Kim

  Fun Story, Interesting Exploration

Amanda Evans of Oregon City, 10/16/2008

When I picked up Kim, I was expecting a tale of a young street-wise boy who travels around India with an old man and has fun adventures meeting interesting people. I was in for a surprise! Kimball O'Hara, fondly known as Friend of all the World, grew up on the streets of British India fending for himself. His Irish mother died of cholera when he was three and his soldier father's regiment went home without him. O'Hara found a half-caste woman who took opium to look after his little boy, began taking opium himself, and "died as poor whites die in India." He left Kim three papers which he was never to part with as well as a prophecy about a red bull on a green field and a colonel riding a horse. Kim was left to make the best of his situation.

And he did. He lived a wonderful life dodging missionaries who wanted to put him in school, begging for his food ("Why should we spend good silver when the world is so good?" he asks at one point), and making fun of the many different kinds of people who come across his path.

Then comes a turning point in his young life. He meets a lama (a kind of holy man) from Tibet who is unlike any of the many people he has ever seen. This lama is looking for the "River of the Arrow" which will cleanse him from sin and Kim, intrigued, decides to follow him on his quest. And thus, the story that I expected is set up. But, instead of just following this old man around seeing the sights and meeting the people, Kim falls in with a horse trader who is secretly a spy for the British. Muhbub Ali asks Kim to deliver a message concerning the "pedigree of a white stallion," a story that Kim doesn't believe at all.

Kim is primarily a travel story in which the main focus is the people and places that Kim sees as he follows the lama around the interesting and exotic land of India during the time of British colonization. Parts of it are hard to follow because, though Rudyard Kipling knew what he was talking about, we 21st century Americans are not very familiar with India during the Victorian Age. There are passages that would be more amusing if we knew the mannerisms and idiosyncrasies of the castes involved. However, behind this travel story is the exciting chronicle of Kim finding his red bull on a green field and becoming a spy for the British.