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The Jungle Books

by Rudyard Kipling, Alev Lytle Croutier (Afterword)

3.95 of 5 stars 3.95 · rating details · 32,997 ratings · 486 reviews

The Jungle Books can be regarded as classic stories told by an adult to children. But they also constitute a complex literary work of art in which the whole of Kipling's philosophy of life is expressed in miniature. They are best known for the 'Mowgli' stories; the tale of a baby abandoned and brought up by wolves, educated in the ways and secrets of the jungle by Kaa the...more

Paperback, 368 pages

Published May 3rd 2005 by Signet Classics (first published 1894)

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Aug 11, 2008 Joseph rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: my-ebooks, fiction, favorites

eBook

Once again, I'm struck by the savagery that resonates throughout Kipling's writing. It would be so easy to think of The Jungle Book in a more Disney-fied light: talking animals, singing, the rhythmic cadences of a fairy tale or lullaby. But overarching all that is the ever-present reminder that the world of the jungle is a world of nature, red in tooth and claw. Mowgli is raised by wolves and instructed by Baloo for the explicit purpose of survival in a harsh world that actively seeks his d...more eBook

Once again, I'm struck by the savagery that resonates throughout Kipling's writing. It would be so easy to think of The Jungle Book in a more Disney-fied light: talking animals, singing, the rhythmic cadences of a fairy tale or lullaby. But overarching all that is the ever-present reminder that the world of the jungle is a world of nature, red in tooth and claw. Mowgli is raised by wolves and instructed by Baloo for the explicit purpose of survival in a harsh world that actively seeks his death. Kotick is born and raised amidst bloodshed from two distinct sources: other seals and man. "Rikki-Tikki-Tavi" subverts the traditional story of a pet protecting his master by making the masters little more than incidental characters; Rikki-Tikki wants to protect them, but his actions are driven by instinct rather than any familial bond with the humans. Even in the less-obviously blood-drenched stories, violence is a powerful force. Toomai's journey to witness the dance of the elephants puts him at great risk of death.

The story I found most interesting, however, was the one which closes the book, "Her Majesty's Servants." The characters of this particular story are the camp animals for an army, but paradoxically, these might be the most innocent characters in the whole book. All their conversation is about war and its methods, but without any real recognition of what it means. These animals have been tamed by man, stripped of their natural instincts, and so, with the exception of the elephant, they don't realize what war means, content merely to follow orders and limit their perspective to the specifics of their duties.

And maybe that's the true lesson of The Jungle Book. Yes, it's violent, endlessly circling and returning to the themes of death and danger, but in the world of the animals, death and danger exists because they are necessary parts of life. Animals must eat, so animals must hunt and kill. But for people, violence is stripped of that which makes it necessary. Wars don't happen for food and survival; they happen for sport and profit.

Or maybe I'm just a filthy hippie.(less)

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Jun 05, 2007 Joe rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: wonderfultalesofscienceandoradventu, childrens-ya, riproaringcolonialadventureyarns, classics, fiction

Yeah, yeah, ignore the White Man's Burden stuff. Kipling is one of the best storytellers who ever lived, and neither the author's obnoxious politics nor a complete butchery of this wonderful wonderful story in its many terrible movie incarnations can take away the fact that the Mowgli stories of this and the Second Jungle Book are some of the greatest tales ever created. Read this, for real. It's a classic.

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Feb 16, 2012 Ensiform rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: fiction, animals, india

A series of stories, mostly but not always set in India. I did not know when I first picked this up that not all of these tales feature the most famous character: Mowgli, the baby carried off by a lame tiger and rescued by wolves, who grows to be master of the jungle. (In this, he predates Tarzan by a couple of decades.) I remember reading some, but not all, of this book many years ago, but I remembered little of it, especially from the second book.

Some of the tales are well-known ("Rikki-Tikki-...more A series of stories, mostly but not always set in India. I did not know when I first picked this up that not all of these tales feature the most famous character: Mowgli, the baby carried off by a lame tiger and rescued by wolves, who grows to be master of the jungle. (In this, he predates Tarzan by a couple of decades.) I remember reading some, but not all, of this book many years ago, but I remembered little of it, especially from the second book.

