"Kim" by Rudyard Kipling

Happy New Year! 

I'd like to start the first blog post of 2026 with my expeirence of reading "Kim" By Rudyard Kipling, in hopes that I'll read more books this year. This blog was planned on December to be posted on New Year, but we're past January so... 😆This isn't a proper book review though, with critical assessments here and there. I'd just like to tell you about my experience with the book, so don't have your hopes up!

"Kim" has sat on my bookshelf long before I became a teenager, but it never took my interest until a few years ago. The blurb looked interesting; it talked about a British boy who becomes a Tibetan monk while training for the British spy. Two worlds which I wouldn't expect to cross paths. I opened the first page with enthusiasm...only to shut it after a page or two. The English was (and still is) really difficult for me to understand, so I immediately lost interest. Last September though, I suddenly had the call to conquer "Kim" and decided to finish reading it no matter what. I went in headfirst without any preparations or guide: rereading the blurb didn't cross my mind, I didn't do any background research on the book to avoid spoilers, and decided to search things up after I finish the book. The results? Well, I didn't understand each and every sentence, but at least I understand the overall story! I consider that an accomplishment, especially when I haven't read a novel in such a long long time. 

"Kim" is about an orphaned Irish boy's adventures as he accompanies a Tibetan lama on his journey to find the "River of Arrow" while secretly working for the British as a spy. The "River of Arrow" is a river that emerged from a place in which Buddha's arrow fell and is said to wash away the sins of those who bathe in it. My limited knowledge on Buddhism makes the "River of the Arrow" fascinating. I've never heard of it in the few Buddhism tales I've read and there aren't any rivers known for that aspect (like how the Jordan River is known to be where Jesus was baptized). So, like the impatient reader I am, I skipped to the last pages of the book to know what the "River of the Arrow" is like and where it's located. I'd also like to know how the lama ended up finding it. With other books, this method would usually work well for me; I could get the whole story with a little backtracking. However, the ending of "Kim" made things even more confusing. There are no descriptions or names of locations of the river. In addition to that, two of the characters I didn't expect to get along well are having a chat! Backtracking didn't help either as there are too many unfamiliar characters and places in the middle of the story. Well, this meant I should read the whole thing.

I read the first few chapters with enthusiasm, thinking that the whole story will be the journey of Kim and his lama in finding their river. Yes, enthusiasm, even though I often nodded off to sleep after several pages due to difficulty in understanding it (I'll talk more about this later). However, something unexpected happened in the middle of the story. Kim was caught by his late father's regiment and was sent to an expensive, private school for western boys, which was supported and even paid for by the lama. Thus, I thought, this was the end of their journey in finding their river and that the rest of the story will be about Kim's other adventures. Extremely disappointed that I won't be getting any further information on the river, I stopped reading the book for about two weeks. 

During that time, I went back and forth on whether I should continue to read the book or return it to its shelf. Should I finish the book? Or should I not? The determination to finish the book has waned in me. However, I came to realize that the title of the book is "Kim", not "Kim and the Lama" or "The Search for the River" so obviously this book wouldn't revolve entirely on finding the river. 😭This made me pick up the book again. I even got curious on how Kim, a boy who is more familiar with the ways of a low-caste Indian life, would survive in a school with a western lifestyle. 

At times, I found the story boring. As a picaresque novel (I didn't even know these existed) which oftentimes have little to no plot, "Kim" isn't your typical beginning, middle, and end story. "Kim" barely seems to have a middle at all. The story is like a series of episodes: Kim and the lama met, travelled around, met various people, experienced different cultures, got seperated by Kim's schooling, then travelled some more. A big part of the story is made up of conversations that showcased people of various backgrounds and their views of British India. While this gives readers an immersive experience on the era, this leads to another complication.

"Kim" is difficult to understand. The conversations are in English, yes, and I understand each word when read independently, but I barely understood anything when put together into sentences. Rereading each sentence also didn't help. What did help though, was forcing myself to read through the whole paragraph. In this way, I somehow got the general idea of what Kipling is trying to say. Perhaps the English is difficult because it was written more than a century ago. Perhaps though, it's due to my unfamiliarity with Indian culture and more importantly with something central to the novel: The Great Game. 

At first, I genuinely thought that The Great Game was another piece of Kipling's imagination before going on to the internet 😂 In reality, it was a time when Britain and Russia fought over influence in Central Asia, but didn't go into a full-scale war. Kim's side-quest while accompanying the lama is "playing The Great Game", or helping the British secret service with spying and relaying cryptic messages. Through this, "Kim" gives an immersive experience on what being 'The Great Game' player is like as we watch Kim and other characters lie, spy, fool, sneak, and smooth-talk in order to obtain, protect, and relay information. Now that I've read up on The Great Game, I realized that a lot of the conversations are cryptic and full or hidden meanings. They would make a lot of sense if I knew what was going on from the start (or maybe not, I had to ask ChatGPT what several messages meant even after knowing The Great Game)😂 I did notice somwhere in the middle that the characters were speaking with secret meanings but I couldn't make head or tail about what they're on. 

Another difficulty comes from the way how the characters communicate. They speak English with their own cultural habits rather than using the standard grammar or sentence structure. There are lots of proverbs, slangs from that era (this is most confusing), and words spelled to reflect heavy accents. This does give a sense on what British India might have sounded like, but this makes the story harder to understand.

Rudyard Kipling wanted to immerse readers with life and culture in British India, which I think he did really well with his many diverse characters and their conversations. The complex language and lack of clear plot requires a little grit to get through though. However, those interested in Eastern cultures, has a background knowledge of The Great Game, and loves decoding messages might find the book fascinating. I've grown to love "Kim" and would like to read it again with the background knowledge I have now, but I don't think I'm a huge fan of picaresque novels. 

Hopefully another book review will follow this!