Kim by Rudyard Kipling

"It is less than three days since we took road together, and it is as though it were a hundred years."

Teshoo Lama speaks these words to Kim, but they could be used to describe my sentiments while reading this book - as long as they are taken in the spirit of snarky weariness in which I intend them.  Perhaps if I were a British schoolboy living in 1900 I might have found this book enthralling.  Or perhaps not. While I did not find the book to be completely without interest,  I know that somehow I failed to appreciate most of its charms.

Kim is the story of an Irish Indian boy who befriends a Tibetan lama, becomes a spy for the British, and must come to terms with his own identity. Born Kimball O'Hara to an Irish soldier and a nurse maid, Kim was orphaned at an early age and raised by a half-caste Indian woman.  He has a dark tan, speaks Hindi/Urdu, and is immersed in the local Indian culture.  In consequence, few realize that he is white.    He supports himself by begging and running errands, earning himself the nickname "Friend of all the World."

Kipling himself was born in Bombay in British India in 1865, and spoke Hindi as a boy - even supposedly often thinking and dreaming in Hindi.  His own conflicted sense of belonging and dual identity are reflected in characters such as Kim and Mowgli in The Jungle Book.  Kipling is a complex writer.  Despite his real love for India, his work often suffers from a romanticized orientalism and imperialism that are problematic for modern readers.

Kim is set against the background of the Great Game, the political conflict over colonial influence between Russia and Britain in Central Asia.  This is where the espionage comes in.  I didn't find this thread of the novel very exciting, though I did enjoy the bits about his spy training.

Kim's identity quest lies at the core of the story.  In the beginning of the novel, he is virtually nameless, known mainly by his moniker "little Friend of all the World."  The nickname reinforces the fact that Kim does not definitively belong to any one group, race, or religion.  Kim meets and befriends the lama, becoming his chela, or disciple.  The lama himself embodies what it means to be "Friend of all the World" in a different sense.  He practices earthly detachment, placing no man above another, and even referring to a cobra as "brother."  When Kim encounters his father's former regiment, they determine to send him to school.  He is given European clothing, communicates in English, and is ultimately trained as a spy.  I found it interesting that working as a spy is a sort of dark parody of "Friend of all the World," as Kim takes on different identities in his work.

Kim's relationship with the lama is one of the novel's strengths.  While Kim's quest centers around the question "Who is Kim?", the lama is on his own quest to find the River of the Arrow, the site where Buddha's arrow landed and transformed into a spring.  Bathing in this river will wash away his sins and free him from "the Wheel of Things" - the material world and the cycles of earthly existence.  The lama's insistence on earthly detachment is challenged by his affection for Kim, who is like a son to him.

The climax of the novel is reserved for the last few pages.  In the end Kim changes his question from "Who is Kim?" to "What is Kim?"  He rests under a tree, connecting with "Mother Earth," and remarks that it feels that he slept a hundred years when he wakes. This is a symbolic death and resurrection in which Kim forges his own identity, not determined by the world's categories.  There are echoes of the Buddha's attainment of Enlightenment under the bodhi tree. At the same time these things are happening to Kim, the lama finds his river.  He falls into the river while in a state of spiritual transcendence, and chooses to return to earthly life to teach Kim, rejecting absolute detachment in favor of human connection.  We are left with the implication that Kim and the lama will now walk upon the Way together.

The strange thing about this book for me is that it has so many interesting themes, but the actual experience of reading it was something of a slog, as many of the plot elements just did not grip my attention.

Read for my 2024 Victorian Reading Challenge, Book published 1900-1901.  There is some leeway in this particular category, I think, as Queen Victoria's reign ended with her death in January 1901.  Kim was first published serially from December 1900 to October 1901.  Also part of my Classics Club list.