Myopic British views of Asia
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| Rudyard Kipling |
This is the tenth volume I’ve read in the ten-volume series Stories by English Authors, which was published by Charles Scribner’s Sons in 1896. Subtitled The Orient, this book collects six short stories set in Asia and Australia. From the free ebook editions available online, the volumes in the Stories by English Authors series don’t appear to be numbered, so I’ve just been reading them in random order. I will confess, however, that I’ve avoided The Orient volume until the end, in anticipation of what antiquated 19th century notions of racism and colonialism might lie within. It turns out that for the most part my concerns were well-founded, and most of these stories just haven’t stood up well to the test of time.
The book opens with Rudyard Kipling’s story “The Man Who Would Be King,” perhaps best known today as the basis for a movie adaptation starring Sean Connery and Michael Caine. Two English vagabonds in India decide to assume the kingship of a secluded tribe of natives. I’ve never been a big fan of Kipling’s writing, and this offering did nothing to convert me. He crams his stories with so much gratuitous local color and slang that the atmosphere becomes more important than the narrative and the prose becomes almost unintelligible. This one suffers from its white-conquerors-over-dumb-natives premise and its rather silly climax.
Next up, “Tajima” by “Miss Mitford” (likely Mary Russell Mitford) is a fable about a ronin, or masterless samurai. All the characters are Japanese, and Mitford treats them respectfully. The story is just OK, its biggest offense being dullness. The best story in the book, which isn’t saying much, is “A Chinese Girl Graduate” by R. K. Douglas. Set in China, it’s about a girl who masquerades as a boy in order to study with male scholars. Imagine if Pearl S. Buck wrote Yentl. There’s a lot of gender-bending disguise along the lines of Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night. Though it defies belief, it’s pretty good as far as fluffy romances go.
It’s all downhill from there. Set in New Zealand, Mary Beaumont’s “The Revenge of Her Race” is a tale of interracial marriage between an Englishman and a Maori woman. Though Beaumont likely thought she was being sympathetic to the indigenous, the story is anything but enlightened, since it’s all about how this native woman hates herself because she’s not white. Morley Roberts’s story “King Billy of Ballarat” is a Kiplingesque accent fest about an Australian aborigine who befriends a young white girl in order to beg for her father’s hand-me-down clothing. The “black fellow” (as he’s referred to in the story) is portrayed as a drunken buffoon, and the prose is so inarticulate I couldn’t even figure out the ending. Lastly, Netta Styrett’s “Thy Heart’s Desire” is a dreary soap opera about a British couple with marital problems. Since its only connection to the East is one use of the word “Persian,” it’s difficult to see why this story is even included in this collection. It’s hard to believe that these dismal entries were the best examples of “Oriental” English fiction that the editor could come up with.
Overall the Stories by English Authors series has been a disappointment, and I am glad to be done with it. This particular volume on The Orient is the worst of the bunch. For those who enjoy 19th century fiction and are looking for good short story collections, I would recommend Scribner’s later series from 1898, Stories by Foreign Authors, which features some of the best writers from various nations in Europe.
Stories in this collection
The Man Who Would Be King by Rudyard Kipling
Tajima by Miss Mitford
A Chinese Girl Graduate by R. K. Douglas
The Revenge of Her Race by Mary Beaumont
King Billy of Ballarat by Morley Roberts
Thy Heart’s Desire by Nyetta Styrett
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Plenty of atmosphere but not much plot
Rudyard Kipling’s novel Kim, published in 1901, is considered a classic tale of adventure and a seminal precursor to the modern spy novel. It even makes frequent appearances on top 100 lists of the best books ever written in the English language. Such high praise creates high expectations, and this novel didn’t even come close to living up to them. Though obviously penned by a highly skilled wordsmith, the novel offers neither enough adventure nor enough espionage to satisfy on either front. It does provide a detailed depiction of India worthy of a vintage issue of National Geographic, but one that is needlessly verbose and unfortunately dull.
Kim is a white boy in India, the orphaned son of a poor Irish soldier. He lives on the streets of Lahore, jovially scraping by as a beggar and errand boy. When a Buddhist Lama from Tibet comes to town, Kim volunteers to accompany him on his journey to find a mystical river of healing. Along the way, he is recruited to practice espionage on behalf of the British government, and becomes a participant in “The Great Game”—the contest between Britain and Russia for dominance in central Asia.
The chronicling of Kim’s travels and training allows Kipling the opportunity to present a vivid panorama of India in the late 19th century. Kipling, who was born in India, obviously has a great love for the land of his birth and proves himself quite knowledgeable on the richness and diversity of Indian culture. There is an overall comical tone to the book, however, that leaves a bit of an aftertaste of imperial condescension. The narrative is populated by a myriad of characters, and each one is indeed a character. While Kipling displays a comprehensive ethnographic understanding of everyone’s races and creeds, he often depicts their beliefs and practices in so quaint and picturesque a manner that he seems to be making fun of them. What’s worse, he’s far more interested in the personal quirks of his characters than in the parts they play in advancing the story. He heaps on so much local color that it’s detrimental to the plot. Every conversation in the book is four times longer than it needs to be. When Kim comes to a figurative fork in the road, the reader knows immediately which way he’s going to turn, but must read through a half hour’s worth of deliberations peppered with proverbs, prayers, and song. One finds himself wishing Kipling would just “get to the yolk of the egg,” as Kim so aptly puts it. The instances of espionage in the book are not the least bit intricate and are far from exciting. With so much talk going on, it takes over half a chapter just to don a disguise.
As a reviewer, I take no pride or pleasure in taking shots at sacred cows (no pun intended). I have nothing against Kipling in particular—I did enjoy the Jungle Books—but here he’s guilty of overindulgent description at the expense of good storytelling. Readers who don’t care for that sort of thing probably won’t like this book, and can consider themselves warned. Should you choose to tackle Kim, prepare yourself for way too many adjectives and not nearly enough verbs.
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