In a really roundabout way, Kipling is responsible for you crying at Bambi (I didn't cry, I was just confused. The subtlety of the gunshot of camera didn't register. I spent the rest of the movie thinking Bambi's dad had gained sole custody. I was kind of stupid kid sometimes.) The Jungle Book is one of the early popular cases where an author so thoroughly anthropomorphosized animals.It's really a smug assumption that fits well with the British imperial mindset of the book. In a position of safety and power it's easy to act like animals are just people that speak a language we're unable to translate.Animals are animals. If they think they can take you, they'll kill you, sometimes for safety, sometimes for food. Otherwise they will run. We domesticate animals because humans find such behavior annoying.Trying to empathize with things that can not actually communicate gets people killed and eaten every year.For all his research, there's an odd sort of cluelessness to Rudyard Kipling's writing. The tales are chocked full of fun facts about animals and their habitats, but he doesn't seem to be aware that he was partially able to experience sites like India because he was a member of a massive Victorian empire. He's too busy imagining what animals would sound like in different casts and royal orders.Yes, these animals often talk like they work at a ren fest. Along with his dorky poems it's a fun reminder that as long as there's been writing, there's probably been nerds.Fortunately his poetic tendencies inform the prose, which flows smoothly, making the bulk of the stories a pleasant read. It's easy to visualize most scenes, and the writing paints a clear picture.Mr. Kipling had more of an impact on my childhood than I realized. Ricky Ticky Tavi and The White Seal were both adapted by Chuck Jones, and I watched those two cartoons obsessively as a child. Reading the source of those stories was slightly surreal, details lining up with images baked into my brain years ago. The secret seal island only accessible from beneath still sounds pretty awesome.Structurally the layout is rather wonky. It starts with the Mowgli stories, which are told out of sequential order, and then drifts off into a few short subjects. Kipling's style, while amusing, just doesn't emotionally engage. The one major advantage of the Disney adaptation of the Jungle Book was the addition of humor. The source material is fairly reserved, no nonsense stuff.I read the first book on my iPhone Stanza reader using a public domain copy. At this point , unless you're hellbent on having a paperback copy, you don't need to pay for almost any text more than a 100 years old. I listed the Amazon Kindle edition because it's the only one similar. I don't actually feel compelled to read the Second Jungle Book anytime soon, I've had my fill of his outlook on the wild.
(view spoiler)[Superb!This is the first Kipling that I have read and I see why he stands so well and highly acclaimed.These are truly classic stories with longevity and, although they may at first seem ostensibly to be children's stories, they carry many adult themes and subtexts to keep readers of most ages engaged. The irony and/or subtlety of some would be lost on kids whilst others contain darker not so childlike ideas, yet, the man child's adventures amongst the many voiced animals and their lore is the stuff of childhood fantasy and no doubt resonates with every child's seeming love/fear relationship and curious fascination with wild animals The introduction to this edition states that there is more to the Jungle books...more for the student and reader of rhetoric,...who also 'read' what they read, who are interested, as Kipling was in the art of fiction.At their heart, these short stories; a tapestry of fantasy, fable, natural history and myth, reach a little deeper than mere entertainment does; touching old, even eternal themes, such as salvation, prophecy and vision quest in 'The White Seal,... The Fall from Creation's point of view in 'How fear came',... or the corrupting lust for wealth in 'The King's Ankus'. Woven throughout the Mowgli stories are themes of loyalty, honor, estrangement and self discovery, initiation and rites of passage set against the ever present background and inherent dichotomy born of the tension between social instinct and the primal. It is these tales that form the backbone of these anthologies and like The Brothers Grimm, they have a darker, sinister quality written out of the better known but sanitized Walt Disney interpretation. Mowgli, the man child, is king of the jungle yet not truly animal, totally at home in it and yet inherently alien to it, an animal to the humans and a human amongst the animals; more completely human for his brotherhood with the latter yet always an alien, an outsider, to both worlds. He is a Warrior hero, fully at home in neither human society or the brotherhood of jungle. One whom the animals respectfully fear for his humanity, which for them carries an innate, unspoken truth of superiority and authority, whilst to his own kind, he is is held as demon or a pariah, an unwelcome reminder of their own shadow and hence a threat to their sense of identity. This is all told with such skill, such atmosphere, complexity and credibility (read 'conceptual continuity') that you can all but feel the dappled shade of the jungle, the close damp heat, the racing heart beat of the boy hunter or the sense of silent watchful eyes near but unseen.Magnificent!This edition comes with many notes, illuminating the sources that Kipling used for research and background authenticity and the validity of Indian words and references. (hide spoiler)]
What do You think about The Jungle Books (2005)?
