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

[jfs.livejournal.com]

*hands up*

I'm a big fan, especially of his poetry. He's got a beautiful sense of rhythm.

[ideealisme.livejournal.com]

Some of the more robustly imperialistic, chauvinistic poems might put people off him. "If" is great until the last line, and as for the White Man's Burden, the less said the better.

But now you have me wanting to go find this story. Thanks for sparking my interest in Kipling. I wonder if he is anything like Somerset Maugham, another writer I enjoy.

[huskyteer.livejournal.com]

I've never minded the ending of 'If' - I interpret 'a man' as 'a member of the human race' and 'my son' as the narrator addressing a specific individual.

But then I'm an unashamed fan.

[halfmoon-mollie.livejournal.com]

one of my favorite of his stories is "The Man Who Would be King". I found it in a moldy old garage sale book. I keep the book in a plastic bag because it stinks, but I love it.

I'll have to go look for this story. That you are a Kiplingite surprises me not. I began to read Kipling - the Just So Stories - when I was about 8.

[easyalchemy.livejournal.com]

I've never really read any Kipling, but my highschool auditorium had a bit of Kipling inscribed above the stage in gold letters which I've read so many times I could never forget it "Stand to your work and be wise, certain of sword and pen, who are neither children nor gods, but men in a world of men."
I've always really liked it.

[heleninwales.livejournal.com]

Another Kipling fan here!

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

He was a wonderful technician. He could do anything in verse- from music hall rythmns to pastiche Chaucer.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

He was an imperialist- but a thinking imperialist. He was paternalistic too, but never racist. "If" surprised him; it was one set of verses among many- and he was astonished when it took off and conquered the world. It's my considered view that in most cases his best known poems are far from being his best.

I haven't read much Maughan. There are clear connections. They both wrote about the Empire. I imagine Maughan was influenced by Kipling, especially by the early Indian stories.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

The Man Who Would Be King is a great story.

I love the Just So Stories- Kipling wrote brilliantly for children- of all ages- and also for adults. He had amazing range.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

You know what, I can't place those lines! :)

But Kipling is enormously quotable. He had a gift for the elegant, well-turned phrase.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Bravo!

[halfmoon-mollie.livejournal.com]

People who think that the Jungle Book movies bear any resemblance except in passing to the Mowgli stories ought to read those stories...

[halfmoon-mollie.livejournal.com]

from "A Song of the English"

(googled!)

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I've never watched the movies. I don't think I could bear to.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Thank you !:)

[halfmoon-mollie.livejournal.com]

the first version - the one where Phil Harris is the voice of the bear - is fun because of the voice casting, with George Sanders as Shere Khan. You have to divorce yourself from the print and enjoy the movie for what it is.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I guess.

I have a grudge against Disney. They took all those children's stories and classic fairy tales and reduced them to the same homogenised pablum.

[halfmoon-mollie.livejournal.com]

yes...well, you know, some people might see the movie and then decide to read the book. (I've done that with a lot of different movies)

But you do have a point. Disney is a bit like comfort food - very little nutritional value.

[sovay]

I am going to re-read this story now.

"The people, Lord, Thy people, are good enough for me!"

[sculptruth.livejournal.com]

Ah! Consider my hand raised -- Kipling was my first great love in literature and is still at 33. I read the Jungle Books by the time I was seven and kept reading them, as well as Just So Stories. I still have my battered 1929 copy (of the Jungle Books) from childhood. He always struck me as being so insightful to human nature. It never once occurred to me until college that he might be Imperialist and I'm saddened at his exclusion. I feel he was so instrumental at shaping who I became.

[lblanchard.livejournal.com]

Roy and I are reading Kim aloud to one another in the evenings right now. I have a set of Kipling's complete works -- unfortunately, it was published in 1917! One of these days I'll have to complete it with his later works.

[oakmouse]

*hand up*

I haven't read enough Kipling --- I got pulled over to Tolkien and a couple of other faves at an early age --- but I'm an unmitigated fan of the Jungle Books and hate Disney for turning them into so much sugary farina.

I need to read more Kipling.

[daisytells.livejournal.com]

Yep, me too! Age eight was about right to get started on the "Just So's" Later on, my son enjoyed these stories as first "read-them-yourself's". He was about seven years of age when we gave him "Just So Stories", and a year later "The Jungle Books". Once again, I am not surprised that we share this interest.

[daisytells.livejournal.com]

Yes, Disney made them not even a shadow of their former selves. I dont understand why they always have to rewrite a good story when they turn it into an animated musical. They also took Maxine Hong Kingston's story "Woman Warrior" and made it into that lame "Mu-Lan" feature. I wonder if they even gave Kingston credit for the story...

[oakmouse]

I've never understood Disney's way of "adapting" stories. I tend to avoid their movies deliberately.