Kim (Norton Critical Edition)

Written by Rudyard Kipling, Kim is a rich and complex novel that punishes the lazy and the ignorant (me it seems). Admittedly, it’s the end of semester and I had to read this for uni so my approach to reading it wasn’t of the best shape. But I made it all the way through and I can recognise a complex literary masterwork when I plough through one. Such a book is Kim. 

Born in India, but of Irish heritage, Kim lives as an urchin of the streets after the separate deaths of his parents. Educated in the ways of the streets, the young Kim craves adventures and to learn new things and sees opportunity when he meets a Tibetan holy man on a pilgrimage. Deciding to accompany the holy man as his ‘chela’, Kim’s heritage catches up with him when he is taken in by the British military and sent to a military boarding school. After three years he is a valuable member of the British Secret Service and as he matures, he becomes torn between his heritage and his dear India. 

I am going to be honest; I could not follow this book at all. But I think that’s because I wasn’t in the best mindset to read it and I wasn’t really taking all of it in: just reading it as words on a page. But what I could glean from it was strong themes of identity, maturity, knowledge, and imperialism. Kipling writes about an Asia that is still lumped together in a generalised way of free indirect speech, but at the same time vibrant and packed to bursting with different creeds, cultures, religions, and characters. It’s a coming-of-age tale that is also a masterful example of world building. 

I found that sometimes it seems as though the story propels itself forward suddenly, it almost feels like you’ve missed a page, but for the larger part you’re carried through smoothly with Kim, taking part in his adventures. 

One thing that I struggled with was the deliberate use of archaic English that Kipling uses in the dialogue. It starkly contrasts with the omniscient narration (in certain places more than others), but you do get used to it. As with all Norton editions, this book features a plethora of background essays and articles as well as footnotes throughout the text itself to help the reader understand and gain more from the story. I personally don’t break up the pace of my reading by jumping down to the bottom of the page to read the explanatory footnotes, so obviously I could have gotten more out of this book. 

Filled with drama, comedy, adventure, growth, and love, Kim is a beautiful tale and a masterfully written work; I could take that away from it. Ultimately through, it wasn’t a book that really appealed to me and I found it quite a challenge to read.