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Rudyard Kipling
Kipling's life and work reflect an age now gone--the age of British Empire and Victorian manners. This biography explores his lengthy travels around the world, especially to the India of the Raj, & his isolated, active old age in Sussex. B&W photos & illus.
144 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1974
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About the author
Kingsley Amis
172books526followersBest known novels of British writer Sir Kingsley William Amis include
Lucky Jim
(1954) and
The Old Devils
(1986).
This English poet, critic, and teacher composed more than twenty-three collections, short stories, radio and television scripts, and books of social and literary criticism. He fathered Martin Amis.
William Robert Amis, a clerk of a mustard manufacturer, fathered him. He began his education at the city of London school, and went up to college of Saint John, Oxford, in April 1941 to read English; he met Philip Larkin and formed the most important friendship of his life. After only a year, the Army called him for service in July 1942. After serving as a lieutenant in the royal corps of signals in the Second World War, Amis returned to Oxford in October 1945 to complete his degree. He worked hard and got a first in English in 1947, and then decided to devote much of his time.
Pen names: [authorRobert Markham|553548] and William Bill Tanner
This English poet, critic, and teacher composed more than twenty-three collections, short stories, radio and television scripts, and books of social and literary criticism. He fathered Martin Amis.
William Robert Amis, a clerk of a mustard manufacturer, fathered him. He began his education at the city of London school, and went up to college of Saint John, Oxford, in April 1941 to read English; he met Philip Larkin and formed the most important friendship of his life. After only a year, the Army called him for service in July 1942. After serving as a lieutenant in the royal corps of signals in the Second World War, Amis returned to Oxford in October 1945 to complete his degree. He worked hard and got a first in English in 1947, and then decided to devote much of his time.
Pen names: [authorRobert Markham|553548] and William Bill Tanner
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
November 5, 2023
Wow, I never realized how little I knew about Kipling as a person before, although I've enjoyed his writing on and off for years. I never grasped how little time he spent in India (five years as a child and seven more as an adult, all before the age of 23); nor did I know that he then lived in Vermont for four years (and how in the world did he adjust to those winters after living in Lahore!?), where he wrote - among others - "The Jungle Book." And finally, I didn't realize that both "Kim" and his "Just So Stories" (those "How the Elephant Got His Trunk" things - although that one is actually names "The Elephant's Child") were among his final writings - although it makes sense, since they are also among his best works.
At 114 pages and with a lot of photos and illustrations, this is more like a long essay (or New Yorker article) than a real book. So there's really not a lot to learn here factually that you wouldn't get from a Wikipedia article - albeit a Wikipedia article written by Kingsley Amis. It did, however, provide a good breakdown of what are considered Kipling's "good" and "bad" writings. Has definitely inspired me to go back and reread some of his stuff, particularly his short stories and poems. (For more on Kipling, see my review of Petet Hopkirk's .)
This is part of Thames and Hudson's old "Literary Lives" series, which also includes similar books on Conrad, Forster, Lawrence (D.H., not T.E.) and several others, all available on Amazon.
At 114 pages and with a lot of photos and illustrations, this is more like a long essay (or New Yorker article) than a real book. So there's really not a lot to learn here factually that you wouldn't get from a Wikipedia article - albeit a Wikipedia article written by Kingsley Amis. It did, however, provide a good breakdown of what are considered Kipling's "good" and "bad" writings. Has definitely inspired me to go back and reread some of his stuff, particularly his short stories and poems. (For more on Kipling, see my review of Petet Hopkirk's .)
This is part of Thames and Hudson's old "Literary Lives" series, which also includes similar books on Conrad, Forster, Lawrence (D.H., not T.E.) and several others, all available on Amazon.
December 27, 2015
One of my favourite authours writing on another of my favourite authours, what’s not to like. Amis is clearly a fan of Kipling but he does not shirk from criticising him when he thinks it is warranted.
There is a certain irony in reading a biography of once popular author who fell out of vogue but has since found a new audience, that is written by another once popular authour whose fame is also now fading. Let’s hope that the metaphor continues and that Kingsley Amis also has his revival.
There is a certain irony in reading a biography of once popular author who fell out of vogue but has since found a new audience, that is written by another once popular authour whose fame is also now fading. Let’s hope that the metaphor continues and that Kingsley Amis also has his revival.
