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Narrated by:
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Madhav Sharma
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By:
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Rudyard Kipling
About this listen
Set in the days of the British Raj, Kipling's finest novel is the exciting and touching tale of an Irish orphan-boy who has lived free in the streets of Lahore before setting out, with a Tibetan Lama, on a spiritual quest. Kim later enrolls in the Indian Service and simultaneously embarks on an espionage mission of supreme importance. A thrilling climax in the Himalayas occurs when the two quests become entangled. Kim's search for identity is staged within one of the most magnificent and affectionate portrayals of Indian culture in literature.
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Charming and unexpected
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As the novel opens, Kim is playing King of the Canon when an exotic old lama appears before him, down from his Tibetan monastery and bewildered by the big city. The "gentle and untainted" holy man, who is not proof from, to his shame, becoming "a brawler and a swashbuckler" when pushed off the Middle Way, wants to "free himself from the Wheel of Things," and hence is questing through the plains of India for the legendary river that sprung from the earth at the spot where Buddha shot an arrow, for bathing in the River of the Arrow will cleanse him of all dirt and sin and facilitate transcendence. Kim takes the lama under his wing, quickly becoming his "chela" (begging-acolyte), permitting charitable people to "acquire merit" by giving food, showing him how to ride a "te-rain" (train), protecting him from rapacious, opium plying priests, and generally being a vital street- and people-smart support. But Kim is also attracted to a red-bearded, horse-trading Muslim Afghan called Mahbub Ali who just happens to be a player in the Great Game, the late 19th century cold war being waged by Great Britain against Russia via proxy spies in India and environs. Mahbub Ali hires Kim to deliver a top secret coded message to a British ethnologist Colonel near where the holy man and his chela are bound.
The picaresque and philosophical buildingsroman follows Kim on his travels throughout India, "This great and beautiful land," visiting various cities and villages, meeting colorful people like an old ex-soldier who saw action in the Great Mutiny and a feisty grandmother with still "a wag left to [her] tongue," all the while growing ever closer to the holy man and the horse trader, learning more about spiritual matters and spy matters, and maturing into a complex youth of many parts: plucky spy on a mission, earnest acolyte on a pilgrimage, and Friend of all the World. Throughout, Kim's relationship with the lama is funny, touching, and fulfilling. The holy man says things to the boy like, "I consider in my own mind whether thou art a spirit sometimes or sometimes an evil imp," "Do not weep; for, look you, all Desire is Illusion and a new binding on the Wheel," and "Never has there been such a chela as thou."
Kipling's evocation of 19th century India is vivid and fascinating. It ranges from cities bustling with pickpockets, courtesans, policemen, witches, and vegetable and curry sellers to plains smoky with heat and dust and mountains bracing with snow-waters and musky pines, all via roads and trains peopled with "Brahmins and chumars, bankers and tinkers, barbers and bunnias, pilgrims and potters—all the world going and coming." He laces his narrative with moments of beauty: "Golden, rose, saffron, and pink, the morning mists smoked away across the flat green levels. All the rich Punjab lay out in the splendour of the keen sun." And he sprinkles it with interesting cultural touches: “A churel is the peculiarly malignant ghost of a woman who has died in child-bed. She haunts lonely roads, her feet are turned backwards on the ankles, and she leads men to torment.” And the novel sparkles with quotable lines, ranging from pearls of wisdom to spicy insults:
"To abstain from action is well, except to acquire merit."
"It's an awful thing still to dread the magic that you contemptuously investigate."
"The faiths are like the horses. Each has merit in its own country."
"Only the devils and the English walk to and fro without reason."
"Thy mother was devoted to a devil, being led thereto by her mother."
"Never make friends with a devil, a monkey, or a boy."
Madhav Sharma reads Kim with wit, clarity, and dexterity, enthusiastically channeling children and adults, men and women, Indians and English, in a variety of moods, accents, and situations and providing an enthralling listening experience.
I perhaps would not have enjoyed Kim as a boy, because I'd have wanted more typical adventure action and would not have understood the philosophical ideas about life and spiritual matters. But as an adult I found it irresistible from start to finish: funny, moving, thought-provoking, and absorbing. If you have avoided Kipling the Imperial White Man's Burden Racist Apologist, read this novel and you will find a different author and a different world than you expected. Kipling's respect for and interest in different religions, especially Buddhist, illuminates the book. And Kim is a white boy only on the surface, for his love for the land and his father figures and theirs for him transcend race. As his holy man says to Kim, "We be but two souls seeking escape." As Kim says to his holy man, "I am not a sahib. I am thy chela."
Never Was Such a Chela!
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Incredible performance and great potential but disappointing in the end
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One of the best adventure books ever
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Very Nice Enjoyable Book and Good Narration
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best narrator
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I sophomorically kept waiting for the big conflict, the big rift, the big disaster to really draw me into this book. About half way through, I realized none would come because this is a story about relationships, contrasts and coming of age. It is about trust and mistrust, love and loss, devotion and betrayal. It is not a story to speed through, but to be savored and thought about. I found myself listening and then relistening to many chapters, as I read along in the ebook (easily attainable for free). I could never have enjoyed just reading this book, in large part because of the strange names which I could never understand nor pronounce correctly, and also because of my total ignorance of the native inflections that Mr. Sharma so masterfully performed, and which gives so much meaning to the story. On the other hand, I could never have just listened to it because many of the words, being unfamiliar to me, could never have made sense to me no matter how well pronounced without my seeing them and in many cases, looking them up. Following along with the written word was the best of both worlds for me, and really helped with my understanding of the book.
Beautifully written with a beautiful moral, no wonder it is a classic. I don't usually reread fiction, but I will probably read this one again.
It takes time and effort to understand
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If you could sum up Kim in three words, what would they be?
great spy storyWhat other book might you compare Kim to and why?
no other book. but there's a reference to it in frederick forsyth's "day of the jackal". which is a pretty good "spy" novel, too.Which scene was your favorite?
the first 30 pagesIf you were to make a film of this book, what would be the tag line be?
BE THE TAG LINE BE???well, i wouldn't. it would be a pretty insufferable movie, with some horrible juvenile actor, and a lot of fake indian accents. the tag line would need to be "they finally ruined a classic".
Any additional comments?
this is a novel that most readers won't be able to get into simply by reading it, because it deals with a world that would be alien to a modern reader, incomprehensible. it needs a good reader to give the story a decent airing -- an audio version -- to bring out all the wonderful things that are inside it. this particular reading comes pretty close to being that perfect rendition. if you read the book yourself, the printed version, you'll spend four days in reader's heaven. whereas listening to it, you'll need to pay attention more -- it may take an hour at a time, over a couple of weeks, but once you've got your head around the whole book the first time, you'll be wanting to read it and listen to it again and again, or once every other year. that sort of thing. this is one of those books.this book needs to be listened to
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Thoroughly enjoyed Kim
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really really
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