KIM（ISBN=9780679443605）pdf/txt下载_在线阅读全文

编辑推荐

One of the particular pleasures of reading Kim is the full range of emotion, knowledge, and experience that Rudyard Kipling gives his complex hero. Kim O'Hara, the orphaned son of an Irish soldier stationed in India, is neither innocent nor victimized. Raised by an opium-addicted half-caste woman since his equally dissolute father's death, the boy has grown up in the streets of Lahore:

Though he was burned black as any native; though he spoke the vernacular by preference, and his mother-tongue in a clipped uncertain sing-song; though he consorted on terms of perfect equality with the small boys of the bazar; Kim was white--a poor white of the very poorest.
From his father and the woman who raised him, Kim has come to believe that a great destiny awaits him. The details, however, are a bit fuzzy, consisting as they do of the woman's addled prophecies of "'a great Red Bull on a green field, and the Colonel riding on his tall horse, yes, and'--dropping into English--'nine hundred devils.'"

In the meantime, Kim amuses himself with intrigues, executing "commissions by night on the crowded housetops for sleek and shiny young men of fashion." His peculiar heritage as a white child gone native, combined with his "love of the game for its own sake," makes him uniquely suited for a bigger game. And when, at last, the long-awaited colonel comes along, Kim is recruited as a spy in Britain's struggle to maintain its colonial grip on India. Kipling was, first and foremost, a man of his time; born and raised in India in the 19th century, he was a fervid supporter of the Raj. Nevertheless, his portrait of India and its people is remarkably sympathetic. Yes, there is the stereotypical Westernized Indian Babu Huree Chander with his atrocious English, but there is also Kim's friend and mentor, the Afghani horse trader Mahub Ali, and the gentle Tibetan lama with whom Kim travels along the Grand Trunk Road. The humanity of his characters consistently belies Kipling's private prejudices, and raises Kim above the mere ripping good yarn to the level of a timeless classic. --Alix Wilber --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

内容简介

(Book Jacket Status: Not Jacketed) Introduction by John Bayley

作者简介

Susane Colasanti lives in New York City.

媒体评论

The tale of an Irish boy raised as an Indian in imperial India. It is the story of his coming of age in a world of high adventure.

在线试读部分章节

From Jeffrey Meyers's Introduction to KimIn Kim, Kipling creates an exotic atmosphere, full ofvivid characters and incidents, and immediately draws the readerinto his strange world. The novel concerns a religious quest and aquest for identity, and includes both enlightenment and espionage,tranquillity and violence. It combines social, cultural, andpolitical history with the hardships and goal of a travel book.Like Hermann Hesse's Siddhartha (1922), Somerset Maugham'sThe Razor's Edge (l944), and Iris Murdoch's The Sea, theSea (1978), it is one of the rare European novels with aBuddhist theme. Kim and the lama, Dharma Bums on the Road,foreshadow the sprawling works of Jack Kerouac. Maugham, a greatadmirer of Kipling, wrote that he gives you "the tang of the East,the smell of the bazaars, the torpor of the rains, the heat of thesun-scorched earth, the rough life of the barracks."10
Kipling achieved his brilliant effects by combining his twogreat themes, childhood and India, and by creating a bountifularray of characters, subtle modulations of style and speech, and acarefully wrought structure that controls the series of fortuitousencounters and picaresque adventures. Kim, the orphaned son of adrunken Irish sergeant and a nursemaid mother, has been brought upby a Eurasian opium eater, given free run of the narrow streets andback alleys of Lahore, and become completely assimilated to Indianlife. The rainbow coalition of indigenous teachers, who lead him tohis true identity and real vocation, are increasingly Europeanized;his English teachers, who train him as a spy, are increasinglysophisticated and significant.
The Tibetan Buddhist lama rejects the world and searches forsalvation. Mahbub Ali, the Afghan Muslim horse trader, works withthe English but retains his traditional customs. Hurree ChunderMookerjee, the Hindu Bengali and "semi-anglicized product of ourIndian colleges,"11 tries to adopt British behavior and speech. TheProtestant and Catholic clergymen, Mr. Bennett and Father Victor,try to co-opt Kim into their religions. Lurgan, English but born inIndia, tests Kim and trains him for the Great Game of espionage.Colonel Creighton, a secret agent masquerading as an ethnologist(Kim, an expert on castes and keen on mimicry, is himself anamateur ethnologist), recognizes Kim's unique potential andexploits his rare talents. Kim asks: "'What am I? Mussalman, Hindu,Jain, or Buddhist?'" and is none of the above. But in a brief,touching scene he combines the British, Muslim, Buddhist, and Jainelements in his character and culture and forgets "even the GreatGame as he stooped, Mohammedan fashion, to touch his master's feetin the dust of the Jain temple".

