Charming and unexpected

Lovely, dramatic narration with a great range of voices and accents for the many characters. I decided to read this classic after reading Laurie R. King's "The Game" where she uses the character of Kim a couple of decades on. I'm a fan of classics and was curious about the background. The novel was not at all what I was expecting: I thought it focused more on the spy elements of Kim's participation in the Great Game, but this aspect is more background to a charming coming-of-age story and the development of a deep and unexpected relationship with the lama. A great story!

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6 people found this helpful

Never Was Such a Chela!

"What is Kim?" asks the title character of Rudyard Kipling's classic novel (1901) more than once. Kim is a poor orphan boy whose Irish parents have died in India, leaving him basically on his own in the city of Lahore, where he has been doing "nothing with an immense success," other than avoiding British authority figures who would send him to an orphanage or, worse, to a school, as well as engaging in nighttime intrigue by carrying messages between dandies and their mistresses and hanging out with a varied host of uncommon common people, becoming known as Little Friend of all the World. He speaks English brokenly as a second language but is fluent in vernacular Hindi and Urdu, expressing himself in them with a spicy street poetry, and he can pass for an indigenous Muslim, Hindu, or Buddhist. So fluidly swims Kim in his environment that not many people know that he's really a sahib (white master) whose full name is Kimball O'Hara.

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."

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Incredible performance and great potential but disappointing in the end

Really impressive performance. Story started out interesting but then disappointed in the end. Was an interesting look however at a time in history of political intrigue.

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One of the best adventure books ever

The adventure follows a young British orphan growing up on the streets of India. It it at times clever, suspenseful, even heartwarming. Well worth your credit. AUDIBLE 20 REVIEW SWEEPSTAKES ENTRY

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Very Nice Enjoyable Book and Good Narration

I did like this book quite a bit, not as much as I have liked some other books but it was very good and worthwhile. Amazing telling of Indian culture and when I think about it is truly a grand piece of writing in the way Kipling details and describes various aspects of this culture and its people, and the characters he creates are very unique and ingenious. I think in the end I felt something lacking in the plot or at least was a little unsatisfied. Narration is quite extraordinary at times and very good.

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best narrator

This narrator was absolutely wonderful! I wish they would let him read sone science fiction. I will see what else he narrates and will likely read things which I would not have read, only because of him.

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Superb Narration

India really comes alive in this reading- a magnificent performance that more than does justice to Kipling's masterpiece.

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7 people found this helpful

Wish I had read this as a kid

I missed out!

Fantastic narration that elevates the story and immerses the reader.

Thoroughly enjoyable read. I'll have to read it again sometime soon

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Must listen - Narrator brings the story alive

Kipling won the Nobel Prize for literature, and this book is considered his masterpiece. Madhav Sharma does a wonderful job of narration, breathing vibrant life into every character.

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It takes time and effort to understand

. . . But well worth it. First off, this is the narrator to listen to! I sampled all the narrators available, some being masters that I am well acquainted with, but none came close to Madhav Sharma. This is a performance to savor as he masterfully molds the story of "Kim" into everything Kipling set out to make of it.

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.

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11 people found this helpful