Kim (Modern Library 100 Best Novels) by Rudyard Kipling (EPUB)

Description

Selected by the Modern Library as one of the 100 best novels of all timeRudyard Kipling’s Kim is the tale of an Irish orphan raised as an Indian vagabond on the rough streets of colonial Lahore. Young Kimball O’Hara’s coming of age takes place in a world of high adventure, mystic quests, and secret games of espionage played out between the Russians and the British in the mountain passages of Asia. Kim is torn between his allegiance to the ascetic lama who becomes his beloved mentor and the temptations of those who want to recruit him as a spy in the “great game” of imperial conflict. In a series of thrilling escapades, he crisscrosses India on missions both spiritual and military before the two forces in his life converge in a dramatic climax in the high Himalayas. Published in 1901, after its author had permanently moved away from India, Kipling’s masterpiece is marked by a maturity of perspective on the land of his birth, combined with breathtakingly brilliant descriptions of the fascinating lost world of the British Raj. Kim has enthralled generations of readers both by the exuberance of its storytelling and its vital and unforgettable portrait of the India of bazaars and sacred rivers, holy men and rogues, ancient customs and colonial society.

User’s Reviews

Reviews from Amazon users which were colected at the time this book was published on the website:

⭐Kim is a splendid novel by Rudyard Kipling. It’s well worth a read.The problem is that there are a lot of Kindle versions of `Kim’ available at the Kindle store. Lots of them are terrible. A very few are good. Unfortunately, the reviews for Kim are amalgamated into one big group of reviews, and so finding the best one to buy is difficult – near impossible. And so I make this review. Well — and I do have an edition available for the Kindle myself.Since I first made my review of kindle editions of Kim back in 2010, many new editions of Kim for the Kindle have appeared, and many of the old (terrible) ones have vanished from the Amazon catalogue.So I’m updating this review, with information on all the editions of Kim that have appeared since I last updated the review, and I’ve removed the notes on all those that are no longer available. This review was last updated in April 2013This review comments on each edition I’ve found, with a live link to the reviewed edition for the good editions and the honourable mentions. I can’t link to all of the editions, because of a limit on the number of product links allowed in a review. However, I have given the ASIN for the other editions.First, the ones that have a good quality of text and formatting. All of these have proper typographic quotes and dashes, and italic text where they should. They also have reasonable or good paragraph formatting.

⭐ePenguinAn excellent version of the text. Occasional typos, probably only a few more than in the printed book.The footnotes are hyperlinked both ways, so they’re easy to follow.This edition also comes with an introductory essay, but opens to that, rather than the start of the actual text of Kim.This text is based on the revised text of the American 1941 Burwash edition, itself based on the English 1937-1939 Sussex edition. It therefore contains a few American spellings – chiefly of words that that take an ‘s’ in British English and a ‘z’ in American English.$2.99 (list: $11.49)

⭐PenguinA nicely formatted edition with lots of extras. Indeed, so many extras that I can’t comment on the text, as the sample doesn’t actually get to the text itself. Hopefully based on the same clean text as the ePenguin edition ASIN B002RI9KQ8. No illustrations as far as I can tell.$2.99 (list: $11.49)

⭐Puffin: B004WNA9BQA nice introduction by Susan Cooper and the text is well formatted, and seems very clean – it even has the correct u with macron character. There don’t seem to be any extras except for the introduction – no annotations, no illustrations. This is a good, plain (if overpriced) edition, but nothing really to recommend it.$3.96 (list: $8.93)

⭐Vintage DigitalA very clean copy of the text. I only found two definite typo in the sample text (Kutu instead of Kulu, and Oh instead of Ohé). It’s also very nicely formatted, with good formatting of chapter starts and paragraphs. Italics, curly quotes and proper dashes, of course. No real extras – a paragraph or two about Kipling is all, really. No illustrations or annotations.$4.99 (list: $13.34)

⭐Modern LibraryA first line indent and no spacing between paragraphs. But poor formatting fo the chapter starts. It has superscript numbers in the text that refer to a glossary at the end, but the superscripts are not hyperlinked. There is an introduction, and a map illustration. This text is based on the original 1901 version.$5.99

⭐Durrant PublishingI believe that this is the cleanest version of the text available, i.e. with the fewest typos. It follows the Sussex edition rather than the American Burwash version as the ePenguin version does. So British spelling throughout. Hyperlinks (both ways) are used for the definitions of foreign and strange words – all of Kipling’s definitions and lots more.The illustrations by Kipling’s father are included at appropriate points in the text. There are ten illustrations altogether, and the cover image is a detail from one of them. The illustrations are just (April 2013) been updated to a higher resolution (768×1024)No essay about the text though. And the Penguin editions have more footnotes, I think.As you have probably guessed: this is my edition!$0.99Next, some honourable mentions. These are better than most, but still with various flaws:

