Customer Reviews
A wonderful but somewhat esoteric story of India 
2008-06-27
Kim is the most popular of Rudyard Kipling's novels and has received both critical acclaim and negative reviews over the years. Both assessments are valid to some degree. On the positive side, Kipling has written what is acknowledged to be the best description of colonial India ever created by a native or a foreigner. Much of the negative commentary on the book has come from the intertwining of the story of a boy and a holy man each seeking his dream (good) with the political and military intrigues of the "Great Game," the political rivalry among European powers over the middle and south Asia.
The book begins with Kim, a young boy, living on the streets of Lahore in what is now Pakistan but was then a part of British India. His father was an Irish soldier but Kim is clearly a street-wise Indian. He bears some resemblance to Dickens' character, Dodger, but is not as dishonest (although he is not above deceit and trickery to get what he wants). He meets a lama from Tibet who is seeking a river. Kim has his own goal following a dream that tells him to seek a red bull on a field of green. Together they set off to find their goals with Kim acting as the chela (disciple) of the holy man.
This beginning is promising enough, but one problem for the non-native Indian is the extensive references to Indian concepts, terms and especially religious references. Despite this flaw (for the non-Indian reader at least) the adventure is colorful and the characters the two meet along the way make for both humor and interesting situations.
But Kim also is involved with a somewhat mysterious horse trader cum spy, Mahbub Ali who gives him a message to deliver pertaining to some planned military action. Kim delivers the message and eventually comes across a British military camp where he sees a flag bearing a red bull on a field of green. Kim is intrigued by this discover and in an attempt to learn more he is collared by a chaplain attached to the group and falls into the their hands. Determined to make a civilized person out of Kim the chaplain arranges for Kim to attend school. The lama, distraught by the loss of his chela comes to agree to pay for Kim's education believing that it is best for him to learn the white man's ways. The pair are reunited as the story draws to a close there is a more or less suitable ending. But the intrusion of the Great Game scenario into the story, even though it adds the amazing character, Hurree Chunder Mookerjee, does distract from what should be the main idea, the evolving love and relationship between a young boy and a old man, each seeking his dream.
I rate Kim at 4 stars because it really is worth reading although some readers will skim through some parts that are too esoteric for Westerners.
Review of Kim 
2008-02-26
Great book...have been reading it in a hisotry class...easy to read, flows well and engaging.
Kim: East and West in combination 2007-12-27
Kim is Rudyard Kipling's mysterious India: a combination of East and West, of mystery and mysticism. Kim is not the India of history books. It is not a neat historical fiction nor is it a simple adventure story in a slightly exotic setting.
Kim was published in 1901 and is the story of the orphaned son (Kimball O'Hara, known as Kim) of a soldier in an Irish regiment. The novel is set in the Indian subcontinent where Kim spends his childhood as a waif in Lahore.
The story of Kim's journeys, as he moves between the East and the West can be enjoyed as an adventure story or read as a window into British colonialism. Kim himself straddles a number of different worlds but never really belongs to any of them completely.
While the novel includes a richly detailed portrait of Indian life and assumes that western mastery is desirable, Kipling frequently identifies similarities between the cultures of India and those of the Europeans in India.
This is a novel which I think is best read twice. Once as a child - for the adventure and mystery and again as an adult for the broader story.
Jennifer Cameron-Smith
A Good Spy Story That You Really Need to Read for Yourself 2007-07-06
'Kim', taken solely on its own terms, is a late 19th century adventure tale, an early spy story, a travelogue of northern India, a coming-of-age story all set in the midst of the Great Game, the Russo-British contest for imperial dominance in Central Asia. It's a good tale well told, if the language is somewhat dated for the modern reader.
But, of course, 'Kim' is generally not simply taken on it own terms because its author Rudyard Kipling came to personify British imperialism as much as Lord Kitchener. The Norton Edition includes excellent articles that provide historical context as well as several critical essays. I consider myself an anti-imperialist, but also admittedly somewhat of a romantic about the British Empire, and I did not detect jingoism in 'Kim'.
Readers interested in even more background will want to read Quest for Kim: In Search of Kipling's Great Game. Readers needing to be disabused of romanticism about British imperialism may want to consider Imperial Reckoning: The Untold Story of Britain's Gulag in Kenya.
