'Off! Off! Let me up!' cried Abdullah, climbing up Zam-Zammah's wheel. 'Thy father was a pastry-cook, Thy mother stole the ghi, ' sang Kim. 'All Mussalmans fell off Zam-Zammah long ago!' 'Let me up!' shrilled little Chota Lal in his gilt-embroidered cap. His father was worth perhaps half a million sterling, but India is the only democratic land in the world. 'The Hindus fell off Zam-Zammah too. The Mussalmans pushed them off. Thy father was a pastry-cook-' He stopped; for there shuffled round the corner, from the roaring ...
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'Off! Off! Let me up!' cried Abdullah, climbing up Zam-Zammah's wheel. 'Thy father was a pastry-cook, Thy mother stole the ghi, ' sang Kim. 'All Mussalmans fell off Zam-Zammah long ago!' 'Let me up!' shrilled little Chota Lal in his gilt-embroidered cap. His father was worth perhaps half a million sterling, but India is the only democratic land in the world. 'The Hindus fell off Zam-Zammah too. The Mussalmans pushed them off. Thy father was a pastry-cook-' He stopped; for there shuffled round the corner, from the roaring Motee Bazar, such a man as Kim, who thought he knew all castes, had never seen. 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.
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I reread this book after a 40 to 50 year gap. I did so because I had had reason to speak with someone about Kim's Game.
Having reread I went though it again to fix some of the episodes in my mind.
Kipling himself says it has no plot. But the threads of the Great Game and a buddist lama's search for the River of the Arrow run through it. John Le Carre almost matches it in the thriller aspect
It includes some remarkable characters, a Sunni Horse dealer, a 'fearful" babu who aspires to Fellowship of The Royal Society, a british Colonel, Kim's father ( not stated but in real life the keeper of the Wonder House in Lahore0and of course Kim himself who we first encounter in Lahore as white but the poorest of the poor.
Set in NW India in I suppose about 1900 shortly after the Battle of Tirah( q.v.)
coldwater
May 13, 2010
Kim, by Rudyard Kipling
This is written so well, it confronts us with a new world - and it is nearly one hundred year old already! I decided to read more Rudyard Kipling!
Alexa Fleckenstein M.D., physician, author.
KathrynJane
May 7, 2010
"Kim" is a gem!
In "Kim", Mr. Kipling has created a timeless imp of a character who steals your heart while both he and the reader gain wisdom of the world. The vivid portrait of India and it's people could only have been captured and rendered for the ages by the matchless Mr. Kipling. Each page of this volume is a delight, packed with wit, suspense, wisdom and the opulence and poverty of India. It's a "life book" - you'll carry it's wit and wisdom with you and always know your life is enriched for having read it.
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