Some of the tales are well-known ("Rikki-Tikki-Tavi”) and some not so well known ("Servants Of the Queen," in which various army pack animals discuss their lot, and by extension, the lot of their masters, in life). For me, the ones that jarred the most were the stories that take place in the Arctic regions of all places ("The White Seal" and "Quiquern"). They seemed wildly incongruous mixed in between the better-known tales of the tropics. The one connecting thread of the tales, no matter what their locale, is that they all deal in some way with an animal's view of the world. Are these tales allegories of colonialism? I don’t know. I can see how one might argue the fact --- "The White Seal" in particular appears to be a particularly blatant suggestion of the superiority of the white man --- but it's also clear that Kipling loved India, far too much to write about it simply to push an agenda. Even if it is an extended allegory (which I don't believe) it’s a very poor one, since it's so rich and subtle. Anyone could pick it up and enjoy a tale of adventure, fantasy, heroism, familial love, triumph over tragedy, and sad farewells without ever dreaming there might be some hidden meaning, or considering what the various animals "represent." It's often considered a children's book, but I doubt it would be thought so if it appeared today; the language is complex, there's quite a lot of killing and threats of torture, and, least Disneyfied of all, the end is not at all the neatly-tied happy resolution that the majority of non-series children's stories seem to require today. (Kipling seems to favor ambiguous, rather sad endings; Kimand Thy Servant a Dog are respective examples). Still, what kid wouldn't want to hear about how Mowgli massacred the pack of wild dogs with the help of a python, some wolves, and about a million angry bees?
(less)

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Jun 07, 2008 El rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: late19th-centurylit, 1001-books-list, i-hate-ya, india

Before Tarzan there was Mowgli, lost in a jungle in India as a child and taken in by a family of wolves. He is raised by the animals of the jungle, and has adventures with them. He learns loyalty and devotion and the Jungle Law. Every small boy eventually grows up but, to pararphrase Kipling, his adult adventures are a different story. Written in 1894 and 1895 the two collections of adventure/jungle/wilderness stories are included in one volume. Mowgli and his stories are the vast majority, but...more

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Nov 10, 2008 Diane rated it 4 of 5 stars

I hadn't picked up my Kipling collection in a long time and references to it in "The Story of Edgar Sawtelle" made me long for my old friends. Old friends in Rikki Tikki Tavi and Toomai of the Elephants, but new discoveries, too, as I had never read the real Jungle Book with its stories of the destructive Red Dog the heartbreak of The Spring Running and the lessons of Puran Bhagat. Here the wisdom, humor and fearsomeness of Bagheera, Kaa, Grey Brother, Baloo shine through as they cannot in a Dis...more

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Nov 23, 2008 Rachel rated it 3 of 5 stars Recommends it for: kids who like adventure stories

I read this to Nick because I read it myself as a first grader. (Yes, I was a precocious reader.) Since I haven't even glanced at it in the quarter century of intervening years, it was interesting to come back to it.

In some ways I was disappointed as an adult reader. The formal, quasi-Elizabethan language the animals use to talk to each other struck me as pretentious, which I don't believe was at all my original reaction. There was that almost total lack of female characters that is almost inev...more

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May 20, 2013 Renée Damstra rated it 4 of 5 stars

Loved it, thoroughly enjoyed it. No annoying repetitive jokes such as in Kipling's 'Just so' stories, so that all his writing qualities can come to the surface and shine. Beautiful in its imagery, the way animals are depicted with their quirks and typical behavior, interesting and exciting stories. I also enjoyed the way nature was depicted and the lack of typical modern 'stuff' such as cars, noise, internet and such. It feels like withdrawing myself into nature with this book, being silent, bei...more Loved it, thoroughly enjoyed it. No annoying repetitive jokes such as in Kipling's 'Just so' stories, so that all his writing qualities can come to the surface and shine. Beautiful in its imagery, the way animals are depicted with their quirks and typical behavior, interesting and exciting stories. I also enjoyed the way nature was depicted and the lack of typical modern 'stuff' such as cars, noise, internet and such. It feels like withdrawing myself into nature with this book, being silent, being alone. And it's funny I like the book since I usually dislike talking animals. My favorite is the story about Kotick the white seal.

In the introduction on the book something was said about Kipling's writing being too imperialistic and patriotic to some. I didn't notice until the elephants stories at the end, although it was not so much the emphasis on obeyance to the state's expeditions from the animals that annoyed me but the violence. This is the reason why I liked the mongoose story ' rikki-tikki-tavi' the least. If all stories were focusing on violence so much, whether from humans or animals, I would probably rate the book a 2 star just like I did with the Just so stories. However, in most stories it was limited and the storyline itself or/and the absorbance into it won me over.