⭐G BooksIntroductory notes and a general timeline of Kipling’s era, and a few other extras, but no illustrations. Proper quotes, italics, dashes, but often open quotes are used for closed quotes or apostrophes, and closed quotes for open quotes. The unusual character u with macron is included as an image rather than as a character, and so does not scale with the other letters. Occasional OCR errors (e.g. zero for capital O) and incorrect extra paragraph breaks. The footnotes in the introduction are not hyperlinked. The footnotes/glossary entries in the main text of the book (of which there are a large number) are hyperlinked, with link numbers rather than linking directly from the word. A nicely linked table of contents. The text gives a blank line between each paragraph, as well as indenting the first line, and some of the extras could be formatted a little better.$2.99

⭐HarperPressThis has quite a nice text, although based on an early edition, without the later minor changes that Kipling made. There are some odd errors in it: A space in the middle of a word (ador ation), extra characters at the end of a word (trunnionsbu) and occasionally an open quote that should be an apostrophe (“Tis).Having said that, it does have italics and typographic quotes and proper dashes. It even has the correct u with macron character. Paragraphs all have a first line indent, even the first in a chapter. But the chapter verses and verse in the text is nicely done. According to the table of contents, it has some extras at the end, but no illustrations, and no extra annotations that I could see. Not too bad an edition, if it wasn’t for the weird typos.$0.99

⭐Dover PublicationsA brief introductory note, but no illustrations. Proper quotes, italics, dashes. The unusual character u with macron is included as an image rather than as a character, and so does not scale with the other letters. No extra annotations. A nicely linked table of contents. The text gives a small space between each paragraph, as well as indenting the first line. The verse formatting is quite good.$2.99And now for all the others. Since I first wrote this review, Amazon has, thankfully, deleted many of these editions. But, alas, several more have been added. For all these, I downloaded the sample, and compared against both a printed copy and my edition. Not that it usually took very long. While there are variations among them, they’re almost all quick conversions of whatever was the latest text at Project Gutenberg when the Kindle book was made. I can’t recommend any of these versions, not even the free ones. You’d be much better off getting the nice free version at Mobileread.KIM (Annotated and Illustrated with full author biography and related pictures)ASIN: B006R1T3AEPublisher: No publisher given.No Italics. Straight quotes. Large gaps between paragraphs. u instead of ‘. Older version of the text, with some typos (dried for fried, for example).It does have a little bit of biographical and other info at the front.Kim [Annotated]ASIN: B000FC1D36Publisher: Neeland Media LLCNo italics. No accents. Straight quotes. Dashes are hyphens. A first line indent and no space between paragraphs. No illustrations or annotations that I could see in the sample. There is an introduction.KimASIN: B00ABDHYXWPublisher: Start Publishing LLCNo italics. No accents. But curly quotes and em-dashes. A first line indent and no space between paragraphs. No illustrations or annotations that I could see in the sample. The usual errors in the text (pincers for pencase, etc.).KimASIN: B00865NF12Publisher: Neelkanth PrakashanNo italics. No accents. But curly quotes and em-dashes. A first line indent and no space between paragraphs. No illustrations or annotations that I could see in the sample. The usual errors in the text (pincers for pencase, etc.).Kim (Illustrated)ASIN: B0083I7XWYPublisher: No Publisher GivenNo italics. No accents. Straight quotes. Dashes are hyphens. A first line indent and some space between paragraphs. Illustrations at the start of each chapter. No extra annotations that I could see in the sample. The usual errors in the text (pincers for pencase, etc.).Kim (Annotated Edition)ASIN: B00AV0GJBIPublisher: No Publisher GivenNo italics in main text. No accents. Curly quotes. Proper dashes. A first line indent but also a full line space space between paragraphs. No illustrations. No annotations that I could see in the sample. The usual errors in the text (pincers for pencase, etc.).