November 23, 2021
I picked this out of the shelves at Heirloom Books, seeking something that might be read in snatches, between customers, seeking also some broader view of Kipling, an author known to me only by his novel, 'The Light that Died', some of his short fiction and a few of his most stridently imperialistic poems.
Profusely illustrated, author Amis presents a biography of his subject, punctuated by brief, critical evaluations of his work. Not knowing much at the outset, I learned quite a bit. For instance, Kipling did not spend much of his life in India, indeed, for a time he was a resident of Vermont. Further, he served as a war correspondent during the Boer conflict in S. Africa. He was, even in his last years, quite the traveler, visiting all continents except Antarctica. He was also, this being no surprise, deeply, albeit idealistically, conservative.
Profusely illustrated, author Amis presents a biography of his subject, punctuated by brief, critical evaluations of his work. Not knowing much at the outset, I learned quite a bit. For instance, Kipling did not spend much of his life in India, indeed, for a time he was a resident of Vermont. Further, he served as a war correspondent during the Boer conflict in S. Africa. He was, even in his last years, quite the traveler, visiting all continents except Antarctica. He was also, this being no surprise, deeply, albeit idealistically, conservative.
September 6, 2016
The first one I read was Rudyard Kipling by Kingsley Amis. His is truly the best simply because Amis is such a fluid and witty writer. He does not pull any punches as to his opinions about Kipling's writing abilities, which stories were well-written and those that failed to live up to the great writer's reputation.
We learn that Kipling was an enormously spoiled child being raised by servants in India with parents who let him rule everyone with an iron fist. After about six years, Kipling's mother apparently woke up to the fact that they were going to have an incorrigible child on their hands, sent him back to England and hired a middle-aged married couple to rear and educate him and his younger sister.
It's a mystery as to why his mother hired strangers to be guardians of her children when willing relatives were available. Of course, it's a mystery to me why someone would leave their young children and return to India, rarely seeing them again. According to Kipling he was the victim of gross child abuse and neglect and records his nightmarish experience in one of his short stories, Baa, Baa Black Sheep.
How honest an account was this story? According to Kipling's sister, not very. Perhaps it was the shock of going from acting as a tiny Anglo-Indian despot to being expected to behave according to British standards, which was harsh enough by our present indulgent attitude towards children. No sparing of the rod for sure. But neglect? We have only Kipling's vindictive story as evidence and I must confess at the time I read it I found it to be rather one-sided.
for the rest of the review cut and paste the link to my blog post:
We learn that Kipling was an enormously spoiled child being raised by servants in India with parents who let him rule everyone with an iron fist. After about six years, Kipling's mother apparently woke up to the fact that they were going to have an incorrigible child on their hands, sent him back to England and hired a middle-aged married couple to rear and educate him and his younger sister.
It's a mystery as to why his mother hired strangers to be guardians of her children when willing relatives were available. Of course, it's a mystery to me why someone would leave their young children and return to India, rarely seeing them again. According to Kipling he was the victim of gross child abuse and neglect and records his nightmarish experience in one of his short stories, Baa, Baa Black Sheep.
How honest an account was this story? According to Kipling's sister, not very. Perhaps it was the shock of going from acting as a tiny Anglo-Indian despot to being expected to behave according to British standards, which was harsh enough by our present indulgent attitude towards children. No sparing of the rod for sure. But neglect? We have only Kipling's vindictive story as evidence and I must confess at the time I read it I found it to be rather one-sided.
for the rest of the review cut and paste the link to my blog post:
July 12, 2022
Good short book (30,000 words), lots of interesting pictures, available here:
Here are some notable lines:
All children, unquestioned despots or not, need opposition at some stage before puberty, and whereas a big stick and a couple of hell-fire specialists are not the ideal instruments to provide it, Rudyard got what he needed. He may have got other things besides: the themes of betrayal, ill-treatment and revenge do run through his work, though he is quite as likely to have acquired these interests at his public school; his attitude to women is sometimes unfavourable, though this could be said of plenty of men with no Aunty Rosa in their early lives. He himself asserted, perhaps sardonically, that it was all good training for a writer: close observation of moods, of how words and actions diverged, and so on.