At the end of the day, 'Kim' is quite a good adventure tale and a book that really need to read for yourself. Highly Recommended.
My Favorite Novel 
2007-05-24
After fifty plus years of reading, I think I can say that Kim is my favorite novel. I'm not sure it is the best novel I ever read, whatever "best" might mean, and it certainly isn't the most profound, but there is simply no other book I have enjoyed as much or have reread as often. Many other Amazon reviewers have said that they liked the book very much, often for different reasons: some like the "Great Game" aspect and others enjoy the rich narrative description of India for which the book is justly famous. (A few reviewers found the book "difficult", apparently because of the language device that Kipling uses when speakers are speaking in languages other than English, or for Kipling's use of unfamiliar words, and others found it boring, a criticism I find nearly incomprehensible. I honestly believe that if you find Kim boring, you just don't like to read fiction, except perhaps at the level of Tom Clancy novels. And don't be put off by those reviews that found the book difficult. I presume these readers were looking for a continuation of The Jungle Book and found an adult novel instead. Kim is much easier reading than the novels of many of Kipling's contemporaries, such as Conrad or James, and is no more difficult than Twain.)
At least one other reviewer shares my view that in essence Kim is a coming of age novel, and one of the best, in a league with Huckleberry Finn and A Portrait of the Artist. The Great Game provides the book with the bones of a plot, and Kipling's description of India, much like Twain's description of the Mississippi River environs in Huckleberry Finn, published 16 years before Kim, is the flesh. But the heart of the book is the development of the relationship between Kim and the Red Lama, the fundamental story of two people, one an orphan boy and the other an elderly mystic, finding many of the things they are seeking in caring for and looking after one another.
Again, it is hard to avoid comparing Kim with Huckleberry Finn. The core of the latter book is the development of the relationship between Huck and Jim, and it seems likely that Kipling was influenced by the earlier book. Kipling had clearly read and admired Huckleberry Finn, and once referred to its author as "The great and God-like Clemens." Not that I find the notion that Kipling was influenced by Twain to in any way diminish Kim. It is an absolutely wonderful book and I envy anyone who hasn't read it that is about to do so. Come to think of it, that's true of both Kim and Huckleberry Finn.
It's too hard 
2007-04-12
Kim, one of Kipling's masterpieces, is the story of Kimball O'Hara, the orphaned son of an officer in the Irish Regiment who spends his childhood as a vagabond in Lahore. The book is a carefully organized, powerful evocation of place and of a young man's quest for identity.
Kim 2007-02-19
A difficult book for me to read but worth the effort. At times very complicated and difficult to follow but beautifully written. Great insight into the culture and beautiful landscapes of India.
The Great Game's Donnie Brasco 2007-02-13
The United States needs a modern-day Kimball O'Hara or two if it is ever to be successful in thwarting future large-scale terror attacks. The likelihood of that happening is few-and-far-between.
This Rudyard Kipling classic has recently found its way on to US military officer reading lists, and this review will approach the novel from that perspective. As cultural understanding and sensitivity crawls its way up the priority list for military personnel serving abroad, there are few better or more enjoyable ways to appreciate the issue than reading "Kim."
The main character is a British orphan about thirteen years of age when the story begins who has been raised on the streets of Lahore in present-day Pakistan. He speaks fluent Hindi, understands various dialects and, perhaps most important of all, intimately understands the kaleidoscopic whirl of religions and cultures that travel and trade along the northwest border of British India. He takes to the road as a disciple or "chela" of a wandering Tibetan priest in search of a mythical holy river with healing powers. Along the way, he has a chance encounter with his deceased father's old army regiment and his identity is revealed. The army sends him to a prestigious English language Catholic school in the south, but his potential value is quickly gleaned by a member of the British secret service, which is engaged in a cloak-and-dagger contest with the Russians as their two spreading empires converged along the Hindu Kush in the last decades of the 19th century.
There are a number of ways to analyze or appreciate Kipling's writing and the complex narrative he creates. One is historical. The author grew up in India and sets the story on a timeline that would have exactly equated with his own youth in the British colony. The sights, sounds, phrases, references, and personalities in "Kim" are entirely authentic. The volume I read included footnotes that explained the arcane expressions and places. Without this helpful aid much of the story would have been lost (to me at least), so it is worth checking to see if the volume you are buying has notes or a glossary.