⭐Bigoted and Prejudiced. No, I’m not referring to “Kim,” but rather myself, at least in relationship to Kipling. It was the three words in the subject line that hung like a millstone around Kipling’s neck. Admittedly, I never read the poem, and it too seems to be more complex than the simple phrase that seems to exhort the “white man” (as it was, in a more sexist era) to the “duty” to raise the “natives” into civilized enlightenment (a concept that resonated with the French as well, and whose practice was, well, so often diametrically opposed.) But my reviewer colleague slightly to my north, RM Peterson, prodded me, more than once, to read a book he has read several times. And so we made a “deal,” and he would read one of my favorites that he normally would not have. Talk about the “burden” of trying to enlighten your fellow man… ( a concept that is still not fully PC).And what I found was a marvelously complex and insightful novel that depicted so much that was the wonder of India at the end of the 19th century. Kim or Kim(ball) could be a model for multiculturalism and even, ugh, “diversity training.” He is left a street orphan after his parent’s death (his father was a soldier in the Irish Guards.) He manages to scratch out a living, mainly begging, with Hindustani as his first language. A “mere” youth, he grows up quickly, developing a sound judgment of human character; he is precocious in accessing the ways of power. Depending on the circumstances, he can be a model of propriety, or an utter scoundrel.There are several themes woven into the novel. Kim becomes a chela (disciple) to a lama (a holy man) from Tibet who is seeking Enlightenment (different than that peddled by the colonial powers), “The River,” and release from the “Wheel” of reincarnation. (At times, this bordered on Hesse’s

⭐). As a counterbalance to the spiritual, there are the efforts by British military personnel to recruit young Kim into what was dubbed “The Great Game.” That was the conflict between Britain and Russia for dominance in Central Asia, well documented by Peter Hopkirk in his excellent book of the same name

⭐. “Kim” is referenced three times in Hopkirk’s book. With Kim’s language ability, and his nuanced understanding of the customs and habits of various ethnic groups, he becomes natural spy material. But as the chief recruiter, Colonel Creighton warns him: “… if he spits, or sneezes, or sits down other than as the people do whom he watches, he may be slain.” Other longer native portraits involve the wily Muslim horse-trader who frequently visits “beyond the passes” (in present day Afghanistan) and returns with goods more valuable than horses (information!). Another is a double-dealing Bengali, Hurree Babu, who helps the Russians late in the novel: “The reason of his friendliness did him credit. With millions of fellow-serfs, he had learned to look upon Russia as the great deliverer from the North.” There are numerous female characters, most are depicted as being fairly strong and forthright, including the Woman of Shamlegh who seems to have her eye on some good genes recalling a lost Sahib love.Is Kipling racist? I saw no evidence in this book. True, there is the “n-word,” but it is coupled with an admonition by the Colonel not to involve oneself with the students who have that outlook. The author seemed to be an “equal opportunity” user of sardonic observations, certainly including those directed at British rule. Consider his comment on an Army Chaplin: “Bennett looked at him with the triple-ringed uninterest of the creed that lumps nine-tenths of the world under the title of `heathen.'”There are numerous observations of the human condition that remain all too true more than a century later: “Sahibs are always tied to their baggage,” or on professional rivalries: “All we ethnological men are as jealous as jackdaws of one another’s discoveries.” America has now replaced Britain as the dominant imperial power in the area, with seemingly far less insight into the “natives” than a Kim would provide. In the “Plus ca change…” category of eternal truths, as the present-day newspaper accounts of missing billions merely confirm Kipling’s words in Colonel Creighton’s mouth: “One advantage of the Secret Service is that it has no worrying audit… the funds are administered by a few men who do not call for vouchers or present itemized accounts.” But did they have Swiss banks back then?Kipling writes well, and I liked his technique of utilizing Hindi or Urdu words, coupled with the English meaning, which, inter alia, reminded me what “pukka” means. Thanks for the recommendation Mike. It is both the history of a time and place, and yet another guide for contemporary events. Certainly 5-stars until the next re-read.