His fondness for American authors—Emerson, Longfellow, Poe, Whitman, Bret Harte, Mark Twain—was unusual in the England of his day.
[The forty Plain Tales is] a work of tremendous talent, pessimistic about human behavior, certainly, often designed to appeal to the reader’s more malicious instincts, well yes, but wise as well as worldly-wise,
Kipling was an authoritarian in the sense that he was not a democrat. To him, a parliament was a place where people with no knowledge of things as they were could dictate to the men who did real work, and could change their dictates at whim. His ideal was a feudalism that had never existed, a loyal governed class freely obeying incorrupt, conscientious governors. He was vague about how you became a governor: you probably (as in the Empire) just found you were one. Nevertheless, birth, influence, money, educational status and the like must not count as qualifications for leadership. Merit, competence and a sense of responsibility were what did count: ‘the job belongs to the man who can do it�. As George Orwell pointed out, Kipling was further from being a fascist than can easily be imagined in a period when totalitarianism—a very different thing from authoritarianism—is accepted as a possibly valid or even desirable system. He (Kipling) was that nowadays puzzling creature, an oligarch who believed passionately in freedom. Kipling was an imperialist. He accepted the Empire as it stood and he approved the annexation of Upper Burma. ... {For Kipling} The {British} Empire was riddled with imperfections, and it neither would nor should last for ever.
Kipling was a racialist, or racist. The White Man’s Burden is indeed a burden, an arduous duty, not the inheritance of a natural privilege, and the white men must carry it not because they are white but because they are qualified;
Kipling believed in the separation, or rather the continued separateness, of races. ... This is an appeal to prudence rather than prejudice.
Kipling believed in something ill-defined, though practical and unmysterious, called ‘The Law�. It pervades his Jungle Books, but it has nothing to do with the law of the jungle as we usually think of it (that is, the weak finish last). What is envisaged is society as a network of obligations, each individual doing the job appropriate to him to the best of his ability. Law, order, duty, restraint, obedience, discipline (to tidy up a line from a poem) may sound to us in combination like the programme of some right-wing political adventurer; for Kipling they were values to be pursued freely, at the bidding of self-respect and self-reliance. Their message is, of course, a conservative one, without much application to our time.
The main trouble with {the Japanese} was that, under American influence, they had adopted a constitution and a parliament. He predicted serious mischief when all that had had time to work. Despite these forebodings, he was enchanted by the country, and some of his most vivid travel writing comes from his stay there.
So at last to San Francisco, ‘a mad city� with shootings in the streets and rude hotel clerks. Everybody talked with an American accent, started getting drunk at 10.30 a.m. and had the vote.
. . . the most harrowing poem in our language {is Kipling's} (‘Danny Deever�)
I can say little more than that I remember not liking {the Jungle Books} in my childhood. If memory serves, what put me off was something I would now try to define as paraded wisdom.
. . . ‘lesser breeds without the Law�, is still liable to be misunderstood. The reference is not to Indians or any other Asians, none at that time being any sort of international threat, but to European nationalisms, chiefly German, as Orwell pointed out in his essay of 1942. These are without the Law of duty and self-restraint in that they do not recognize it. Another phrase in another fine poem, ‘“For All We Have and Are”� (1914), brought Kipling some obloquy. ‘The Hun is at the gate� has been taken as an incitement to racial hatred. No: ‘the Hun� is a metaphor for ‘the barbarian, the enemy of decent values�, and ‘the gate� is not that of England and the Empire, but that of civilization. If there is a fault here, it is one of overstatement only.
Chesterton ... wrote of Kipling that he was ‘the globetrotter; he has not the patience to become part of anything�. And so ‘he thinks of England as a place�; we do not think of our home as, or primarily as, a place. (98)
Not long after Kipling’s death, over thirty years later, T. S. Eliot commented on his ‘detachment and remoteness from all environment.... He remains somehow [yes, but how?] alien and aloof from all with which he identifies himself.� (98)
We could pass over the whole business in embarrassed silence if ‘Mary Postgate� were not one of its author’s finest performances, as penetrating a character-study as he ever achieved. It must continue to trouble his admirers and fortify his detractors. (He had beyond doubt begun it more than six months before he learned that his son was missing.)
