.

Yes, Kiplings descriptions really give you the sense of this swirling crowds of humanity; all different, yet carried along in a giant stream. That is what I remembered from reading the book years ago.

[mrssherlock]

I posted this in Non Fiction in answer to a question from Ella and Joan asked me o post it here also.

Mayer, in Tournament of Shadows, points out that Britain's possession of India meant that there was a long, precarious supply chain of men and materials to maintain.  Russia's Tsars had been expanding for the preceding fourcenturies at a pace of 55 miles per day or 20,000 miles per year.  (Emphasis mine.)  Literally a game of King of the Hill whose playing field was the majestic Himalayas.  It doesn't take much imagination to understand the attitude of the Raj towards their obviously (in their eyes) inferior lackeys.  This polyglot society had developed subtle protocols of interaction that completely confounded the arrogant and unaware White Men. There were enough attrocities on each side in the conflicts which erupted to keep the flames fanned.  Reading Hopkirk's The Great Game and Mayer in tandem can be emotionally draining but at the same time it is fascinating and compelling.  These are the major elements and completely overshadow the onset of iorganized intelligence gathering which is the theme of Kim but it helps me to understand the political and geographic context before focusing on the human components. 
 
 
 

[Frybabe]

Ella estimated Kim at about 13 years old. I was thinking a little younger, maybe ten or eleven. I remember he said he was born on the day of the Srinagar earthquake so I looked it up. Seems that area gets a lot of them. Here is a link to some research into historical earthquakes using damage done to the temples in the area. I am betting on the one on May 30, 1885. Oddly, after being rather regular, there is a big gap between 1885 and the one of Oct 2005.

http://cires.colorado.edu/~bilham/KashmirTemples/TemplesofKashmir.html


Ah, I correct myself Ella is right. So he is at least 13.

Had Kim been at all an ordinary boy, he would have carried on the play; but one does not know Lahore city, and least of all the fakirs by the Taksali Gate, for thirteen years without also knowing human nature.

[PatH]

The lama seems to have come from a Tibetan monastery.  You're right, Ella, begging for his food wouldn't do here and now, but it was normal in that time and place.  When the lama pulls out his begging bowl, the children nod: "All priests of their acquaintance begged".  And Kim seems to be a real expert at cadging food.

[PatH]

It seems to me that Kim often acts younger than his age--hardly surprising, since he has no one trying to make him grow up.

[mrssherlock]

Kim, it seems to me, is of necessity a chameleon.  The real Kim is unknown even to himself, perhaps.  I would have pegged him for 10 also.  How doe we know what year this is supposed to be?

[PatH]

How do we know what year this is supposed to be?

It's hard to pin down.  One of my introductions says Kim was born in 1865, which would make it now 1878.

Kipling himself was born in 1865, in India, and spent his early childhood there.  He was raised by native nannies, who allowed him a lot of freedom, and took him to places most Europeans didn't go.  At this point he spoke Hindustani better than English.  It's easy to see Kim as an idealized version of what Kipling himself felt.

Kipling was sent back to England to face the dreariness of a British Public School, where he was unhappy.  He returned to India at age 17 as a journalist, and stayed there for 7 years.  That's it.  The rest of his life was spent elsewhere, and the majority of his writing was based on that dozen or so years experience.

[Frybabe]

PatH the timing isn't right historically, but Kipling may have been a little loose with the timeline. If the old soldier was talking to Kim 30yrs after the mutiny (1857) as stated in the story then the conversation would have taken place in 1887. If Kim were born in 1865, then he would have been 22 at the time of the conversation. Having said that, there was an earthquake in Srinagar in 1863 that was felt in Lahore. The earthquake of 1885 would probably also have been felt there as it was a stronger earthquake.

I am going to see if I can find any battles between 1875 and 1890 that might fit with Kim's age if he were born in 1865. Maybe we will get lucky and get a name to hang onto. So far the only name I saw was Macklin which is probably a fictitious name. Google didn't come up with anyone in that time and place by the name. Still trying to get a definitive answer to #5.

I am thinking that today's novelists tend to be more historically accurate than early novelists. Today's writers know their readers can and will check facts. Is that a fair assumption or not?

You know, I don't remember a lama in the old Kim movie. It was so long ago, all I remember is him sneaking around, spying and reporting back to the British troops.

[PatH]

Frybabe, I'm thinking that Kipling deliberately made the time obscure, and, as you point out, there are fictional characters mixed up with the real.

I hope there actually was a lama in the movie, since half the story is the relationship of Kim and the lama.  Guess I'd better see if Netflix has it.

