In case you were (ever) inclined to see the lama as a crusty old bachelor rather too preoccupied with his Quest, Kipling definitively humanises him in just a couple of lines. Holy One!” said Kim bubbling with mirth at the lama’s rueful face. Kim] Two years back he gave me a powerful Mango-times overtakes my daughter’s eldest. I would ask thy Holy One….a charm against most lamentable windy colics that in She has a good heart and so it comes to pass: Wheel of illusion, will stretch a point for the Maharanee: she talks too much but Even the lama, questor after the meaning of life and triumph over the Street, and naturally, in the exchange of compliments, had acquitted himselfĪre lax in ways which the Reverend Bennetts of this world would find The time of day with one or two frivolous ladies at upper windows in a certain They are women of good heart, and that is what matters:įor he was never trained to consider them in any way improper, Kim had passed And perhapsĮspecially when laid beside Kipling’s small sketches of native women, politelyĭescribed as “courtesans” and “dancing girls” and about whom he is always I read the characterisations, eyes agog, wondering whatĮffect they had on early readers. Must find that River it is so verree valuable to us”Īnd his prejudices. His Urdu - to tell that he is the lama’s chela and that: More than a street urchin, struggles with his English - much less fluent than With what I can only describe as relentless venom. Reverend Bennett, whose bit part it is to pose a threat to Kim’s future growthĪnd development - he would send him to an English orphanage - and who is characterised Word and deed and earlier on in the novel, the Anglican army chaplain, the

The end and who consign themselves to outer moral darkness with their every He draws the line only in relation to three minorĬharacters: the unspeakable, nameless pair of Russian spies who appear towards Lyric to the characters is romanticised it’s true that Kipling foregrounds theīest in nearly all of them.

Great game - Creighton Sahib, Lurgan Sahib and, of course, centre stage, Kim.

Of Shamlegh, betrayed by the Christians the small cast of Sahibs playing the Them over-learnt from the Sahibs) the talkative dowager Maharanee of Saharunpore,Ĭareless of her veil but not of the duty of care to others the enigmatic Woman Hat lama questing south from his Abbey of Such-zen the Frontier horse dealerĪnd government agent, Mahbub Ali Hurree Babu, the man of many parts (some of It’s also a lyric to its principal characters: the Red “India” includes Pakistan and the settings are mostly in what was then the Which celebrates India, land and people - and since it was published in 1901, But apart from its formal or official framing as a Great Game story, it’s not.

So I came to this book with only the prejudice that it was likely to be With Kipling before and doubt I could quote accurately a single line of his

Kipling book kim