I also noticed the jungle book story is very different from the disney movie. I thought the book was more nuanced in the portrayal of its characters. For instance I think it a shame that the disney movie puts all bad traits into the tiger of Shere Khan and Kaa the snake, who is a good character in the book turned bad by the movie. Another example is Mowgli who struggles with his identity and makes his own decisions more in the book than in the movie and so gets a more layered and realistic character. Furthermore, the Disney movie had removed all violence. On the one hand I understand this, because it is supposed to be a child's movie, on the other hand I feel death and violence in media for children gets too eradicated, too much euphemised nowadays, while I consider it better to be real and honest about it, discuss it and not act as if it didn't exist. In earlier times I think people, adults and children, for many reasons got confronted more with the dark sides of life and were therefore abled to see those as an integral part of it and to deal with it in one way or another. Maybe this lack of polishing the book to avoid corrupting the innocent child, gives the jungle books an adult touch. In some ways it would nowadays seem more like a book for adults.

I anyway always prefer nuance over black and white thinking or portrayal, so I do prefer the book over the movie, with its violence, with its contradictions in each character and the at times gloomy atmosphere.

I am going for the second jungle books for sure. And I might read the seal story again some day for I thought it wonderful.

The only question I am left with is why the book is called the jungle books when not every story takes place in a jungle or close by, but well I can forgive Kipling for that. (less)

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May 04, 2013 BookographyReviews rated it 3 of 5 stars

When I went into this book, I thought it was a novel, a children story about Mowgli. But it is actually a bunch of short stories, with only a few stories about Mowgli. That was the first disappointment that I had with this book, but it isn't a big deal since I may enjoy them too, right? Well, I didn't. I felt robbed of my enjoyment because I wanted Mowgli and those stories weren't even all that interesting. They didn't grab me like Mowgli's stories did.

Kipling's writing is great; I actually foun...more

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Nov 08, 2012 Smcleish rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: owned

Originally published on my blog here and here in May 2001.

Strangely enough, the text of even such a well known story as The Jungle Book can be quite complicated. In the original publications of this and its sequel, The Second Jungle Book, each collection contained a number of Mowgli stories and others not related to them. Then, when the first collected edition of Kipling's work came out a few years later, all the Mowgli stories were printed together in The Jungle Book, and all the others as The...more Originally published on my blog here and here in May 2001.

Strangely enough, the text of even such a well known story as The Jungle Book can be quite complicated. In the original publications of this and its sequel, The Second Jungle Book, each collection contained a number of Mowgli stories and others not related to them. Then, when the first collected edition of Kipling's work came out a few years later, all the Mowgli stories were printed together in The Jungle Book, and all the others as The Second Jungle Book. This Penguin edition, which contains both books, replaces the stories in their original order.

One of the problems with The Jungle Book is that most people first encounter them through the Disney film, or through the distortions used by Baden Powell in the Scout movement. Neither of these really equal the original stories, which must rank as one of the greatest pieces of children's literature ever written. The original collection includes three Mowgli stories and four others, two of which are among my favourite pieces of Kipling's writing, The White Seal and Rikki-Tikki-Tavi.

The reasons that the stories are so successful are several, and include Kipling's great strengths of atmospheric background and characterisation of the animals. (This only fails to work in Servants of the Queen, he last story in the collection.) The Mowgli stories and The White Seal, in particular, hint at something more than enjoyable children's tales, with the idea of moving from one world to another (childhood to adulthood?) prominent in the first and death in the second. (It is no accident that it takes a creature already extinct to direct Kotick to a place where the seals can be safe from the hunters.) Few writers today would dare write in this kind of way for children, though much of it is probably aimed more at adult readers.

One thing that is really amazing about the Mowgli stories is that they are set in a part of India that Kipling never visited. He creates an atmospheric narrative really out of our expectations of what a jungle should be like; he even takes liberties with the natural histories that he used as sources of information (the wild elephant, for example, not being native to the area).

