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Subject: Kipling Author: Legal Beagle [ Next Thread | Previous Thread | Next Message | Previous Message ] Date Posted: 22:10:18 04/27/09 Mon Interesting article regarding your admiration for his writing. Have you ever read the biography of Kipling by Lord Birkenhead? Ironically, he was one of the most closed-minded, reactionary public figures in Britain, even by nineteenth-century standards. He detested the idea of a democratically elected goverment, especially the US model. He'd probably be spinning in his grave right now if he had one. [ Next Thread | Previous Thread | Next Message | Previous Message ]

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[> Subject: Re: Kipling Author: Ned Depew [ Edit | View ] Date Posted: 10:09:45 05/04/09 Mon Beagle - yeah, sometimes it's better only to know writers through their work, and not their private lives. I haven't read the biography you mention, but I do know that Kipling was a conflicted, confused guy - politically and philosophically as well as emotionally. "The Devil is in the details," as they say, and sometimes those who have clear and meaningful insight into some essential, fundamental processes can be confused as to how to manifest those values in their own day-to-day lives. I think Kipling was one of those. But his personal confusion doesn't diminish the impact and importance of his work - there's always a certain "do-as-I-say-not-as-I-do" quality to all fiction writing. Many critics have argued that fiction writers do what they do in an attempt to - in their own imaginations - re-make the world from what it is to "how it ought to be." You call him "closed-minded," and I see that, but his "closed-mindedness" was based on his strong moral stance. He believed he understood what was "right" and "wrong," and came from a very moralistic Victorian background. The clarity and intensity of his insight about moral choices was one of his great strengths, but also a great weakness, because it tended to make him try to see the world in "black and white" terms - which almost always leads to a reactionary world view. Most of his work holds up. The "literary" quality of it - the use of language, rhythm, structure - is exemplary. It gives us a real window into a world that has disappeared - the world of Empire and the crumbling of Empire - one that can be in many ways a cautionary tale for our own times! But beyond that, his stories are full of longing, mystery, heroism (often in very small ways), and confrontation with basic choices we make every day that shape who we are. And they are full of feeling. They're moving and uplifting to read, and for my money that's a wonderful contribution to make to this often disappointing and painful world.