eBookOnce again, I'm struck by the savagery that resonates throughout Kipling's writing. It would be so easy to think of The Jungle Book in a more Disney-fied light: talking animals, singing, the rhythmic cadences of a fairy tale or lullaby. But overarching all that is the ever-present reminder that the world of the jungle is a world of nature, red in tooth and claw. Mowgli is raised by wolves and instructed by Baloo for the explicit purpose of survival in a harsh world that actively seeks his death. Kotick is born and raised amidst bloodshed from two distinct sources: other seals and man. "Rikki-Tikki-Tavi" subverts the traditional story of a pet protecting his master by making the masters little more than incidental characters; Rikki-Tikki wants to protect them, but his actions are driven by instinct rather than any familial bond with the humans. Even in the less-obviously blood-drenched stories, violence is a powerful force. Toomai's journey to witness the dance of the elephants puts him at great risk of death.The story I found most interesting, however, was the one which closes the book, "Her Majesty's Servants." The characters of this particular story are the camp animals for an army, but paradoxically, these might be the most innocent characters in the whole book. All their conversation is about war and its methods, but without any real recognition of what it means. These animals have been tamed by man, stripped of their natural instincts, and so, with the exception of the elephant, they don't realize what war means, content merely to follow orders and limit their perspective to the specifics of their duties.And maybe that's the true lesson of The Jungle Book. Yes, it's violent, endlessly circling and returning to the themes of death and danger, but in the world of the animals, death and danger exists because they are necessary parts of life. Animals must eat, so animals must hunt and kill. But for people, violence is stripped of that which makes it necessary. Wars don't happen for food and survival; they happen for sport and profit.Or maybe I'm just a filthy hippie.
—Joseph
i liked this book. i kinda remember the jungle book story from my childhood but this made the whole story come to life by reading it. the book tells the story of how a toddler wanders into a wolf cave. and mama and papa wolf adopts the human cub who becomes enemies with the feared tiger. as he grows up in the pack he becomes mentored by a bear named baloo and a jaguar. his enemy tiger persuades the pack into believing that the human cub needs to be killed. so he escapes from the pack and is adopted by a human family in a village. after a year of being part of the village he, with the help of the old alfa wolf, he traps and kills the tiger. i would reccomend this book to any of my classmates because it is a facinating and enjoyable read.
—Emi Haag
What a delightful adventure! Mowgli is an endearing man-cub / member-in-good-standing of his Seeonee wolf pack / loyal friend to Baloo, Bagheera, Kaa, and lastly, a loving son to his biological mother! How I enjoyed reading about his life in the jungle of India, as well as learning the names of the animals in their native language. It was also delightful to read the text in Kipling’s “thee” and “thou” format. It is funny in a way to think of these as “children’s books” when they are filled with the savagery of jungle life: survival, killing, domineering, and death. Still, they are delightful and I think I enjoyed them much more having waited until adulthood to experience the stories. If you have not yet read the books--a series of short stories--you should do so if you have any desire for a genuinely heart-warming experience!What a talented and gifted writer! Thank you for letting me experience your India, Mr. Kipling!EXCERPT: They were lying out far up the side of a hill overlooking the Waingunga, and the morning mists hung below them in bands of white and green. As the sun rose it changed into bubbling seas of red gold, churned off, and let the low rays stripe the dried grass on which Mowgli and Bagheera were resting. It was the end of the cold weather, the leaves and the trees looked worn and faded, and there was a dry, ticking rustle everywhere when the wind blew. A little leaf tap-tap-tapped furiously against a twig, as a single leaf caught in a current will. It roused Bagheera, for he snuffed the morning air with a deep, hollow cough, threw himself on his back, and struck with his fore-paws at the nodding leaf above.Kipling, Rudyard (2009-10-04). The Second Jungle Book (Kindle Locations 2534-2539). Public Domain Books. Kindle Edition.
—DenaliViewer-2003