The original Jungle Book contained some stories which nowadays would be considered rather daring in a childrens' book because of their treatment of death. In The Second Jungle Book, this is even more the case, with violent death a commonplace. This is almost the "jungle red in tooth and claw", and it is going to be very surprising to anyone whose only prior acquaintance with the stories comes from the Disney cartoons. Things are slightly softened, mainly so that the stories will work, but death is present in every one.

A larger proportion of the stories are about Mowgli than is the case in the earlier book; the two tales which aren't are poorer in quality than their counterparts, Quiquern in particular being quite forgettable. The Mowgli stories, on the other hand, are very good indeed. They are not as immediately gripping as his duel with Shere Khan or the encounter with the monkeys, and it is easy to see why Kipling later redistributed the stories. (In the redistributed version, the mood does swing moves quite rapidly, as the stories from the different books are read.) The Second Jungle Book is more aimed at adults and older children than the first; it could be quite disturbing. (less)

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Oct 23, 2012 Amy rated it 5 of 5 stars

The first time I met Mowgli was when I was very small. I must have been only around two years old and I had watched the Disney film. I HATED it. But when I realized that it was based off of a book (when I was around five or six) I immediately went to the library and checked out both Jungle Books. It was then that I fell in love.
Kipling is very problematic racially and politically. Throughout these books it is easy to pick up on Kipling's inherent prejudice. Through Mowgli the reader is introduce...more

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Aug 23, 2012 Gijs rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 19th-century, asia, british-literature, english, fiction, short-stories, childrens, nobel-prize-winners

The jungle book (1894) **
Korte verhalen en (niet al te beste) gedichten. Niet alle verhalen gaan over Mowgli, één (the white seal) speelt zelfs niet in India, maar gaat over een arctische zeehond. De verhalen zijn bondig, gemakkelijk geschreven en sfeervol. Jammer zijn Kipling's ideeën over orders en wetten e.d. Zijn personages zijn bepaald ruw en kennen geen medelijden (view spoiler)...more

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Mar 22, 2012 Shannon rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: elementary-school

I set out to read this collection of short stories to my 6 year old son, having seen the Disney version, and then abandoned it because this book is much more violent than I expected.

My favorite stories were of Mowgli, of course, but I was excited to find the story of Riki Tiki Tavi here as well. There is much more to Mowgli and his life than is covered in the Disney movie. My favorites were: the Red Dogs (where Mowgli has to outsmart thousands of wild vicious dogs in order to save his friends fr...more

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Mar 28, 2011 Brennan Wieland rated it 4 of 5 stars

Similar to many of the Grimm Brothers stories, Disney has taken several of the stories from "The Jungle Books", and toned them down to a child's level movie, while the true story is much darker.

In "Mowgli's Brothers" a mother wolf finds a baby in the forests and adopts it, but not without trouble from the other animals, especially Shere Khan. Once the baby grows, he hears of a plan that Shere Khan has against him, and he must leave the animals and return to mankind. In "Tiger Tiger", the story t...more

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Jan 25, 2011 Marlena Frank rated it 3 of 5 stars

I was recommended this book by a good friend whenever I was going to be on a flight to Boston for an hour and a half. I'm not a terribly quick reader, and it took me a bit to get into the story, but once I started it was great. I got pulled into Mowgli's struggles and battles, the description of the animals and the jungle itself.

I grew up on the Mel Brooks' Riki Tiki Tavi and Mowgli's Brothers so I was kind of expecting the very unique experience Kipling had to offer. However I hadn't expected h...more

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Jan 19, 2010 Nicholas rated it 5 of 5 stars

All I've ever known really about the Jungle Book was confined to the film version, which is a far cry from Rudyard Kipling's original. My first surprise, was that this was an anthology, not just the story of Mowgli (but that is by far the best story in the collection). My next surprise came in the language of the story. Kid's read this?

This story did wonders to explain the gaps in learning, creativity. boldness, and initiative between previous generations and the current one. In the 19th century...more All I've ever known really about the Jungle Book was confined to the film version, which is a far cry from Rudyard Kipling's original. My first surprise, was that this was an anthology, not just the story of Mowgli (but that is by far the best story in the collection). My next surprise came in the language of the story. Kid's read this?