Kipling excerpt:
“A soldier had been nearly hacked in two by a broad-bladed Arab spear. For one instant the man felt no pain. Looking down, he saw that his life-blood was going from him. The stupid bewilderment on his face was so intensely comic that both Dick and Torpenhow [Dick’s fellow war-correspondent], still panting and unstrung from a fight for life, had roared with laughter, in which the man seemed as if he would join, but, as his lips parted in a sheepish grin, the agony of death came upon him, and he pitched grunting at their feet. Dick laughed again, remembering the horror. It seemed so exactly like his own case.� (page 111)
Amis: In their different ways, Eliot and Orwell led the reaction in Kipling’s favour. A poet who had once been the voice of England and tended to dislike her enemies might have something to be said for him m 1941, and Eliot’s account of Kipling’s virtues was both cogent and enthusiastic. Even so, puzzlement was aroused: could this be another of Mr Eliot’s straightfaced jokes? Orwell’s essay, coming from a man indisputably of the Left, must have been more upsetting. He had seen two vital facts: his experience of fascism in Spain and elsewhere had taught him that Kipling was not within a hundred miles of that position, and his experience of the Empire in the Burma Police, although it had made him a convinced anti-imperialist, had taught him that a man who identifies with the ruling power is not shedding but taking on responsibility; like it or not, the thing is there and somebody has to run it.
July 12, 2022
April 18, 2020
Here are some notable lines:
All children, unquestioned despots or not, need opposition at some stage before puberty, and whereas a big stick and a couple of hell-fire specialists are not the ideal instruments to provide it, Rudyard got what he needed. He may have got other things besides: the themes of betrayal, ill-treatment and revenge do run through his work, though he is quite as likely to have acquired these interests at his public school; his attitude to women is sometimes unfavourable, though this could be said of plenty of men with no Aunty Rosa in their early lives. He himself asserted, perhaps sardonically, that it was all good training for a writer: close observation of moods, of how words and actions diverged, and so on.
His fondness for American authors—Emerson, Longfellow, Poe, Whitman, Bret Harte, Mark Twain—was unusual in the England of his day.
[The forty Plain Tales is] a work of tremendous talent, pessimistic about human behavior, certainly, often designed to appeal to the reader’s more malicious instincts, well yes, but wise as well as worldly-wise,
Kipling was an authoritarian in the sense that he was not a democrat. To him, a parliament was a place where people with no knowledge of things as they were could dictate to the men who did real work, and could change their dictates at whim. His ideal was a feudalism that had never existed, a loyal governed class freely obeying incorrupt, conscientious governors. He was vague about how you became a governor: you probably (as in the Empire) just found you were one. Nevertheless, birth, influence, money, educational status and the like must not count as qualifications for leadership. Merit, competence and a sense of responsibility were what did count: ‘the job belongs to the man who can do it�. As George Orwell pointed out, Kipling was further from being a fascist than can easily be imagined in a period when totalitarianism—a very different thing from authoritarianism—is accepted as a possibly valid or even desirable system. He (Kipling) was that nowadays puzzling creature, an oligarch who believed passionately in freedom. Kipling was an imperialist. He accepted the Empire as it stood and he approved the annexation of Upper Burma. ... {For Kipling} The {British} Empire was riddled with imperfections, and it neither would nor should last for ever.
Kipling was a racialist, or racist. The White Man’s Burden is indeed a burden, an arduous duty, not the inheritance of a natural privilege, and the white men must carry it not because they are white but because they are qualified;
Kipling believed in the separation, or rather the continued separateness, of races. ... This is an appeal to prudence rather than prejudice.
Kipling believed in something ill-defined, though practical and unmysterious, called ‘The Law�. It pervades his Jungle Books, but it has nothing to do with the law of the jungle as we usually think of it (that is, the weak finish last). What is envisaged is society as a network of obligations, each individual doing the job appropriate to him to the best of his ability. Law, order, duty, restraint, obedience, discipline (to tidy up a line from a poem) may sound to us in combination like the programme of some right-wing political adventurer; for Kipling they were values to be pursued freely, at the bidding of self-respect and self-reliance. Their message is, of course, a conservative one, without much application to our time.
