"Kim" by Rudyard Kipling

               Rudyard Kipling was one of the most popular writers of his era, and his novel Kim, first published in 1901, has become one of his most well-known non-juvenile works.

               The novel takes place at a time contemporary to the book's publication; its setting is India under the British Empire. The title character is a boy of Irish descent who is orphaned and grows up independently in the streets of India, taken care of by a "half-caste" woman, a keeper of an opium den. Kim, an energetic and playful character, although full-blooded Irish, grows up as a "native" and acquires the ability to seamlessly blend into the many ethnic and religious groups of the Indian subcontinent. When he meets a wandering Tibetan lama who is in search of a sacred river, Kim becomes his follower and proceeds on a journey covering the whole of India. Kipling's account of Kim's travels throughout the subcontinent gave him opportunity to describe the many peoples and cultures that made up India, and a significant portion of the novel is devoted to such descriptions, which have been both lauded as magical and visionary and derided as stereotypical and imperialistic.

               Kim is presently recognized upon his travels, reclaimed and adopted by the Irish regiment of which his father had been color sergeant, and given a genteel sufficiency of education in a Catholic college. He endures the thralldom of St. Xavier's, however, only upon condition of being allowed still to tramp the continent in the long vacation with his beloved old Buddhist priest. Before he is done with school the remarkable fitness for employment in the secret Indian service of the English government is discovered by our old friend Colonel Creighton, and he is placed under the tuition of sundry wonderful native proficients to learn the first principles of the Great Game. The result is that he distinguishes himself, while yet a stripling, by capturing in the high Himilayas the credentials and dispatches of a formidable Russian spy, and—this is all.

                Kim eventually comes upon the army regiment that his father had belonged to and makes the acquaintance of the colonel. Colonel Creighton recognizes Kim's great talent for blending into the many diverse cultures of India and trains him to become a spy and a mapmaker for the British army. The adventures that Kim undergoes as a spy, his endearing relationship with the lama, and the skill and craftsmanship of Kipling's writing have all caused this adventurous and descriptive—if controversial—novel to persist as a minor classic of historical English literature.

               The novel is a delightful read. However, this is definitely not a children’s novel, nor is it of trivial things – there is a search for eternal life and involvement as a spy in a coming war. Poverty and hardship is everywhere. Nonetheless, the novel does seem an excuse for adventure for its own sake. We learn a good deal from the lama about his notion of spirituality, but we learn virtually nothing of the power and role of the River of Healing, and we know almost nothing of the coming war itself. They are sort of teasers or anchors for the story, yet they each remain on the fringes.