[PatH]

The curator of the Lahore Museum is a portrait of Kipling's father, who held that post.  I tried to find some pictures of the interior of the museum, especially of the Bodhisat that so impressed the lama, but no luck.  Here are some exterior pictures, though.  It's pretty fancy, and you only see a scrap of it in the picture of Zam-Zammah.

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Lahore_Museum

[JudeS]

A brief biographical note:
In his book "Baa  ,Baa , Blacksheep" Kipling writes of his miserable years from age six to eleven when he was sent with his sister to live with an English  woman in England who advertised in an Indian paper so they could get a "proper English education".  The woman was a harrion and disliked him intensely.  He referred to her home as "The House of Desolation".  Even in school he was looked down upon since his eyesight was very bad and no one realized he needed glasses.

Finally in 1877, when he was eleven, his Mother came over from India and found solutions to all the problems and removed the children from their horrible placement.  She and her husband spent the rest of their lives trying to make up to the children for the horrible years  in "The House of Desolation'.

In later years Kipling wrote in his brief biographical essay, "Something of Myself"  that the character of Kim grew like the Djinn released from the brass bottle , and the more we explored its possibilities the more opulence of detail did we discover'
The 'we' refers to his father, with whom he developed a deep bond and who looked over all his  sons'writings.

[Ella Gibbons]

Lovely pictures, Pat.  How impressive it must have been to the lama, who, I believe, was particularly interested in the statutes of Buddha.  Impressive indeed, today!  Is the lama a true Buddhist?  I'm not sure , as he is on a journey to find the "river" which will not only heal but will allow escape from the WHEEL; the wheel from which all are ascending and descending endlessly.  This was my impression from the first few chapters I have read.

Being a nonfiction reader, I am truly not aware of the undercurrents in fiction, but, my book has the Introduction to the story of Kim and also a summary of Kipling's life and, as Pat said, he loved the country and, although not living there in his later years, he never lost his nostalgia for the culture and the people.

Also, as I remember reading, Kipling never lost his idea that India should always be under British rule.  What would he think today!

[JoanK]

The museum is, indeed, "fancy". Interesting how each picture shows it a completely different color.

The lama is, I'm sure, Kipling's idea of what a true (Tibetan) Buddhist. For those unfamiliar with Buddhism, here's my (semi-ignorant) take on it. Buddhists believe in reincarnation: everything living is born, dies, and id reborn again in an endless cycle. This is the Wheel of Life. How you live each life determines how you will be reborn -- if you've been evil, you may be reborn as a cockroach, and have to work yourself up to being a human.

What binds us to the wheel of life is desire and attachment. If  we can free outselves from those, we can free ourselves from the wheel (which is also a wheel of suffering, and attain a higher state of being, not of this Earth. A few individuals, like Buddha, achieved this state, but chose to remain on Earth to show others the way.

The way for us humans to achieve this state is through meditation. Those holy people wishing to do so renounce all worldly goods, except the minemum needed to stay alive (the desire and attachment to worldly goods is one thing that binds us) as well as all attachment to family and friends (another thing that binds us -- later we'll see the lama struggling with that) and spend a life of meditation, either in a hut somewhere, or wandering as our lama is doing. Thus, he is a familiar figure in Buddhist culture.

But our lama is seeking a shortcut. Instead of doing the intense spiritual labor others pursue, he believes he only has to bathe himself in a certain river. I don't know if that's really part of Buddhism, or Kipling's invention; an allegory for something else, perhaps. I haven't finished the book-- perhaps we'll find out

[Ella Gibbons]

"He was nearly six feet high, dressed in fold upon fold of dingy stuff like horse-blanketing, and not one fold of it could Kim refer to any known trade or profession.  At his belt hung a long open-work iron pencase and a wooden rosary such as holy men wear.  On his head was a gigantic sort of tam-o'-shanter.  His face was yellow and wrinkled, like that of Fook Shing, the Chinese bootmaker in the bazar.  His eyes turned up at the corners and looked lilke little slits of onyx."  - (the lama)

JOAN, thanks for  your "take" on Buddhism.  At one time, a long time ago, I knew a little about this religion.  How time erodes!

Yes, yes, reincarnation.  That comes up quite early in these first chapters, doesn't it?  The lama believes Kim to be a reincarnation sent to him?? - I must revisit the book!

And perhaps we shall find out more about the river???

[Ella Gibbons]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23609436

I remembered vaguely the protests of Tibetan monks about a year ago.  I copied this paragraph from the above article:

"Beijing maintains that Tibet is historically part of China, but many Tibetans argue the Himalayan region was virtually independent for centuries and accuse China of trying to crush Tibetan culture by swamping it with Han people, the majority Chinese ethnic group.

