It seems to be mainly academic—and therefore self-perpetuating—and its interest seems to be less in the work than in the man. Kipling is more complex than his legend. It is easy for the critic to be made possessive by this discovery and to go through the work just looking for clues. It can be shown, for instance, from a story like “The Bridge-Builders,” that Kipling was not insensitive to the subtleties of Hindu iconography. The fact is interesting, but it doesn’t make the story any less obscure or unsatisfactory. The fact is also awkward: it doesn’t fit with other facts. And so it happens that attempts to set the legend right often end in simple tabulation, of matter and motif. This is the method of Mr. Stewart’s Rudyard Kipling, which does little more than celebrate a reading of the Kipling canon. The legend survives. “The Kipling That Nobody Read”—the title of Mr. Edmund Wilson’s essay—is still the Kipling nobody reads. Kipling revaluations are self-defeating, since they lead back more surely to the only Kipling of value, which is the Kipling of the legend.
What do You think about Literary Occasions (2003)?
