Lancashire Libraries have only one copy of Kim, which is seventy one years old, falling apart and missing four pages of text. Fortunately, I have meanwhile asked a second hand bookseller to track down a copy. The Secret Service aspect of the plot was, to me, unexpected. The Great Game feels like a great cause but all that they are really doing is maintaining the status quo.
Reading Kim has enabled me to reread Poul Anderson's The Game Of Empire from a fresh perspective - see recent posts - so I make no apology for discussing another author on Poul Anderson Appreciation. The context of a work is one aspect of the work.
Duty calls.
6 comments:
Hi, Paul!
I have absolutely NO difficulty with you discussing how the works of Rudyard Kipling affected or influenced those of Poul Anderson. After all, the latter himself was an enthusiastic fan of Kipling and freely admitted his debt to him.
I am rather surprised and disturbed to find out the local county libraries had only one old, decrepit copy of KIM. Are the works of Kipling now hard to find in the UK? Kipling's works seem to be easy to find in US bookstores, by contrast.
Btw, ALL ONE UNIVERSE contains, as I'm sure you know, Poul Anderson's essay "Rudyard Kipling," giving us his views and reflections on that author.
Sean
Sean,
I am sure that Kipling remains in print but obviously our County Library Service has not had much demand for KIM.
Paul.
Hi, Paul!
Understood, altho I regret the seeming lack of interest in Kipling's works by the people who use your County Library Service.
Btw, I forgot to add in my previous note that you seem to disapprove of how Mahbub Ali, working for British Intelligence, was merely helping the Raj to maintain the status quo in the "Great Game." I argue that is not necessarily a bad thing, just think of the horrrors that resulted when all attempts to maintain that status quo broke down and gave us WW I and the STILL continuing time of Chaos we are enduring.
That was exactly what the Terran Empire was trying to do vis a vis Merseia, maintain an uneasy peace despite the latter's constant efforts to subvert and undermine the Empire and bring an end to that shaky peace. Because, despite all the provocations and injuries Merseia was giving, all out war between the two powers would be a disaster too likely to destroy both of them.
Sean
Sean,
Many Indians disliked British rule. Racism was certainly an issue. An Indian man or woman was not half a demon and half a child but an adult human being! There were atrocities like Amritsar. How much Secret Service activity was devoted to keeping other imperial powers out of India and how much to keeping the Indians down by divide and rule? Independence, with partition, came after along struggle because it was forcibly resisted.
Paul.
Hi, Paul!
I have to disagree, at least in part. Compared to the far worse horrors committed by the Communists and Nazis, Amritsar, bad as it was, was trivial. And while I agree racism was a problem, Kipling himself also shows us plenty of Britons who were not racists and strove to be fair and just.
And independence and partition came with plenty of problems as well for Pakistan, India, and Bangladesh. I only need to cite the wars Pakistan and India have fought with each other and ugly things like the caste system in the latter. I remember reading of how Nehru himself was ruefully admitting in the 1950's that he and the Congress Party was ruling India the same way the British Raj had done, with LESS efficiency.
So, my sympathies still lies more with Mahbub Ali and Targovi!
Sean
Targovi, yes!
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