⭐”It is time to take the Road again.”Kim, the orphaned son of an Irish soldier, brought up in the streets and bazaars of Lahore, befriends an elderly Tibetan Holy Man and decides to accompany him on his quest, across India, in search of a miraculous River of Healing.’On The Road’ is a phrase which is carved onto one of the relief sculptures which John Lockwood Kipling produced to illustrate his son Rudyard’s novel. And considered in one of its aspects, I suppose that ‘Kim’ is the first example of the twentieth-century ‘road’ novel, a form which would later became associated with Jack Kerouac, amongst others. The road in question is the Grand Trunk Road, along which Kim and his Tibetan Buddhist Lama make a significant part of their journey. There is also one sequence on this road where you don’t have to read very far between the lines in order to realise that Kim is clearly ‘stoned’ on what Kipling calls ‘a native-made cigarette’ that he has managed to procure, or blag, along the way. He is a particularly knowing and resourceful little urchin, this one. And he is also something of an adept with changes of costume and make-up, enabling him to pass as a Hindu, Moslem or Buddhist boy, as occasion demands. In Kim’s way of life, these are useful skills to have, but the more that he uses and develops them, the more they leave him with a nagging question about his own identity:”Who is Kim – Kim – Kim?”During the course of his journey, and the personal development which accompanies it, Kim is recruited by British Intelligence to work as an adolescent spy. And so he becomes drawn into the ‘Great Game’ of international politics which, in this particular instance, is being played out between Britain, the settled imperial power, and Russia – her aspirant rival for dominion of India. In Kim’s capacity as a junior secret agent, he uses his status as disciple to a Buddhist Lama as his ‘cover’. What remains deliberately opaque is precisely how much, or how little, Kim’s Holy Man knows of his disciple’s moonlighting for British intelligence. But there is more than one hint, both literal and symbolic, contained within the text to suggest that he might know a good deal more about it than he ever actually lets on, or explicitly says.”…no hint is given except to those who know.”In my view, Kim is the literary prototype for the later British spy novels of authors like Ian Fleming, as well as for the fictional ‘teen spy’ genre which has become so popular in our own time. These are aspects of Kipling’s work which have been much imitated by later writers, though little commented upon by them and certainly never equalled in terms of literary merit.The central motif of ‘Kim’ is the Buddhist wheel of karma – of life, death and rebirth – and the first representation of it takes the form of the barrel of Zam-Zammah, the big gun around whose mouth revolve the forms of Kim and his two childhood playmates, Chota Lal and Abdullah; each one of them representing different religions, or ‘ways’; each one of which has dominated India at different times of the past or, in Kim’s case, the present; and each of whom has sat atop the gun’s barrel in the pre-eminent position currently occupied by Kim, and therefore by ‘the English’. The clear inference being that this present occupancy of the position will prove to be every bit as temporal as the others. After all, as Kim’s Buddhist guru would no doubt remind us, the Wheel must turn.”…sure is the Wheel, swerving not a hair.”Written more than a century (and two world wars) ago, the novel still reads as though it had been written this morning. In essence, it hasn’t dated at all. On the contrary, I think it has grown more universal and more relevant with the passage of time. Set within the context of India’s teeming multi-faith millions, the novel actually feels as though it were taking place within a modern multicultural society. The book’s mixture of Buddhist, Muslim, British and other influences must have seemed desperately exotic to millions of readers when it was first published, in 1901, but that same multicultural context is far more commonplace and universally experienced today.”…Such-zen.”When considered in what might be called its spiritual aspect, ‘Kim’ becomes the most transcendental and all-embracing of Kipling’s work, although earlier stories by him also indicate his sympathies to this end. The novel demonstrates Kipling’s respect for the varieties of religious experience in India, and it firmly flags up the possibility of harmony being established and maintained in the midst of religious and ethnic diversity. So do I think that Kim was a visionary work? Yes I do. I think that Kim was not only one of the first, but also one of the most far-seeing novels of the twentieth century.So far as the book’s spiritual influences are concerned, by the end it is pretty clear that in its author’s sympathies Buddhism finishes first, with Islam (in the person of Mahbub Ali) a very close second. Set a little farther back from these are the other Indian religions – Hinduism, Jainism and Sikhism – plus the two branches of the western Christian religion which are represented, the Roman Catholic Church and the Church of England.In my view, ‘Kim’ also draws to a grand conclusion Kipling’s ‘Indian period’. If ‘The Jungle Books’ represent the noontide sun of Kipling’s talent, then ‘Kim’ is the golden, slanting sunlight of the later afternoon. In fact, no review of ‘Kim’ would be complete without mentioning that ‘…low-driving sunlight which makes luminous every detail in the picture of The Grand Trunk Road at eventide…’ which Kipling remembered in his autobiography, ‘Something of Myself’, written more than thirty years later.It is worthwhile the reader knowing that the ‘Woman of Shamlegh’, who crops up towards the end of the novel, is also the ‘Lisbeth’ of Kipling’s very first story from the collected ‘Plain Tales from The Hills’. Although a person of some power and status in her native society, the Woman of Shamlegh’s attempts to seduce Kim are doomed to failure, as much, if not more, for reasons tied up with her own past (for a full account of which you will have to read ‘Plain Tales from the Hills’) as for those to do with Kim’s present and future.One of the novel’s most interesting features is that the emphasis of the story appears to shift with each successive reading. It can be read as a ‘road’ novel, an adventure story, a spy yarn, a study of global politics (at that time), a spiritual journey, a coming-of-age tale and, ultimately, as a love story. Indeed, the novel ends upon the word ‘beloved’.Note: This review relates to the ‘Oxford World’s Classics’ edition which contains an Introduction by Alan Sandison, a chronology of Kipling’s life and works, and Explanatory Notes for the Indian terms which the reader will encounter in the text.

