Victorian England Week Twentyeight Rudyard Kipling's Kim Wed May 15
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Victorian England Week Twentyeight Rudyard Kipling’s Kim Wed May 15, 2019 Institute for the Study of Western Civilization 1819-1901 ThursdayMay 16, 2019 Rudyard Kipling 1865-1936 "A versatile and luminous narrative gift" In the early 20th C the most popular writer in the world. ThursdayMay 16, 2019 ThursdayMay 16, 2019 John Lockwood Kipling, 1837-1911 In 2017 the Bard Graduate Center held an exhibition of his work: John Lockwood Kipling: Arts & Crafts in the Punjab and London. ThursdayMay 16, 2019 Alice Agnes Louisa Giorgiana ThursdayMay 16, 2019 1840-1920 1833-1898 (64) ThursdayMay 16, 2019 The Grange, North End, Fulham, London ThursdayMay 16, 2019 1865 ThursdayMay 16, 2019 appointed teacher at Sir Jamsetjee Jejeebhoy School of Art and Industry in Bombay, Little boy in India 1865-1871 ThursdayMay 16, 2019 Little Rudy becomes totally fluent in Hindi…parents alarmed their son turning into a Hindu. ThursdayMay 16, 2019 April1871-1877 ThursdayMay 16, 2019 ThursdayMay 16, 2019 In January 1878, Kipling was admitted to the United Services College at Westward Ho!, Devon, a school founded a few years earlier to prepare boys for the army. The school proved rough going for him at first, but later led to firm friendships and provided the setting for his schoolboy stories Stalky & Co. (1899). Text 1878-1882 ThursdayMay 16, 2019 1882 RETURN TO INDIA ThursdayMay 16, 2019 LAHORE ThursdayMay 16, 2019 The Kipling house at Lahore a grand house they will live in for ten years Rudyard comes to Lahore to write for the Civil and Military Gazette ThursdayMay 16, 2019 ThursdayMay 16, 2019 ThursdayMay 16, 2019 1889. (23) Kipling returns to London Rents an apt near Charing Cross and begins career as freelance writer Signs with Macmillan. ThursdayMay 16, 2019 The London 1890 democracy literacy (edu) newspapers magazines ThursdayMay 16, 2019 The London 1890 Oscar Wilde Trial Fin de Siecle Corruption Degeneration ThursdayMay 16, 2019 17th Century country stone house: Bateman’s ThursdayMay 16, 2019 ThursdayMay 16, 2019 ThursdayMay 16, 2019 ThursdayMay 16, 2019 ThursdayMay 16, 2019 John Kipling, 1897-1915 ThursdayMay 16, 2019 ThursdayMay 16, 2019 1900 ThursdayMay 16, 2019 THE JOURNEY ThursdayMay 16, 2019 Kim is a novel by Nobel Prize- winning English author Rudyard Kipling. It was first published serially in McClure's Magazine from December 1900 to October 1901 as well as in Cassell's Magazine from January to November 1901, and first published in book form by Macmillan & Co. Ltd in October 1901. The story unfolds against the backdrop of The Great Game, the political conflict between Russia and Britain in Central Asia. The novel made the term "Great Game" popular and introduced the theme of great power rivalry and intrigue. ThursdayMay 16, 2019 Kim is set after the Second Afghan War which ended in 1881, but before the Third, probably in the period 1893 to 1898. The novel is notable for its detailed portrait of the people, culture, and varied religions of India. "The book presents a vivid picture of India, its teeming populations, religions, and superstitions, and the life of the bazaars and the road." In 1998, the Modern Library ranked Kim No. 78 on its list of the 100 best English-language novels of the 20th century. ThursdayMay 16, 2019 THE JOURNEY Kimball "Kim" O'Hara is an orphan son of an Irish soldier, the protagonist; "A poor white, the poorest of the poor" Teshoo Lama a Tibetan Lama, the former abbot of the Such-zen monastery in the Western Himalayas, on a spiritual journey. ThursdayMay 16, 2019 ThursdayMay 16, 2019 ThursdayMay 16, 2019 ThursdayMay 16, 2019 Kim (Kimball O'Hara) is the orphaned son of an Irish soldier and a poor Irish mother who have both died in poverty. Living a vagabond existence in India under British rule in the late 19th century, Kim earns his living by begging and running small errands on the streets of Lahore. He occasionally works for Mahbub Ali, a Pashtun horse trader who is one of the native operatives of the British secret service. Kim is so immersed in the local culture that few realise he is a white child, although he carries a packet of documents from his father entrusted to him by an Indian woman who cared for him. ThursdayMay 16, 2019 Chapter 1 Kim • Kimball O'Hara, Kim for short, lives in the city of Lahore in the province of the Punjab. • (Lahore is now in Pakistan, but when Rudyard Kipling was writing, it was part of India.) • Even though Kim feels totally comfortable running around the city talking to the city kids in