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leafyshivers 's review for:
The Jungle Book
by Rudyard Kipling
Lesson learned from this book: having been much- and long-beloved does not automatically make a book worth reading.
The only particular reason I picked this one off my shelf was the feeling it's a "classic" of children's lit, which I felt slightly ashamed of never having had a chance to enjoy – I assumed must be classically marvellous. (I mean, I don't know if I ever even watched the Disney adaptation all the way through. I was actually expecting all Mowgli stories. More than half are not, actually, about Mowgli in any way.) What I was sorry to find, however, is that these stories are just classically bad. In its own way, this is frankly one of the weirdest books I've ever read. Even its age doesn't pardon it, in my opinion.
One of my first thoughts, rather unaccountably it may seem, was "This reads like the Bible." This isn't wholly a negative thing. For example, I recognize and appreciate the often-poetic language used in the Bible, and I can do the same here. The little songs and poems between the chapters are metrically perfect (this counts for a lot, with me) and if not beautiful, are nicely-formed; in form and language, they always evoke the characters he's created for the animals. Here are a couple verses of the Song of the Bander-log [monkeys:]:
Here we sit in a branchy row,
Thinking of beautiful things we know.
Dreaming of deeds that we mean to do,
All complete, in a minute or two-
Something noble and wise and good,
Done by merely wishing we could.
We've forgotten, but- never mind,
Brother, thy tail hangs down behind!
All the talk we ever have heard,
Uttered by bat or beast or bird-
Hide or fin or scale or feather -
Jabber it quickly and all together!
Excellent! Wonderful! One again!
Now we are talking just like men!
Let's pretend we are – never mind,
Brother, thy tail hangs down behind!
This is the way of the monkey-kind.
See? It's cute... the charm fades, though, with re-reading.
Now for what I really dislike. Two words: imperialism and anthropocentrism. Actually, anthropomorphism as well, but that can hardly be avoided, to a degree, so I'll let it go.
The 'best' of the various animal characters speak like noble British subjects (of about the sixteenth century, no less – people in Kipling's day didn't even talk like this – "thee-thy-thou, overformality considering we live in a jungle" etc, it's maddening), they have their own strict Jungle Law, and they call themselves people. Could it be any more obvious that these animals are meant to represent humans? Furthermore, that the non-humanlike animals are fated by nature to kowtow to the more 'civilized' species? Too obviously allegorical = another commonality with parts of the Bible. This kind of attitude may be common enough in folktales and mythology, but doesn't excuse the gross colonial bias with which the whole jungle universe, both inhabitants and organizing principles, are presented.
The animals respect, virtually worship, the humans. Though nearly all the characters are animals, everything about the stories centers around humanity, that is the glorious courage, order and reason of the British empire. If that's supposed to be modern folktale, it's akin to religious brainwashing. Not in the stories it tells, but in the value judgements implicit within these stories. And by the way, also like the Bible, I had to hate many of Kipling's 'heroes.' Little Toomai is a sneak and a traitor; I almost cried at the treatment of the elephants truthfully and matter-of-factly depicted in his chapter. Elsewhere: Rikki-Tikki made me want to stamp on a member of the family Herpestidae, pronto. I was rooting for the cobras.
To conclude, if you're willing to accept a whack of disgustingly antiquated values threaded into not-especially-imaginative stories, you can enjoy The Jungle Book. I'm sorry that I couldn't find more to like in it. But it's safe to say, for once, that Walt Disney's job is probably better (at the very least, less offensive)!
The only particular reason I picked this one off my shelf was the feeling it's a "classic" of children's lit, which I felt slightly ashamed of never having had a chance to enjoy – I assumed must be classically marvellous. (I mean, I don't know if I ever even watched the Disney adaptation all the way through. I was actually expecting all Mowgli stories. More than half are not, actually, about Mowgli in any way.) What I was sorry to find, however, is that these stories are just classically bad. In its own way, this is frankly one of the weirdest books I've ever read. Even its age doesn't pardon it, in my opinion.
One of my first thoughts, rather unaccountably it may seem, was "This reads like the Bible." This isn't wholly a negative thing. For example, I recognize and appreciate the often-poetic language used in the Bible, and I can do the same here. The little songs and poems between the chapters are metrically perfect (this counts for a lot, with me) and if not beautiful, are nicely-formed; in form and language, they always evoke the characters he's created for the animals. Here are a couple verses of the Song of the Bander-log [monkeys:]:
Here we sit in a branchy row,
Thinking of beautiful things we know.
Dreaming of deeds that we mean to do,
All complete, in a minute or two-
Something noble and wise and good,
Done by merely wishing we could.
We've forgotten, but- never mind,
Brother, thy tail hangs down behind!
All the talk we ever have heard,
Uttered by bat or beast or bird-
Hide or fin or scale or feather -
Jabber it quickly and all together!
Excellent! Wonderful! One again!
Now we are talking just like men!
Let's pretend we are – never mind,
Brother, thy tail hangs down behind!
This is the way of the monkey-kind.
See? It's cute... the charm fades, though, with re-reading.
Now for what I really dislike. Two words: imperialism and anthropocentrism. Actually, anthropomorphism as well, but that can hardly be avoided, to a degree, so I'll let it go.
The 'best' of the various animal characters speak like noble British subjects (of about the sixteenth century, no less – people in Kipling's day didn't even talk like this – "thee-thy-thou, overformality considering we live in a jungle" etc, it's maddening), they have their own strict Jungle Law, and they call themselves people. Could it be any more obvious that these animals are meant to represent humans? Furthermore, that the non-humanlike animals are fated by nature to kowtow to the more 'civilized' species? Too obviously allegorical = another commonality with parts of the Bible. This kind of attitude may be common enough in folktales and mythology, but doesn't excuse the gross colonial bias with which the whole jungle universe, both inhabitants and organizing principles, are presented.
The animals respect, virtually worship, the humans. Though nearly all the characters are animals, everything about the stories centers around humanity, that is the glorious courage, order and reason of the British empire. If that's supposed to be modern folktale, it's akin to religious brainwashing. Not in the stories it tells, but in the value judgements implicit within these stories. And by the way, also like the Bible, I had to hate many of Kipling's 'heroes.' Little Toomai is a sneak and a traitor; I almost cried at the treatment of the elephants truthfully and matter-of-factly depicted in his chapter. Elsewhere: Rikki-Tikki made me want to stamp on a member of the family Herpestidae, pronto. I was rooting for the cobras.
To conclude, if you're willing to accept a whack of disgustingly antiquated values threaded into not-especially-imaginative stories, you can enjoy The Jungle Book. I'm sorry that I couldn't find more to like in it. But it's safe to say, for once, that Walt Disney's job is probably better (at the very least, less offensive)!