<div>From Jeffrey Meyers's Introduction to Kim
In Kim, Kipling creates an exotic atmosphere, full of
vivid characters and incidents, and immediately draws the reader
into his strange world. The novel concerns a religious quest and a
quest for identity, and includes both enlightenment and espionage,
tranquillity and violence. It combines social, cultural, and
political history with the hardships and goal of a travel book.
Like Hermann Hesse's Siddhartha (1922), Somerset Maugham's
The Razor's Edge (l944), and Iris Murdoch's The Sea, the
Sea (1978), it is one of the rare European novels with a
Buddhist theme. Kim and the lama, Dharma Bums on the Road,
foreshadow the sprawling works of Jack Kerouac. Maugham, a great
admirer of Kipling, wrote that he gives you "the tang of the East,
the smell of the bazaars, the torpor of the rains, the heat of the
sun-scorched earth, the rough life of the barracks."10
Kipling achieved his brilliant effects by combining his two
great themes, childhood and India, and by creating a bountiful
array of characters, subtle modulations of style and speech, and a
carefully wrought structure that controls the series of fortuitous
encounters and picaresque adventures. Kim, the orphaned son of a
drunken Irish sergeant and a nursemaid mother, has been brought up
by a Eurasian opium eater, given free run of the narrow streets and
back alleys of Lahore, and become completely assimilated to Indian
life. The rainbow coalition of indigenous teachers, who lead him to
his true identity and real vocation, are increasingly Europeanized;
his English teachers, who train him as a spy, are increasingly
sophisticated and significant.
The Tibetan Buddhist lama rejects the world and searches for
salvation. Mahbub Ali, the Afghan Muslim horse trader, works with
the English but retains his traditional customs. Hurree Chunder
Mookerjee, the Hindu Bengali and "semi-anglicized product of our
Indian colleges,"11 tries to adopt British behavior and speech. The
Protestant and Catholic clergymen, Mr. Bennett and Father Victor,
try to co-opt Kim into their religions. Lurgan, English but born in
India, tests Kim and trains him for the Great Game of espionage.
Colonel Creighton, a secret agent masquerading as an ethnologist
(Kim, an expert on castes and keen on mimicry, is himself an
amateur ethnologist), recognizes Kim's unique potential and
exploits his rare talents. Kim asks: "'What am I? Mussalman, Hindu,
Jain, or Buddhist?'" and is none of the above. But in a brief,
touching scene he combines the British, Muslim, Buddhist, and Jain
elements in his character and culture and forgets "even the Great
Game as he stooped, Mohammedan fashion, to touch his master's feet
in the dust of the Jain temple".
Kim and each of his native mentors have a different and quite
idiosyncratic way of speaking. Kipling vividly conveys the flavor
of vernacular speech and the formulaic repetitions of unlettered
folk by using traditional proverbs and archaic diction from the
seventeenth-century English of the King James Bible and
Shakespeare. The lama keeps repeating the same solemn banalities in
a singsong cadence: "'They are all bound upon the Wheel. . . .
Bound from life after life. To none of these has the Way been
shown'". Mahbub Ali's declamatory phrases express his hearty
ruffianism: "'God's curse on all unbelievers! Beg from those of my
tail who are of thy faith.'" The babu Hurree, pompous and slightly
absurd, drops his definite articles, mispronounces long words, and
misuses English idioms: "'I am of opeenion that it is most
extraordinary and effeecient performance. Except that you had told
me I should have opined that—that—that you were pulling my legs.'"
The seductive Woman of Shamlegh speaks with languid insinuations:
"'I do not love Sahibs, but thou wilt make us a charm in return for
it. We do not wish little Shamlegh to get a bad name.'" Kim shifts
from stilted English before his formal education: "'Every month I
become a year more old,'" to old-fashioned schoolboy slang after
he's been to St. Xavier's: "'By Jove! . . . This is a dam'-tight
place.'" T. S. Eliot observed the contrast between Kipling's
portrayal of native characters in the early stories and in
Kim:
There are two strata in Kipling's appreciation of India, the
stratum of the child and that of the young man. It was the latter
who observed the British in India and wrote the rather cocky and
rather acid tales of Delhi and Simla, but it was the former who
loved the country and its people. . . . The Indian characters have
the greater reality because they are treated with the understanding
of love. . . . It is the four great Indian characters in Kim
who are real: the Lama [not Indian], Mahbub Ali, Hurree Chunder
Mookerjee, and the wealthy widow from the North.
</div>

显示全部信息

KIM（ISBN=9780679443605）下载

KIM（ISBN=9780679443605）

发布书评

相关图书推荐