Urdu, he is English/Irish. • His mother was a nursemaid and his father a low-ranking officer in an Irish regiment stationed in India, • During Kim Senior's drugged visions, he would sometimes talk about "nine hundred first-class devils, whose God was a Red Bull on a green field" (1.2). • The woman who takes care of Kim doesn't understand what the father is talking about, but she tells Kim that his father left him a prophecy: One day a Red Bull will arrive with a colonel on horseback (and then the nine hundred devils). • He also likes to explore the city and to carry secret messages for the local guys in the middle of the night. • Kim volunteers to become the lama's chela—his disciple—and he will help the lama on the road south.• Kim makes the lama leave Lahore early so that they can avoid the people searching for Mahbub Ali's message. ThursdayMay 16, 2019 KIM'S AMULET Symbolism, Imagery, Kim's amulet around his neck is a little bag put together by the woman who looks after Kim when his parents die. It has three documents, all of which belonged to Kimball O'Hara, Sr. The first is Kim, Sr.'s "ne varietur" (1.2) as he calls it. Ne varietur is a Latin legal term meaning, "Not to be changed." Masons would put this phrase underneath their handwritten signatures to verify the handwriting of individual Masonic brothers. So Kim, Sr.'s ne varietur is a document proving that he is a Mason. (The Freemasons are a mysterious fraternal organization that claim to go back to the time of Solomon.) The second document in Kim's amulet is his father's clearance-certificate, which provides legal proof that Kimball O'Hara, Sr.'s debts have all been paid and that his estate is settled. This is great—Kim doesn't owe anyone money on behalf of his father. Last but not least is Kim's birth certificate, giving the legal names of his mother, Annie Shott, and his father. When Kim meets up with Reverend Bennett and Father Victor, these documents prove who Kim is, even though Kim doesn't really seem to know himself. ThursdayMay 16, 2019 The Lama • One day, when Kim is playing with two other kids in front of the Wonder-House (the local name for the Lahore Museum (1.20)), he notices a man who looks like no one he has ever seen before. • The new man tells the kids that he is a Buddhist lama from Tibet, and that he is on a pilgrimage. • Kim leads the lama to meet the English curator (modeled after Kipling's own father) • The lama tells the curator that he is visiting the Four Holy Sites of Buddhism. • During his travels though, he has seen evidence of a lot of fake statues and false worship of the Buddha, so now the lama has started on a second quest. • He tells the curator that once, as part of a trial of strength, the Buddha shot an arrow into the air. • Where this arrow landed a river sprang up, and the lama believes that, if he can find this river, he will free himself of the pointless cycle of rebirth that is human life (according to Buddhist teaching as told by Rudyard Kipling, at least). • The lama plans to head south to the city of Benares (now called Varanasi). • To help the lama on his search, the curator trades glasses with the man—they both have the same prescription (mostly), but the curator's lenses are much clearer and cleaner. • The lama is thrilled. established" (1.179). ThursdayMay 16, 2019 Outside the museum, the lama settles down to beg for food. • Kim is much more familiar with the ways of Lahore, so he volunteers to get food for the lama, and hits up a local vegetable-seller for food. • She has been having trouble with a bull who keeps eating stuff from her vegetable stall. • Kim promises that the lama will pray to keep the bull away from her stall if she'll just help them out with a bit of food. • Kim and the lama eat together happily, and we see the beginning of a great relationship • Kim volunteers to become the lama's chela— (chaylah) his disciple—and he will help the lama on the road south. • As they head south, Kim plans to keep an eye out for that Red Bull his dad was talking about. • Kim takes the lama to his friend Mahbub Ali, as they try to find a place to sleep for the night. • Mahbub Ali has an errand for Kim: If he's going south, he will have to pass through the city of Umballa, and at Umballa, Mahbub Ali wants Kim to deliver this message to a specific officer in the army: "The pedigree of the white stallion is fully established" . • (This message definitely sounds like some kind of special code to us.) • And indeed, Mahbub Ali's message is actually about five local kings and a gun- running scheme—in other words, it's about important government stuff.