Rudyard Kipling was born in British India in 1865 and died in London in 1936. He was an English short-story writer, poet and novelist. He is well known for his celebration of British imperialism and his stories and poems of British soldiers in India. Living in British India inspired most of his writing, as well as his delight in human eccentricities and the animal world. He also wrote stories for children. His Just So Stories were written for his beloved daughter, Josephine. The book was published in 1902 three years after she died from pneumonia. In 1907 he received a Nobel Prize for literature.
SHEILA did not read a book but said she remembered her father carried a small book of Rudyard Kipling stories.
PAMELA read SHORT STORIES.
Most of the stories are set in Britain. MRS BATHURST was very good. It's a story told to men working in South Africa about an officer who fled with Mrs. Bathurst, a young widow. It was considered ingenious. Another is WAYSIDE COMEDY. It's set on a station in India where everyone has to get on with each other. It's very funny. THE GARDENER has to be read carefully. Pamela said Rudyard Kipling is a sophisticated writer.
CAPTAIN COURAGEOUS
JUDY D ploughed through the book. Kipling wrote it as if he was the person speaking. She had to go back regularly as it was difficult to read and understand. The story was about a very spoiled young man who had a rich father. He was on a cruise with his mother. He's pushed overboard and presumed drowned. It's mostly about fishing for cod in the ocean. Judy found it boring.
ROSEMARY didn't finish. The language was too difficult to get her head around.
Rosemary also read JUST SO STORIES and commented on the illustrations in the book done by Rudyard Kipling. His father was an artist. Each story was very short. As it was Rosemary's own book she said it was lovely to reminisce.
JUST SO STORIES
KRIS read some of the stories including How the Leopard got his spots, How the Rhinoceros got his skin, How the Whale got his throat, the Elephant's child and the Cat that walked by himself. The stories are whimsical, imaginative, eccentric and very clever. They would delight most children of that era with stories of far away places and jungle creatures. The language is extraordinary. He told the stories to his daughter. It is considered a classic of children's literature.
CONNIE told us that Kipling sometimes changed the words when he read the book to his daughter. When his daughter realised he had changed the words she would say "Tell it Just So Daddy". This is why Kipling called it Just So Stories. Connie thoroughly enjoyed the stories.
LESLEY enjoyed them but didn't read them all. He wrote one of the stories about the kangaroo. He came to Australia in the 1990's. She said the stories had a fable like quality.
JO liked the poems after each story and said Kipling had a very good imagination. She also liked the ideas he came up with, especially the story about the young elephant with a very short nose. He becomes curious about meeting a crocodile. He sets off to find one and when he does, the crocodile gets the young elephant to come closer and pulls his nose to drag him into the water. Instead the nose becomes longer and longer as the elephant pulls back. His nose stretches and stretches and becomes a long trunk.
JULIA started to read it. She read How the Whale got his Throat. She showed us the illustration. She also read How the Camel got his Hump but she couldn't really get into the stories.
LYN read this book ten years ago but didn't enjoy the stories. She tried to read it again but didn't have the time.
BEV read SHORT STORIES
THE MAN WHO WOULD BE KING is the longest story in the book. It's a story about a journalist who has a crazy scheme to set up two British adventurers in British India to become kings in a remote part of Afghanistan and then rob the locals. One of the kings gets killed when the locals realise he is not a God and the other one comes back in rags. She found it too long, the print too small and the story boring.
JUDY A: read SHORT STORIES
RIKKI-TIKKI-TAVI is the story of a mongoose living in a yard. It manages to kill a cobra to save a little boy.
KIM
JOAN read KIM, a very old book with yellow pages and very small writing. It was published in 1901. Joan only got to about page 130. It's the story of the orphan son of an Irish soldier. Although Kim is white he was born in India. Kim and an old Lama go on a quest to find the Holy River. Neither completely British nor completely Indian, he struggles to create an identity for himself. He becomes educated in the British system and is secretly being trained as a spy. This is Kipling's most famous novel and very famous for the poem "If". She said she needed to finish the book.
VAL tried to read it but didn't get it. She found the constant need to explain an Indian God etc. irritating. She thought the second half might be better.
TAM did not Rudyard Kipling. She read a book by the author Joy Dettman. The story is set in a small country town in Australia. Tam said she really enjoyed the book and said it would be a good choice for our book club.
PAT did not read Rudyard Kipling. She read a book about Andrew Thompson, the young Scottish man who was transported to Australia in 1792. She found the information on the floods, at that time, very interesting.
Kris
NOVEMBER: We will be reading NON FICTION
