Kim (Barnes & Noble Classics Series) - Rudyard Kipling [8]
The twisty road that rises to the hills of Kipling’s beloved Simla brings relief from the heat as well as the pleasures of its ever-changing flora and fauna, its distant prospects up to the towering mountains and down to the retreating plains:
the wandering road, climbing, dipping, and sweeping about the growing spurs; the flush of the morning laid along the distant snows; the branched cacti, tier upon tier on the stony hillsides; the voices of a thousand water-channels; the chatter of the monkeys; the solemn deodars, climbing one after another with down-drooped branches; the vista of the Plains rolled out far beneath them; the incessant twanging of the tonga-horns and the wild rush of the led horses when a tonga swung round a curve (p. 143).
Finally, night comes, with different temperatures, colors, and smells, and a welcome rest from the labors of the day: “Then the night fell, changing the touch of the air, drawing a low, even haze, like a gossamer veil of blue, across the face of the country and bringing out, keen and distinct, the smell of wood-smoke and catde and the good scent of wheaten cakes cooked on ashes” (p. 65).
In a letter Kipling described Kim as “a long leisurely Asiatic yarn in which there are hardly any Englishmen. It has been a labour of great love and I think it is a bit more temperate and wise than much of my stuff.”13 And in his autobiography he said of the novel: “There was a good deal of beauty in it, and not a little wisdom; the best in both sorts being owed to my Father.”14 There was also a great deal of Kipling’s life in it. His alternating cycles of six years in India, eleven school years in England, and seven years as a journalist in India correspond to the tripartite structure of the novel. In chapters 1 to 5 Kim travels with the lama, delivers Mahbub’s message, and (following the prophecy) finds his father’s regiment. In chapters 6 to 10 he’s formally trained with the regiment, at St. Xavier’s school, and by Hurree and Lurgan. In chapters 11 to 15 he is reunited with the lama, defeats the Russians, and finds his real identity as a spy. Kim is Indian in the first part, British (with Indian holidays) in the second, and British disguised as an Indian in the third. He’s oblivious to British life in part 1, rebellious in part 2, acquiescent and most obviously British in part 3.
Kipling, like Kim, spoke Hindi as a child, had an English education, and then embraced India. Kipling felt orphaned in the House of Desolation; Kim was actually orphaned. Kim’s character developed as Kipling’s would have if he’d stayed in India instead of going to school in England. Though Kim seems Eurasian and has a Eurasian foster mother, he’s actually all white and finally returns to his own people. Kipling, going back to England after working on the Pioneer, discovered and reclaimed his own lost inheritance in Sussex. Like Kipling, Kim has a quick mind and intense powers of observation. Kipling compared both himself and Kim (in chapter 1) to the caliph of Baghdad and legendary hero of The Arabian Nights. As he wrote to his newspaper editor in 1886: “I am deeply interested in the queer ways and works of the people of the land. I hunt and rummage among ‘em; knowing Lahore City—that wonderful, dirty, mysterious ant-hill—blind fold and wandering through it like Haroun Al-Raschid in search of strange things.”15
Kim usually thinks and dreams in Hindi; prefers native food and eats like an Indian; sleeps curled up, native fashion; has an Oriental vagueness about time, an Eastern resignation to fate and indifference to noise; and generally borrows from all the customs of the country. But he also has a white man’s fear of snakes, a white cockiness and aggressiveness, and a white respect for order and orders. His racial amalgamation is symbolized by the kit he carries away from school: an English revolver, medicine box, and compass; an Indian robe, amulet, and begging gourd. His frequent shift from the vernacular to English and back again suggests confusion about his racial identity. In the course of the novel Kim, adept at disguises and pigmentation, dresses alternately as a Hindu, Muslim, Buddhist, and Eurasian, as well as British civilian, soldier, and schoolboy, and plays three main roles: disciple, student, and spy.