[Babi]

 Why is Kim called "Little Friend of all the World"?  Well, he seems to
be a merry, cheerful young fellow,  acting pretty much the same to
everyone he meets.  The Asiatic appreciation of the imaginative insult
means that most people find Kim highly amusing.
  PATH said,

"It seems to me that Kim often acts younger than his age--hardly surprising, since he has no one trying to make him grow up. "

I think this 'Peter Pan' quality is one reason he is so much enjoyed by
children.  A sassy hero, young (13 was younger then than it is today),
free to roam as he pleases with little or no adult supervision or interference.  The perfect hero!

  I would add one important point to Ella's description of Buddhism.
Though detachment from things and the 'illusions' of the world is a key
tenet of Buddhism, one may also 'acquire merit' by kindnesses to one's
fellow men. It can be tricky to concern oneself with another's well-being
without growing attached to them. Remember after 9/11, when the
Buddhist monks came to Washington and created that marvelous mandala?  It was their offering for our healing and peace of heart. But
after a certain amount of time,  the colored sands were swept up and
discarded in the Potomac, since Buddhists always stress the transitory
nature of all that happens here.
 

[mrssherlock]

Filling the beggar's bowl is almost a duty, one way to show kindness and "acquire merit".  In that sense the beggar is the donor and the bowl-filler is the recipient of the merit; more so when the beggar is a monk.  I have been reding Kim online while reading Mayer and Hopkirk.  Seems like i've got the text but am missing some of the flavor so I'll be shopping for my own copy. 

[JoanK]

Thank you, Babi and Jackie. Two important aspects of Buddhism I forgot to mention. People are eager to "acquire merit" by feeding the lama. And everything is transitory.

In fact, Buddhists like the lama believe that the world we live in is an illusion. he is always saying that: it's all illusion, they are caught in the illusion etc.. It reminds me of a children's book my kids had (African, not Buddhist). The story began (from memory -- hope I've got it right):

It is not real, it is not real, that which we say today. A story, a story -- let it come, let it go.

[JoanK]

Kim does have a Peter Pan" quality, doesn't he.

[salan]

Oh my, this book is bringing up memories of my childhood.  I remember distinctly my father bringing home some sugar cane and peeling it back and handing it to my younger sister and I to chew around on.  I had never seen sugar cane and was very impressed that sugar came from such a strange source.  I also remember going to the zoo in San Antonio, and riding an elephant!  I couldn't believe how thick the skin was and the huge hairs growing out of his hide. 
I am not remembering much about the book.  Reading it now as an adult, I must have skipped over much of the book that I didn't understand.  I think I envied Kim because he had great adventures, was self sufficient and didn't have parents to answer to!  I also have the impression that Kim was around 13 yrs old.  Babi, I think 13 years old back then was older than 13 years today (although, perhaps less "worldly").  Girls/women were frequently married off by then and running their own households. 
I am getting a little bogged down with all the footnotes.  I am trying to ignore them and continue with the story, but.....
Is any one else having trouble with this?
Sally

[JoanK]

Read the footnotes if they help and ignore them if they don't. My book footnotes every placename, but the footnote reads something like "town 50 miles from --"some other place that I don't know where is. So I stopped reading them.

Pat is still looking for a map with the old names on it. But what it boils down to is that there are people on the road from every place in India or Pakistan-- some from Afghanistan or Tibet.

[Frybabe]

Salan, your comment about the sugar cane got me to wondering about where sugar cane originated. Here is an history I found has some interesting bits about sugar cane in India. They say it originated in New Guinea, another site I looked at said the Bay of Bengal. I like the bit about the cows.

http://www.plantcultures.org/plants/sugar_cane_history.html


Kim certainly is full of himself isn't he. Supremely confident.

I am beginning to wonder if I actually did see the movie or confusing it with Gunga Din or the Shirley Temple movie set in India (there was one wasn't there?).



 

[fairanna]

I had to visit here to see where everyone is ..I have read everything from beginning where it tells of Kipling etc and then reached the story but the foot notes are a distraction to me and sort of leads me away from the story  SO now that I have read where you are I will read  a bit differently ,,,I wondered if I had read the book but am sure now this is a first for me..back when I have read ...best, anna

[Frybabe]

Here is a readers guide entry concerning the Colonel Creighton character who shows up later in the book and whose name I got from the movie site. (I am still  puzzling over #5.) There were a lot of small "punitive" campaigns in the 1870's and 1880's including the Chitral campaign I mentioned before. The author of this article speculates that Colonel Creighton may have been based on Lieut.-Col. Alexander Herbert Mason who had orders for Chitral but ended up with Typhoid Fever.
 
http://www.kipling.org.uk/rg_kim_notes9_creighton.htm

[Babi]

Yes, SALLY, that is what I meant about 13 being 'younger', then. Even
between our generation and that of our grandkids, I can see such a
difference. We were so much more innocent.
  It occurs to me, FRYBABE, that since this insurrection was discovered
early on and quickly squelched, it might not have made the history books.
Just a minor 'dust-up'. It could very well have been one of your "small
punitive campaigns'.

