I have to either thank, or bemoan the fact that my parents made sure that I was a very educated person. Bemoan? Because it put me at outs with everyone around me, still does to this day. Although thankfully, I have discovered like minded people – mostly online.
So one of the first books my parents read to me was Just So Stories by Rudyard Kipling. The story I remember best, that always stayed with me is The Cat That Walked by Himself. You have to scroll down to read the story, but it is worth your time.
One of the reasons I loved that story was because at the time we had a tabby named Tommy. Kipling had described Tommy to a T! I had wanted him in bed with me at night and he went down to the basement, I went after him crying, my father had to come and console me, if he didn’t read me this story that night, he certainly described it.
Another thing my parents did was have us read the classics, alongside a mediocre education in Israel, I was being homeschooled before anyone knew that term. So I read a lot of classics long before I ready for them. Of course, the Jungle Book and Kim. Although years later I realized how much I hadn’t understood, there was something about his writing, that grabbed me. Maybe part of it was the exotic location of India, ever since then I have always wanted to visit India.
Here is a short biography, not great, but it gives the main points of his life, it also immediately criticizes him for being a jingoist and imperialist – but that is something everybody does to him. I read a wonderful biography about 20 years ago, of course I can’t find mention of it anymore. The biographer was able to get access to his one surviving daughters’ papers. So I felt that It was pretty close to primary sources.
I already mentioned how much I loved If. Through the years I read more books and saw some movies based on his books. One of the reason the left hates him so much is because he was unapologetically pro western culture.
People love to point to this poem The White Mans burden as an example of praise of the imperialist west. Foolish me, I see nuance here, I’m not willing to swallow the line that everything about the west is bad. I have read a number of essays by descendants of Indians who lived through the Raj. Britain wasn’t like Belgium who literally raped the Congo. India today is what it is because of the Raj. Also, in geopolitics today we have China . There was no massive western occupation, but with the Communist Revolution – 5000 years of culture were destroyed and at least 60 million murdered. Today we have CCP Virus.
India never lost its’ culture, well except the British put an end to Sati, the tradition of burning a widow on her dead husbands’ pyre. An easy way to get rid of pesky widows who produce nothing and are simply a burden. So yes, if White Man’s Burden is about ending those kind of atrocities – I can live with that. Today we are seeing an India, with all it’s myriads of problems being part of our world, not a force for evil that unleashes viruses on the world, while sending out faulty tests and masks.
Kipling lived a fascinating life, born in India to English parents, he was sent at age six back to school in England. Life was horrible except for visits to his Uncle Edward Burne-Jones. Yes, the pre-Raphaelite artist. He would later marry an American and live in Vermont for a while. He wasn’t an easy man to get along with, no question about that. But he worked hard at his writing and for a while was beloved. He won the Nobel prize for literature in 1907, I guess that was before the world decided he wasn’t Lefty enough for them.
He had three children, 2 daughters and a son. One daughter died young of pneumonia, it was to her he used to tell the Just So Stories. That was a devastating blow. And then there was his son John. Kipling was warning the world about Germany for years before WWI. He felt they need to be defeated, which is why it was very hard for him to dissuade his son John from joining the war at age 17. John needed special permission, both because of his age and his eyesight. On a personal level, I’m sure he regretted helping his son enlist. The boy went to fight in France and was lost, never to found.
Kipling died in 1936, already warning about the rise of Germany, but by then, no one wanted to listen to him. As the years have gone by, even IF is blacklisted because to todays’ world he is ‘racist’. And yet, I still find him admirable and very prescient. My hope that just like other greats, he will be rediscovered in the future. He deserves to be.
John Kipling as an officer. His father, who was very influential in regards to military cemeteries and he is the one who coined the phrase ‘Known unto God’ which refers to all unknown soldiers. in 1992 a claim was made about finding and burying John Kipling in France. May he Rest In Peace. The final poem wasn’t written for John, but it very easily could have been. Great writers do not live easy comfortable lives, Rudyard Kipling certainly didn’t. He was willing to tell the world the truth, when the world didn’t want to hear. Still doesn’t want to hear, but like White Mans’ burden, that is often the burden of a true artist.
I highly recommend going to You tube and listening to many of his poems being read, so powerful. Also, I’m noticing in the comments, people in India and Pakistan love Rudyard Kipling.
Leah
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