Windy

[poliphilo]

But today the wind and the rain are back. Ailz checked and we're getting higher wind speeds than anywhere else in the country. The next door neighbour was being glum about it.

I've been reading Abaft the Funnel- a collection of fugitive pieces by Kipling which he wouldn't have bothered to republish if an American publisher hadn't pirated them first. Some of them date from his early residence in London- and they're rather sad. He puts on a rictus grin but mainly he hates London and he hates England and the English and still thinks of himself as Indian. It's odd to find the future celebrant of Englishness in this frame of mind. Kipling was complex. Those who only know "If" and "The White Man's Burden" have hardly begun to scratch the surface.

I've also been reading Debits and Credits- his penultimate short story collection and arguably his best- and I'm starting on Limits and Renewals- which was his last.

Comments

[cmcmck]

And meanwhile we now have 21 flood warnings out in Shropshire!

[poliphilo]

Flooding is a regular thing on the roads round here. We'e pretty low-lying.

[cmcmck]

While we have the ever naughty River Severn!

[sovay]

Some of them date from his early residence in London- and they're rather sad. He puts on a rictus grin but mainly he hates London and he hates England and the English and still thinks of himself as Indian.

I knew about his culture shock, but I didn't realize it had turned up so bluntly in his writing. The line I always associate with his reencounter of England comes from a letter: "I am slowly discovering England, which is the most wonderful foreign land I have ever been in."

[poliphilo]

That's not the note he strikes in the essays from Abaft the Funnel- where it's all "get me the hell outta here!"

[sovay]

That's not the note he strikes in the essays from Abaft the Funnel- where it's all "get me the hell outta here!"

I conclude the wonder wore off fast.

[poliphilo]

Rather the other way round I think. The essays in AtF are first impressions.