 I was intrigued by the 'prophecy' from Kim's dad. I couldn’t find any god in Hindu mythology that was represented by a red bull on a green field.  Since a British colonel was also to appear, I looked for a British military flag with that insignia, but found nothing there, either. Ah, well, I'm sure
we'll find out soon enough.

   Kim’s playmates reflect the different cultures of India.The ‘Musselman’ boy and Chota Lal, whose father was "worth perhaps half a million sterling”.  And this kid was running loose in the market place?
Says Kipling, “..but India is the only democratic land in the world.”   Interesting statement.  Any comments on that?

[JoanP]

Good morning - (posting together, Babi...)
Checking in from frosty Memphis - here on the last of Santa's delivery leg - home again late tomorrow night to recover.

I'm finding little to no time to post in here - motel allows ten minutes.  I have been reading the first chapters - and scan through your posts when I first get in here.

Did you notice yesterday's headlines - the 88 civilians who were killed in a terrorist bombing at a volleyball game - in PESHAWAR?  Kipling describes this as "an insalubrious city" - it was or is located in one of those regions on the way to Lehore.  Talk about topical!  
I'm looking forward to locating a map when I get home...

Happy  2010 everyone!

[PatH]

Frybabe, thanks for the article on a possible origin for Colonel Creighton.  Creighton has already appeared briefly in chapter 2--he's the officer to whom Kim gives the "pedigree of the white stallion" but we'll see a lot more of him later.

Did you notice in that article Mason says that Kipling became a Freemason in order to have an "in" with people he otherwise wouldn't meet?  Kim's father was a Freemason.  One of the 3 papers in Kim's amulet is his father's certificate.  (This isn't obvious except from a footnote, but we see it later).

I didn't mean to cause so much grief with question 5; I thought it would be easier than it turns out to be.

[Ella Gibbons]

"Filling the beggar's bowl is almost a duty, one way to show kindness and "acquire merit".  In that sense the beggar is the donor and the bowl-filler is the recipient of the merit" - jackie

Thanks for that observation, helps to understand the monk's journey.

Life is an illusion, the world we live in is an illusion.  How interesting that is!  Is that a belief of all buddhists? 

My book has notes at the end of the book (notes on pages.....) and I find that satisfactory.  I began looking up every footnote while  reading and then decided that I would not enjoy the story that way. 

The red bull on the green field, a prophecy Kim's father used to declare in his opium hours, part of the things that would make Kim a man, together with 900 first-class devils.  (a drunken dream of his father's)

Speaking of which (Kim's father) two of the documents he left Kim related to the Masonic lodge.  (Kipling was a Mason, he loved the fellowship of men which the lodge provided).

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Years, and years ago, I went to Costa Rica and being much younger and adventurous, we went on a raft trip down a very treachurous river, and stopping at one calm place on the river our guide found some sugar cane in a nearby field and we chewed it.  What a good memory that is.  A lovely trip.

[Frybabe]

I didn't mean to cause so much grief with question 5; I thought it would be easier than it turns out to be.

Not to worry Pat, it's a puzzle I feel like trying to solve when I have a minute or two. I have been trying to correlate Kim's birth with one of the Srinagar earthquakes, the old soldier's statement that the mutiny was 30yrs ago (The Great Mutiny was in 1857) and any campaigns around the 1887 date. But like I said, Kipling may have mixed things up a bit skewing a literal timeline. Waiting for more information, but it looks like most or all of the characters are ficticious.

I've enjoyed Kim's description of the peoples he meets along the Grand Truck Highway.

Democratic? I don't think so. If democracy means social equality or majority rule. India certainly didn't fit the bill back then. Not with the inherited aristocracy, British rule and the caste system.

[Ella Gibbons]

Women in the book?  Very few.  At the beginning a prostitute called Flower of Delight. 

Appropriate?

Later there is this, and I quote:

"Nowadays, well-educated natives are of opinion that when their womenfolk travel, and they visit a good deal, it is better to take them quickly by rail in a properly screened compartment."

Paraphrasing:  the old women, being withered and undesirable, do not object to removing the veil!

And then Kim meets up with an old women who definitely has a few things to say.