Another angle on the story is what is says about modern human intelligence operations. The leading British intelligent agent in the novel, Colonel Creighton, recognizes that Kim has language, culture skills, and local street smarts that simply cannot be taught in any academy. He is lucky that Kim begrudgingly accepts his "obligation" as a Sahib (white man) and agrees to help Britain in its game of wits with the Russians - and it happens to offer him the freedom and adventure he desperately craves.
So, whether one is interested in 19th century India and Pakistan or simply enjoys a good spy novel, "Kim" is as fine a book as can be recommended.
Just let yourself go with the flow 2006-11-02
First, to straighten out a few errors in other reviews -
"Kim" most certainly did not cause controversy "at the end of the 18th century" since it wouldn't be written for another 100 years! Perhaps the reviewer was confused by the Italian use of "century" where "quattrocento" does mean the "14th" century. Kipling wrote at the end of the 19th century and into the 20th. "Kim" was published in 1901.
The Great Game was not really a mysterious secret-service organization - it was simply the name for the activities of British Army intelligence as it gathered information aimed at maintaining control of British India. There were three aims: to prevent other Great Powers gaining influence (especially Russia), to suppress any incipient revolt against British rule, and to maintain order by preventing wars between the Indian princes themselves.
Kim is not part Indian by birth, as some state, but wholly - I was going to say British, but that is not quite right, since Kipling tells us his father was an Irishman, Kimball O'Hara (though at that time indeed Britain ruled Ireland, infamously). His mother was "nurse-maid to a Colonel's family," named Annie Shott.
Apart from that, what at first I found strange in some of the reviews was the complaint that it is "difficult" to read. What? Kipling's writing is much more direct here than in many of his short stories, where you must really stay alert to catch 'why' a character responds to someone else's words in a certain way. As for the Urdu or other words used naturally by the speakers, I am not sure how different editions, or the original text, handled them: my edition, printed in the US by Macmillan, simply includes the English in parentheses where needed "No," said Kim. "Thy man is rather yagi (bad-tempered) than yogi (a holy man). " (yagi and yogi are in italics). I think these would be Kipling's parentheses.
But perhaps for modern American readers some things are unfamiliar - flipping through again, I see hookah, tramway, scapular, coolie, Babu, chela, fakir - these are words that are more likely to be familiar to Brits like me, and especially Brits of middle-age or so.....I guess we don't always realize how much we simply absorb from the specific cultural background. I see that some editions provide lots of footnotes, but of course looking at footnotes is a pain and spoils the flow and pace of reading. All I'd say is, let yourself be swept up in the amazing panorama of the life of a huge sub-continent as it was 100 years ago, and don't sweat the small stuff! This is a story that above all conveys a zest for life, and has nothing to do with prejudice or preconception about how things "should" be. Do as Kim did- take it as you find it, and enjoy.
A Neglected Adventure 2006-10-31
I feel as if I truly missed out as a lad in not reading this book. Unfortunately, the book was more or less verboten in the UK when I was young as racist, imperialist etc etc
I don't find the book to be either of these things. If it's racist, then the racially superior ones are Tibetans, as personified by Kim's beloved lama, the inferior ones are Sahibs (whites), and, in particular, non-Anglo sahibs who are notably mean-spirited and cruel, not just laughable, like the Anglos. If it's imperialist, then it's only depicting the India that Kipling knows. I don't find anywhere in this book the notion that this should always be the case or that Indians couldn't eventually win their independence. There may be undertones to this effect. But undertones, of course, are notoriously ambiguous and subjective.
What this book IS then is a lovely adventure and spy novel, as well as a sort of Bildungsroman for Kim. It is also a book whose main character seems, at times, to be the Indian land itself, portrayed lovingly and gracefully throughout the work--and also, it's just good rollicking fun!
No, it's not exactly literature. Aside from the lama's speculation on the wheel of life, and on the illusory nature of the senses, no profound insights abound. But Kipling is not a particularly introspective writer.
Note: Those of you with the Penguin Classics edition and Edward Said's rambling 50 page introduction, pray don't bother with it. It's nothing more than an obfuscatory, academic apologia for Kipling's racism and imperialism, evident perhaps in other works, but not here, which I suppose Penguin felt they had to include. Bother it. Jump headlong into the adventure!
