Kim (Barnes & Noble Classics Series) - Rudyard Kipling [158]
Jarrell, Randall. Kipling, Auden & Co.: Essays and Reviews, 1935-1964. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1980, pp. 332-364. Argues that Kipling “was a great genius; and a great neurotic; and a great professional, one of the most skillful writers who have ever existed.”
Maugham, W. Somerset. Introduction to A Choice of Kipling’s Prose. London: Macmillan, 1952, pp. v-xxvii. “He is our greatest story writer. I can’t believe he will ever be equaled. I am sure he can never be excelled.”
Meyers, Jeffrey. Introduction to The Best Short Stories of Rudyard Kipling. New York: Signet, 1987, pp. vii-xvi. “Kipling’s two great themes are the need to defend civilization against brute nature and barbarian people, and the stoic self-sacrifice of the English officials responsible for completing the day’s work.”
Orwell, George. “Rudyard Kipling.” 1942. In A Collection of Essays. Garden City, NY: Doubleday Anchor Books, 1954, pp. 123- 139. Kipling’s power as a good-bad poet comes from “his sense of responsibility, which made it possible for him to have a world-view, even though it happened to be a false one.”
Parry, Benita. Delusions and Discoveries: Studies on India in the British Imagination, 1880-1930. London: Allen Lane, 1972, pp. 242-255 on Kim. Explores the religious significance of the novel.
Rutherford, Andrew, ed. Kipling’s Mind and Art. Edinburgh and London: Oliver and Boyd, 1964, pp. 216-234 on Kim. Excellent collection of essays by W. L. Renwick, Edmund Wilson, George Orwell, Lionel Trilling, Noel Annan, Alan Sandison, W. W. Rob-son, and others.
Sullivan, Zohreh, ed. Kim: Authoritative Text, Backgrounds, Criticism. New York: W. W. Norton, 2002. Contains stories, poems, letters, and autobiography by Kipling; three contemporary reviews; two historical essays; and thirteen literary articles by Noel Annan, Irving Howe, Edward Said, and others. The more recent essays are politically correct and tediously negative.
Tompkins, J. M. S. The Art of Rudyard Kipling. London: Methuen, 1959, pp. 21-32. Good analysis of Kipling’s characters and style, and comparison of Kim and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.
Trilling, Lionel. “Kipling.”1943. In The Liberal Imagination: Essays on Literature and Society. Garden City, NY: Doubleday Anchor Books, 1953, pp. 114-124. “The dominant emotions of Kim are love and respect for the aspects of Indian life that the ethos of the West does not usually regard even with leniency.”
Wilson, Angus. The Strange Ride of Rudyard Kipling: His Life and Works. 1977. London and New York: Penguin, 1979, pp. 128-133 on Kim: “The story of Kim and the Lama is ... an allegory of that seldom portrayed ideal, the world in the service of spiritual goodness.”
Wilson, Edmund. “The Kipling That Nobody Read.” In The Wound and the Bow: Seven Studies in Literature. 1941. New York: Oxford University Press, 1965, pp. 86-147. Brilliant essay on the relationship of Kipling’s childhood trauma to his art, emphasizing the late stories and “the heroism of moral fortitude on the edge of a nervous collapse.”
Yule, Henry, and A. C. Burnell. Hobson-Jobson: The Anglo-Indian Dictionary. 1886. Ware, Hertfordshire: Wordsworth, 1996. A valuable, learned source for many linguistic and cultural references.
1
Narrow Way: reference to the Bible, Matthew 7:14: “Strait is the gate, and narrow is the way” (King James Version, henceforth KJV); Tophet: that is, Topheth; shrine where human sacrifices were offered (2 Kings 23:10); Kamakura: town near Yokohama, Japan, site of a huge thirteenth-century bronze image of Buddha.
2
Huge cannon; its Persian name means “capturer of strongholds.”
3
Capital of Punjab, a province of northwestern British India (now Pakistan).
4
Support for cannon in carriages.
5
Sind: province in northwestern British India, of which Karachi (now Pakistan) is capital; Delhi: capital of the Indian Empire