Beginning Many Inventions
Feb. 14th, 2010 12:05 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
poliphiloI'm still reading Kipling. I won't blog every story, because If I did I'd find myself making the same general points over and over again. The collection I currently have in hand is Many Inventions, first published in 1893. My copy once belonged to a chap called Sir John Dodd.
Kipling has left India and is living in rooms in a building (which still exists) down the side of Charing Cross Station. He's young, unmarried and more famous than it's possible for a very good writer to be in these latter days. Many of the stories hark back to India, but London- and England- are beginning to be noticed. In "A Conference of the Powers" the narrator introduces a bunch of young subalterns, fresh from the frontier, to a distinguished literary gent who is half Henry James and half Thomas Hardy. This is as frankly autobiographical as Kipling ever gets. The old friends (the subalterns) charm and astonish the new friend (the distinguished novelist) and drag him off for a night on the town. There are misunderstandings- all on the side of the novelist- but things pass off more easily in the fictive world than they did in real life where, round about this time, the actual Kipling- torn between old and new- suffered a breakdown.
The moral of the story- not stated too baldly or explicitly- is that civilisation depends upon the efforts of its coarse, fighting men. The space in which the novelist flourishes can only exist because someone else is prepared to go out into the jungle and chase dacoits. It's the old, timeless argument for empire, and one our politicians still deploy.
The masterpiece of the collection is "The Finest Story in the World", in which the narrator races to retrieve the unvalued, past-life memories of a half-educated London clerk before the young man's other concerns wipe them out. With its mash-up of Hindu mysticism, social satire and images from a vividly imagined, heroic past it anticipatesThe Waste Land. If I say that Kipling is subtler, smarter and more in control of his material than Eliot I shall be speaking heresy, but that doesn't mean it's not true. This story comes out of the same anxiety about identity as A Conference of Powers, but takes the exploration to another level. To call it "The Finest Story in the World" was- however deep the intended irony- an amazing piece of chutzpah. But why not? It's certainly a contender.
Kipling has left India and is living in rooms in a building (which still exists) down the side of Charing Cross Station. He's young, unmarried and more famous than it's possible for a very good writer to be in these latter days. Many of the stories hark back to India, but London- and England- are beginning to be noticed. In "A Conference of the Powers" the narrator introduces a bunch of young subalterns, fresh from the frontier, to a distinguished literary gent who is half Henry James and half Thomas Hardy. This is as frankly autobiographical as Kipling ever gets. The old friends (the subalterns) charm and astonish the new friend (the distinguished novelist) and drag him off for a night on the town. There are misunderstandings- all on the side of the novelist- but things pass off more easily in the fictive world than they did in real life where, round about this time, the actual Kipling- torn between old and new- suffered a breakdown.
The moral of the story- not stated too baldly or explicitly- is that civilisation depends upon the efforts of its coarse, fighting men. The space in which the novelist flourishes can only exist because someone else is prepared to go out into the jungle and chase dacoits. It's the old, timeless argument for empire, and one our politicians still deploy.
The masterpiece of the collection is "The Finest Story in the World", in which the narrator races to retrieve the unvalued, past-life memories of a half-educated London clerk before the young man's other concerns wipe them out. With its mash-up of Hindu mysticism, social satire and images from a vividly imagined, heroic past it anticipatesThe Waste Land. If I say that Kipling is subtler, smarter and more in control of his material than Eliot I shall be speaking heresy, but that doesn't mean it's not true. This story comes out of the same anxiety about identity as A Conference of Powers, but takes the exploration to another level. To call it "The Finest Story in the World" was- however deep the intended irony- an amazing piece of chutzpah. But why not? It's certainly a contender.
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on the ships at Mylae
Date: 2010-02-14 12:50 pm (UTC)I think there is more compassion in Kipling. The fact that I think this is A Good Thing is probably a sign I'm getting older.
Re: on the ships at Mylae
Date: 2010-02-14 01:41 pm (UTC)Kipling is another who "does the police in different voices".
Yes, there is deeper compassion in Kipling. Eliot despises his "young man carbuncular" and that's that. Kipling makes fun of Charlie Mears, but it's relatively gentle fun- and it involves the recognition that this silly, common, young man is merely the temporary case for a soul that rowed in a Greek galley and went adventuring to Vinland.
I'm coming to think of this collection- Many Inventions- as the break-down collection. Mental health issues and issues of identity are all over the place. There's a persistent sense of modern civilised life as a flimsy construct that might at any time by smashed apart by dacoits or mental illness or a remembrance of past lives or- quite literally in a story that's coming up- by monsters from the deep.
I think Eliot was steeped in Kipling. It's no accident he edited a collection of Kipling's Collected Verse- nor that in the introduction to that collection he rather subtly denigrated Kipling's achievement.
no subject
Date: 2010-02-14 01:58 pm (UTC)I was thinking about one of Kipling's soldiers-in-India stories the other day as I was reading a news account from Afghanistan. In the news, the Afghan natives of some village were mad for wrestling -- in the Kipling story the British soldiers were approached by natives or native troops who asked if they knew how to wrestle. Folks really should read their Kipling before heading out to those promiscuous parts.
I think, but won't swear to it, that the story I'm remembering is "The Brushwood Boy."
no subject
Date: 2010-02-14 02:15 pm (UTC)I believe you're right about The Brushwood Boy.
no subject
Date: 2010-02-14 05:32 pm (UTC)And it ends with the "Anchor Song," which is one of my favorite Kipling poems.
no subject
Date: 2010-02-14 05:36 pm (UTC)You should read Jane Gardam's Old Filth (2004), if you have not already. Aside from being a really terrific novel, it's a story about Raj orphans and partly a fantasia on Kipling's "Baa Baa, Black Sheep," therefore on the life of Kipling himself.
no subject
Date: 2010-02-14 05:40 pm (UTC)It's in your repertoire, isn't it? Bet it's a real bugger to sing!
no subject
Date: 2010-02-14 05:41 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-02-14 05:43 pm (UTC)Oh, yes.
It's in your repertoire, isn't it? Bet it's a real bugger to sing!
It's a technical-nautical tongue-twister. It's so much fun!
no subject
Date: 2010-02-14 08:10 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-02-15 10:06 am (UTC)Jenny
no subject
Date: 2010-02-15 10:45 am (UTC)Tomorrow is going to be a bit of a nightmare- we'll be driving all day then getting up at about five the following morning to catch the train. We'd love to see you, but under the circumstances I think we'll just be wanting to spend as much time as is feasible- which won't be nearly enough- in bed.
no subject
Date: 2010-02-15 11:09 am (UTC)Jenny
no subject
Date: 2010-02-15 11:29 am (UTC)