During five literary generations every enlightened person has despised him, and at the end of that time nine-tenths of those enlightened persons are forgotten and Kipling is in some sense still there. Orwell's essay on Rudyard Kipling in the Letters and Essays
> It is not clear which view of imperialism was more nearly correct.
It's also not clear which version is better. An argument can be made that an Empire run as a money making concern is going to be better tun than one run as a subsidized evangelizing humanitarian project for the same reason a company run as a money making concern is going to be run better than one run as a subsidized evangelizing humanitarian project.
Most criticism of Rudyard Kipling smacks of jealousy. He was by far the most popular poet of his time. He wrote about ordinary people. He wrote especially well about soldiers. Military people to this day love his work. He refused the post of Poet Laureate.
These days poets and songwriters mostly write about themselves. We rarely get songs like “Wichita Lineman”.
"We all live by robbing Asiatic coolies" is perfect, and true. Just look at your iPhone, and try to arrive at a realistic assessment of the gap between your lifestyle and that of the people who made it for you.
How is it robbing them when they are being paid more for making iPhones than they could make at traditional jobs, and at rates they are eager to accept?
Those people are being paid market price for their labor. Heck, there have apparently been social problems caused by too many Asians fleeing their farms for the chance to work in iPhone factories.
Imperialism never made economic sense. It was a drive for control of land, and the people on it. Long after the industrial revolution, one could still raise troops. The British brought troops from all over the Empire to both world wars.
Orwell probably considered Kim and Captains Courageous to be children's books, what would today be called Young Adult fiction. It is unlikely that he was unfamiliar with them.
_Captains Courageous_ is a young adult book but _Kim_ is a first rate novel aimed primarily at an adult audience. And _Naulakha_, which Kipling coauthored, is certainly not a children's book (nor very good).
I'm reminded of Shaw's comment on GKC's book about him that every fact one could look up Chesterton got wrong, every fact you couldn't look up (not Shaw's words) he got right. In a world without the Internet and with less easy access to reference works it isn't surprising if a busy writer sometimes works out of what he knows without actually checking his facts.
In my next post you will see Orwell treating a conjecture as a fact — mistakenly.
One of the interesting things about some of Kipling's work is that it is deliberately written for both children and adults, with features that only the latter are likely to get. I'm thinking of _Puck of Pook's Hill_ and _Rewards and Fairies_, in particular "Marklake Witches."
> It is not clear which view of imperialism was more nearly correct.
It's also not clear which version is better. An argument can be made that an Empire run as a money making concern is going to be better tun than one run as a subsidized evangelizing humanitarian project for the same reason a company run as a money making concern is going to be run better than one run as a subsidized evangelizing humanitarian project.
Most criticism of Rudyard Kipling smacks of jealousy. He was by far the most popular poet of his time. He wrote about ordinary people. He wrote especially well about soldiers. Military people to this day love his work. He refused the post of Poet Laureate.
These days poets and songwriters mostly write about themselves. We rarely get songs like “Wichita Lineman”.
"We all live by robbing Asiatic coolies" is perfect, and true. Just look at your iPhone, and try to arrive at a realistic assessment of the gap between your lifestyle and that of the people who made it for you.
How is it robbing them when they are being paid more for making iPhones than they could make at traditional jobs, and at rates they are eager to accept?
Those people are being paid market price for their labor. Heck, there have apparently been social problems caused by too many Asians fleeing their farms for the chance to work in iPhone factories.
Imperialism never made economic sense. It was a drive for control of land, and the people on it. Long after the industrial revolution, one could still raise troops. The British brought troops from all over the Empire to both world wars.
The link for "The Knife and the Naked Chalk" is dead, but the Wayback Machine has a copy: http://web.archive.org/web/20080731115407/http://www.cyberwitch.com/Wychwood/Temple/knifeAndTheNakedChalk.htm
I always enjoy your writing on classic literature. Thanks for posting
Orwell probably considered Kim and Captains Courageous to be children's books, what would today be called Young Adult fiction. It is unlikely that he was unfamiliar with them.
_Captains Courageous_ is a young adult book but _Kim_ is a first rate novel aimed primarily at an adult audience. And _Naulakha_, which Kipling coauthored, is certainly not a children's book (nor very good).
I'm reminded of Shaw's comment on GKC's book about him that every fact one could look up Chesterton got wrong, every fact you couldn't look up (not Shaw's words) he got right. In a world without the Internet and with less easy access to reference works it isn't surprising if a busy writer sometimes works out of what he knows without actually checking his facts.
In my next post you will see Orwell treating a conjecture as a fact — mistakenly.
One of the interesting things about some of Kipling's work is that it is deliberately written for both children and adults, with features that only the latter are likely to get. I'm thinking of _Puck of Pook's Hill_ and _Rewards and Fairies_, in particular "Marklake Witches."