Five Short Pieces
Feb. 2nd, 2010 11:52 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
poliphiloLife's Handicap is a bit of a rag-bag. Later collections are meticulously organised, but here Kipling has just bundled together whatever he had available at the time. The more substantial pieces are placed at the front, the scrappy, little anecdotes- originally written to fill empty columns in some newspaper or other- bring up the rear.
"Namgay Doola" is a joke at the expense of the Irish. If I were Irish myself my reaction would be, "patronising English git".
"The Lang Men o' Larut" may be the most pointless thing Kipling ever wrote.
With "Bertran and Bimi" we're on a steamer travelling round the Malay peninsula. Hans Breitmann, the orchid collector, tells us a gruesome tale in his funny German accent- and incidentally utters the glorious phrase- which I repeat to myself whenever I'm faced with loud and bumptious people- "you haf too much Ego in your Cosmos".
"Reingelder and the German Flag" is another tale from Hans Breitmann, similarly gruesome. The German flag is a species of poisonous snake.
"The Wandering Jew" deals with a rich man in the grip of a crazy obsession. It makes me think of Howard Hughes. Incidentally, the man is not a Jew- and by the end of the story he no longer wanders. It's a prime example of how much power Kipling could pack into four pages when his daemon was upon him.
"Namgay Doola" is a joke at the expense of the Irish. If I were Irish myself my reaction would be, "patronising English git".
"The Lang Men o' Larut" may be the most pointless thing Kipling ever wrote.
With "Bertran and Bimi" we're on a steamer travelling round the Malay peninsula. Hans Breitmann, the orchid collector, tells us a gruesome tale in his funny German accent- and incidentally utters the glorious phrase- which I repeat to myself whenever I'm faced with loud and bumptious people- "you haf too much Ego in your Cosmos".
"Reingelder and the German Flag" is another tale from Hans Breitmann, similarly gruesome. The German flag is a species of poisonous snake.
"The Wandering Jew" deals with a rich man in the grip of a crazy obsession. It makes me think of Howard Hughes. Incidentally, the man is not a Jew- and by the end of the story he no longer wanders. It's a prime example of how much power Kipling could pack into four pages when his daemon was upon him.