The main trouble with {the Japanese} was that, under American influence, they had adopted a constitution and a parliament. He predicted serious mischief when all that had had time to work. Despite these forebodings, he was enchanted by the country, and some of his most vivid travel writing comes from his stay there.
So at last to San Francisco, ‘a mad city� with shootings in the streets and rude hotel clerks. Everybody talked with an American accent, started getting drunk at 10.30 a.m. and had the vote.
. . . the most harrowing poem in our language {is Kipling's} (‘Danny Deever�)
I can say little more than that I remember not liking {the Jungle Books} in my childhood. If memory serves, what put me off was something I would now try to define as paraded wisdom.
. . . ‘lesser breeds without the Law�, is still liable to be misunderstood. The reference is not to Indians or any other Asians, none at that time being any sort of international threat, but to European nationalisms, chiefly German, as Orwell pointed out in his essay of 1942. These are without the Law of duty and self-restraint in that they do not recognize it. Another phrase in another fine poem, ‘“For All We Have and Are”� (1914), brought Kipling some obloquy. ‘The Hun is at the gate� has been taken as an incitement to racial hatred. No: ‘the Hun� is a metaphor for ‘the barbarian, the enemy of decent values�, and ‘the gate� is not that of England and the Empire, but that of civilization. If there is a fault here, it is one of overstatement only.
Chesterton ... wrote of Kipling that he was ‘the globetrotter; he has not the patience to become part of anything�. And so ‘he thinks of England as a place�; we do not think of our home as, or primarily as, a place. (98)
Not long after Kipling’s death, over thirty years later, T. S. Eliot commented on his ‘detachment and remoteness from all environment.... He remains somehow [yes, but how?] alien and aloof from all with which he identifies himself.� (98)
We could pass over the whole business in embarrassed silence if ‘Mary Postgate� were not one of its author’s finest performances, as penetrating a character-study as he ever achieved. It must continue to trouble his admirers and fortify his detractors. (He had beyond doubt begun it more than six months before he learned that his son was missing.)
Kipling excerpt:
“A soldier had been nearly hacked in two by a broad-bladed Arab spear. For one instant the man felt no pain. Looking down, he saw that his life-blood was going from him. The stupid bewilderment on his face was so intensely comic that both Dick and Torpenhow [Dick’s fellow war-correspondent], still panting and unstrung from a fight for life, had roared with laughter, in which the man seemed as if he would join, but, as his lips parted in a sheepish grin, the agony of death came upon him, and he pitched grunting at their feet. Dick laughed again, remembering the horror. It seemed so exactly like his own case.� (page 111)
Amis: In their different ways, Eliot and Orwell led the reaction in Kipling’s favour. A poet who had once been the voice of England and tended to dislike her enemies might have something to be said for him m 1941, and Eliot’s account of Kipling’s virtues was both cogent and enthusiastic. Even so, puzzlement was aroused: could this be another of Mr Eliot’s straightfaced jokes? Orwell’s essay, coming from a man indisputably of the Left, must have been more upsetting. He had seen two vital facts: his experience of fascism in Spain and elsewhere had taught him that Kipling was not within a hundred miles of that position, and his experience of the Empire in the Burma Police, although it had made him a convinced anti-imperialist, had taught him that a man who identifies with the ruling power is not shedding but taking on responsibility; like it or not, the thing is there and somebody has to run it.
July 12, 2022
April 18, 2020
July 23, 2024
Enjoy learning about Kipling, a very unique and varied person. Have read a few of his works, but knew very little about him prior to reading this book. I enjoyed the manner of this authors approach to Kipling as a person and as a writer also the emphasis Amis place on critique of both.
January 17, 2020
I did not find the book engaging. Words were scattered all over. Frankly, I just read 70% of the book when I decided to abandon it.
May 28, 2014
Nice and concise biography of Kipling with lots of great illustrations and photographs. This seems like one of those books they have in gift shop at tourist destinations. Just enough to give you a quick overview of the man and his work.
July 16, 2015
This one is a bit old now and says as much about Amis as Kipling but a reasonable introduction with plenty of illustrations. It's one in a series of attractively produced Thames and Hudson Literary Lives.
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