tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29676463.post1323216341846928028..comments2024-03-29T14:45:32.326+13:00Comments on The Imaginary Museum: The Eleven Books of Rudyard KiplingDr Jack Rosshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01805945600952222957noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29676463.post-49004782527234577462018-08-05T18:54:05.109+12:002018-08-05T18:54:05.109+12:00Hi Jack. An interesting post. I made a long commen...Hi Jack. An interesting post. I made a long comment on here but it may not have 'stuck' or been apposite. I got interested and read more of the essay by Edmund Wilson which as you corrected me is 'The Kipling that Nobody Read' which is in Wilson's "The Wound and the Bow". Wilson's essay is so good I am reading it slowly. I did start it years ago. It had surprised me then. But slowly a more complex picture of Kipling has emerged just as we get fixed ideas about things. Indeed if you produce a writer that almost no one is interested in and are responsible for his or her revival (it has happened e.g. Larkin on Barbara Pym who was more neglected. (And it helped her posthumous sales, even while she was alive I think: I read one very good book she wrote). And indeed in this case Kipling as presented here is more interesting. And I intend, time permitting, to read some of his stories etc (I always knew he was a good childrens' writer as our children were read some of his books). <br /> And I had that 1927 edition with the elephant and a swastika my father got from a friend in England. <br /> I noticed looking at your other post on ghosts that, looking for Le Fanu (I only found one story), there were a number by Kipling. It seems many famous writers have written in that area or genre (although I think it widens its genre-ness): I did find a good ghost story by Muriel Spark. <br /> I have quite a few interesting collections and some of Kipling's works.Richardhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10272507198753290435noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29676463.post-77518763432265546002018-07-22T00:23:29.907+12:002018-07-22T00:23:29.907+12:00Interesting Jack. I thought you had gone too far w...Interesting Jack. I thought you had gone too far when you said you were reading Kipling! I thought you might be very very ill!<br /><br /> I have thought of reading him ever since my ex wife commented that he wrote very well. (She read some stories of his to my children). I saw that Eliot published a book of his poetry (by the way I don't think Eliot hardly noticed the war: for me The Wasteland is what it it is -- not something about the war). And re your interpretation of the story I think everyone needs to think for themselves. I don't know the story you discussed but it seems that an arbitrary analysis of a story is imposed by the students.<br /><br /> It interests me this as for years we had and still have 'Debits and Credits' given to my father in 1927 before leaving England. It has an elephant in a circle and a Swastika sign which puzzled me as a boy. (I know of course that it was used by Kipling first and the one the Nazis used has been 'rotated', that is it can't be mapped onto itself, it is a mirror image like a left and right hand. They destroyed that symbol.] I read all the Dickens novels on the shelf and things but I cant recall reading any Kipling. 'Debits and Credits' stayed there. Your post here moved me to get it down from the shelf my father had with his book of Shakespeare, one on specifications of materials, a physics book, a book about lettering techniques, a Thurber (I read the Thurber and the wonderful Edward Lear, the Wind in the Willows was read to me, we had as well as 'Texts and Pretexts' by Huxley)...but no Kipling. Kipling's 'Debits and Credits' remained untouched by me. I am not sure why. Later he just seemed too much of a jingoist. <br /><br /> I toyed with reading 'Kim' as it is supposed to be a classic. But I was diverted by other reading. So I can add him in with Austin as two writers I have not read. (I did read a poem by Kipling). <br /><br />I am interested if he is compared to du Maupassant, who I did read as a teenager and still read...but some of the stories you mention are marked I presume by my father. He was twenty when he received it and read quite a lot. <br /><br />I should also read that essay by Edmund Wilson (he is a good writer for sure). <br /><br />And your points are good. The students were less in tune with Fish (not that I read anything by Fish either, just a Wiki bio and explic!) it seems to me as surely they opted for some kind of 'programmed' interpretation. I think Sontag's 'Against Interpretation' is significant. I read a critic re Cesar Vallejo that invokes her. If a story or poem is great it transcends time. For me it has little to do with the politics as such (o.k. we cant avoid politics in a general sense and of course we also always 'interpret') but for me Mallarme's view that poetry is primarily about words remains. In fact I want poems that are not about anything. I want magic and music. Great writing for me does that, even Joyce is pointless without his marvelous ability with words. Dicken's opening chapter in Bleak House is enough: the yellow smog is there, the marvelous descriptions, the language, the words, the real or imagined humans. The 'ghost' children I imagine are whatever the reader wants them to be. If the narrator calls them ghosts they are probably ghosts. We will forget all the lessons of poetry or literature, even art, but the magic mystery and beauty of it will remain regardless of context or style or mode. But it has to have that intensity. From what you have said Kipling had that. <br /><br />However, as I write I still haven't read bother all Kipling so I will have to let the above remain as cobblers until I do! <br /><br />A good post again. Of course, anything about books and the provenance of books etc etc fascinates me but your systematic biblionic (or bibliophilic?) journies, your fine madness is it? It is always inspiring...<br /> Richardhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10272507198753290435noreply@blogger.com