⭐I cannot remember how old I was when I first read this book. It was my mother’s favourite, and she was always urging me to read Kipling, and I hugely enjoyed most of his children’s books, but I can remember struggling with Kim quite a bit. My mother, like Kipling, was India born and had that same lifelong yearning for the country that so many old India hands experienced, and in her case she had 3 previous generations of family born there. She was disappointed that I didn’t enjoy it that much. Having recently read Charles Allen’s excellent biography of Kipling’s time in India, Kipling Sahib, which included a detailed section on the writing, illustrating and origins of Kim, the locations and the people, I decided to read it again as a mature adult. I have recently been re-reading quite a few of the children’s classics that I read as a child and find in the main that I am enjoying them all the more by bringing maturity and life experience to the party. One or two have disappointed, but largely I am aware of the reasons that these books are classics and have stood the test of time. None more so than Kim – I was just blown away by it – to use a not very articulate critical phrase!I strongly believe that it is Kipling’s greatest work; India just leaps off the page – the sights, sounds, smells, colours. I know that Kipling is deeply unfashionable and much reviled these days, but I find it hard to understand how this book could not be enjoyed by many. I was helped of course by my family’s background in India, knowledge of where the places are, of many of the Hindi phrases and customs, the school (based I suspect on La Martiniere College in Lucknow) and the machinations of “The Great Game”. I have a few family Indian photos left, and the memory of my mother and grandmothers’ joint yearning for the India that they both left (like Kipling) and their occasional conversations in Hindi (which is how I picked up some of the words) were very nostalgic and perhaps one of the reasons I enjoyed it so much. Even in the 21st century, playing “Kim’s Game” with Cubs is an interesting exercise in concentration and the story of the jewels it was originally played with sparked their interest when some children complained they didn’t like games where they had to concentrate and think!This book is by turns a sort of travelogue, a rite of passage, embraces Oriental philosophies, has a cracking good story, pays homage to Kipling’s father and even has an interestingly ambiguous ending. I read it in full technicolour with all the people and scenes so clearly in my mind, which surely is the mark of a great novel.

⭐This Oxford World’s Classics edition of Kim is excellent value for money. The font is similar in size to other paperback editions. It has an introduction and endnotes explaining some of the less obvious words and allusions.What is Kim about? At one level it is about the Great Game, the contest to defend the Raj against real or imagined threats from Russia or other powers. However, there is more to it. It is about what we should value in life. Worldly achievement or moral values? It is about identity. Who is Kim? English or Indian?The book is a magnificent panorama of the landscape and peoples of Northern India before partition, as seen by Kipling in the 1880s. Kipling has a fascination with accents, voices, languages and wordplay and a delightful sense of humour, for example in the discussion at the end of Chapter 12. This is as much at the expense of the English as anyone else.The language of the dialogue is somewhat archaic (I assume to give the flavour of the Indian languages it is representing) so I would recommend combining the book with the fantastic Audible reading by Sam Dastor, who really brings it to life.Kim was published in 1901 and, unsurprisingly, reflects the views of that time. However, if you are prepared to read it historically rather than hysterically, as the introduction to this edition puts it, then it has a great deal to offer.It is interesting to read the near-contemporaneous evaluation of Kim by EM Forster (hardly a soulmate of Kipling) in a lecture of 1908: If Kipling had not been born in India “he would not have given us the greatest of all his books, Kim. Kim is Kipling. It is the one book that we must bear in mind when we are trying to estimate his genius, for it contains the spiritual standard by which all his developments must be measured.” He concludes that most of Kipling’s verse was “thrown off by the superficial layers of Kipling’s mind, while Kim proceeds from the central core of it, that was quickened into life by India.”

⭐This review is not about the book’s contents but about this particular product.This is not Longman Cultural Edition as described. To be fair there are small prints at the end of product description saying “–This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.”. However, I think this is very dishonest as the seller put product descriptions of Longman Cultural Edition of Kim then add this one line at the end as an excuse to send something completely different. I ordered it from my iPhone app so I didn’t notice the last sentence the seller added. On top of that the font is too small – I’m 33 years old with good pair of eyes but even for me it’s too small to enjoy the book. I would say font size is about 8-9. Dishonest, disgraceful and disgusting sales conduct. Returning this and ordering another version.

⭐a captivating story of the adventures of an Irish boy, Kimball O’ Hara growing up in imperial India, his love for the country and especially his love for his holyman Tishoo Llama as he pits his wits against the other great Imperial power, Russia.Marion in Hailey Oxfordshire

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