The Janeites

[poliphilo]

This is one of Kiplings later stories, published at a time when his reputation was in decline and his talent at its sharpest and most refined.  Three men are talking in a Masonic Lodge shortly after the end of the first world war. One of them, the main speaker, Humberstall,  has been blown up twice, which has affected his memory and his nerves. The Lodge specialises in men like him and offers them, without patronage, therapy through work and ritual. Humberstall's story emerges as he polishes the woodwork of the Lodge's 18th century organ.

He's not so much an unreliable narrator as a not fully-comprehending one. He gives us bits of a picture and we have to fit them together and supply missing connections.  There were three men (as in the story frame)- citizen soldiers who had bonded across rank and class in a shared love of the works of Jane Austen.  For Humberstall- interpreting what he doesn't know in terms of what he does- this bond is a kind of Masonry. One of the men- the alcoholic professor, now mess steward-  tutors Humberstall in Austen- for cash- and he gets to enter the "lodge". The unit receives a direct hit from a bomb- in the last great German offensive of the war- and the other three are killed.  Humberstall is the last of the Janeites. Only he isn't.  He carries on talking Austen- because Austen has taken him over-  and a nursing sister- a fellow initiate- finds him a place on an over-crowded hospital train.

It's a story about war, healing, class and the redemptive and enduring power of art.  It's a text that keeps on giving.

Kipling is a master craftsman- a writer who weighed the value of every word. Which makes him a lot like Joyce, when you come to think of it- a comparison I think worth making because it suggests how modern, how experimental a writer he is.   Also, like Joyce, he demands very careful reading- with full attention to the sub-text. Again like Joyce- he must be an absolute bugger to translate. His place in the canon has been denied him because the literary establishment doesn't like his politics- though he never dabbled in fascism- as so many of the gold-standard modernists did- and he wasn't an anti-semite either. Certain of his things are ridiculously popular, others- like the Janeites- will probably only ever appeal to the few. 

It has always annoyed me that the world doesn't "get" Kipling- that it's still dismissing him as a bristle-moustached jingo ("Such a coarse soul" as one of my University tutors protested) when he's actually so subtle, so humane, so very great - but on the other hand there's a pleasure in belonging to a small band of initiates- bonding across all manner of divisions- in our shared love for a favourite, undervalued writer. I've met some of my brothers and sisters here on LJ.

You know who you are, my fellow Kiplingites.

Comments

[lblanchard.livejournal.com]

I also believe that anyone wanting to understand what we're facing in Afghanistan needs to read both Kim and The Man Who Would Be King, and possibly others. Kipling gets it.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Yes indeed.

And some of the Barrack Rooms Ballads too. This for instance-

Ford o' Kabul River

Kabul town's by Kabul river -
Blow the bugle, draw the sword -
There I lef' my mate for ever,
Wet an' drippin' by the ford.
Ford, ford, ford o' Kabul river,
Ford o' Kabul river in the dark !
There's the river up and brimmin',
An' there's 'arf a squadron swimmin'
'Cross the ford o' Kabul river in the dark.

Kabul town's a blasted place -
Blow the bugle, draw the sword -
'Strewth I sha'n't forget 'is face
Wet an' drippin' by the ford !
Ford, ford, ford o' Kabul river,
Ford o' Kabul river in the dark !
Keep the crossing-stakes beside you,
An' they will surely guide you
'Cross the ford o' Kabul river in the dark.

Kabul town is sun and dust -
Blow the bugle, draw the sword -
I'd ha' sooner drownded fust
'Stead of 'im beside the ford.
Ford, ford, ford o' Kabul river,
Ford o' Kabul river in the dark !
You can 'ear the 'orses threshin',
You can 'ear the men a-splashin',
'Cross the ford o' Kabul river in the dark.

Kabul town was ours to take -
Blow the bugle, draw the sword -
I'd ha' left it for 'is sake -
'Im that left me by the ford.
Ford, ford, ford o' Kabul river,
Ford o' Kabul river in the dark !
It's none so bloomin' dry there;
Ain't you never comin' nigh there,
'Cross the ford o' Kabul river in the dark ?

Kabul town'll go to hell -
Blow the bugle, draw the sword -
'Fore I see him 'live an' well -
'Im the best beside the ford.
Ford, ford, ford o' Kabul river,
Ford o' Kabul river in the dark !
Gawd 'elp 'em if they blunder,
For their boots'll pull 'em under,
By the ford o' Kabul river in the dark.

Turn your 'orse from Kabul town -
Blow the bugle, draw the sword -
'Im an' 'arf my troop is down,
Down an' drownded by the ford.
Ford, ford, ford o' Kabul river,
Ford o' Kabul river in the dark !
There's the river low an' fallin',
But it ain't no use o' callin'
'Cross the ford o' Kabul river in the dark.

[lblanchard.livejournal.com]

Yes, I read the Ford o' Kabul River poem just the other night. Re your other comment: how wonderful to have a personal connection. My father had a slim book of Kipling verse that was given to him by a young woman while he was in London during WWII. My mother would get tight lipped every time she saw it, and once suggested he should get rid of it. I didn't understand then, but I do now. Doesn't seem fair, though -- she didn't meet my father until 1946 or 1947.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I hope he held onto it.

Mr granny was warned off working for the Kiplings because Mrs Kipling was reputed to be a difficult woman, but I don't think she found her so. I wish now I'd thought to ask her more about her time at Batemans.

[lblanchard.livejournal.com]

He did, but it eventually lost its talismanic powers and was itself lost in one of our many moves.

[oakmouse]

One of the things I like about Kipling is that he writes the reality of war so well.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

He does. I think he's the first modern writer (in English anyway) to write convincingly about soldiers and soldiering.

[oakmouse]

I would agree, with the caveat that I would also credit the writings of several soldiers who were not professional writers. Reading Kipling's war poetry is much like reading the journals and autobiographies of some of the men who were in the Peninsular war --- most especially the Autobiography of General Sir Harry Smith, and John Kincaid's Memories of a Rifleman (I hope I got that latter title right).

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I must look out for those.

[oakmouse]

Do, I think you'll find them interesting reading. I've never found Johnny Kincaid online except in a download-from-Amazon format, but Harry's there in full for free at a wonderful Regency site: http://homepages.ihug.co.nz/~awoodley/harry/harryintro.html

Kinkaid's two books are Random Shots from a Rifleman and Adventures in the Rifle Brigade. There's also a bio of him by Maria Carnegie called Fusillade from a Rifleman which I hope to nab when it's released. It's due to be published in April 09. Unfortunately I've only read excerpts from his own books. (Books printed in England in the 1840s aren't easy to come by over here --- or cheap, when found. I still can't believe my DH found a copy of Harry's autobio on the open shelves at the University of Washington. Somebody dropped that ball!)

If you don't mind being seen with a romance novel in hand, Georgette Heyer wrote a nicely readable and very realistic (not sentimental at all) version of part of Harry's story under the title The Spanish Bride. She drew from the journals and bios of the men she wrote about, and it's much more a war story than a romance. It's all her fault that I got into reading their original writings in the first place. *g* It's also due to her that I speak of them as though I know them, because I almost feel I do.