This story did wonders to explain the gaps in learning, creativity. boldness, and initiative between previous generations and the current one. In the 19th century, kids idolized and fantasized about being Mowgli, living among wild animals, learning the laws of the jungle, and eventually defeating your nemesis (a man eating tiger, who Mowgli not only kills, but skins). In the 21st century, we have team Edward, idolizing a pale, skinny pathetic vampire creature who can't manage his love life. Fail. And it's not the difference in machoness that is upsetting, it's the culture of self-reliance and overcoming of obstacles and dedication to a goal that is missing in literature today. For a long time, children's stories were educational, moralistic as well as entertaining. Today, we opt for the latter at the expense of the rest. It is, of course, important to analyze the message being sent and ingrained in our children's psyche, but a modern audience, sad to say, wouldn't really pick up on the imperialistic and social darwinistic themes in the stories (I mean come on, this is Mr. "White Man's Burden".

The other stories in this collection were okay. The second story is the story of Kotick, a white seal (yes white, which makes him superior in the Kiplingesque view of the universe) who attempts to find a new home for the seals of the Aleutians where they won't be hunted by man anymore (a rather obvious allusion to the growing Zionist movement of the late 19th century). The next is the story of Rikki-tikki-tavi, a faithful pet mongoose who defends his adopted human family from cobras. Lastly, is the story of Toomai of the Elephants, a young Indian boy who observes the legendary dance of the elephants and is forever changed by it.

Besides the overtones of supremacy there are wonderfully modern themes in many of the stories: loyalty, the sanctity of nature, the importance of every individual, not just in society, but in their ecological niche, and the relationship and interdependency of man and nature. In spite of it's age, The Jungle Book is hardly dated, and I look forward to sharing it with my children.(less)

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Jan 06, 2010 Razvan Untaroiu rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: a friend

Recommended to Razvan by: yes

I spent roughly two weeks reading this book and it was all worth it. Rudyard Kipling's writing is very clear and concise and this book was very eventful. If i had to choose between reading this book and watching the movie, i would definately read this book. If you have seen the movie, you will discover that the true story is a little different, but that is O.K. Another reason why I liked this book is because it contained many creative images that helped me visualize the story as I was reading it...more

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Apr 14, 2013 Maki Kotone rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I picked up this book to read originally because my husband was telling me that a character I liked who was raised by wolves sounded an awful lot like Mowgli. The only exposure I'd had to the story before was the Disney film, which he assured me didn't do the book any sort of justice. So, expecting a fairly dry read, I started The Jungle Books.

To start, I had never realized that The Jungle Books were more than just Mowgli's story. The only other one I had heard of (besides the main story) was Ri...more

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Sep 15, 2012 Dan Bumbico rated it 5 of 5 stars

My favorite book! The Jungle Books is a collection of short stories published in 1894 . Many of them are from an animals perspective, but not quite all. Thanks to Disney,everyone knows the story of Mowgli, a young wild boy growing up in the jungle with Baloo and Bagheera, but there are plenty of other stories about all kinds of animals in this world.

Well, Disney didn't tell you Baloo is not singing and dancing, he is actually rather abusive, literally abusive. The Jungles are dangerous and Mowg...more

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Feb 10, 2010 Douglas rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: Fans of anthropomorphic animals

Recommended to Douglas by: Neil Gaiman

Shelves: ebook, fiction, middle-grade

I had an abridged copy of this book as a child with messy illustrations that I meant to read, I truly did, but I never could get into it.

Over 30 years later I decided to give the book another try since it was so conveniently in my eBook collection. I am so glad that I did. I had read some high praise for Kipling from Neil Gaiman. He was correct. The writing in this book was superb.

I was shocked to learn how cleanly scrubbed the various versions of of this book have been over the years. Gritty,...more

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Feb 16, 2011 Julianne rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: favorites

So I've read some of the previous reviews here and it strikes me as a little humorous that feathers are getting ruffled because an old, white, British imperialist was not fair and tolerant to women, non-whites, animals, and everyone else in his writings. Stories illuminate the minds and opinions of those who wrote them, and in 1894 when The Jungle Book was published there was a man named Rudyard Kipling whose mind and opinions were not the same as ours. Instead of allowing this view so foreign t...more

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May 28, 2010 Janeen-san rated it 3 of 5 stars

The Jungle Book is made up of 7 short stories surrounding India. The first three feature Mowgli [translation; Little Frog:] a human baby raised by the Seeonee wolf-pack in the jungles of India.
Shere Khan, a tiger, planed to kill him, but a family of wolves rescued him, dubbed him Mowgli, and refused to let Shere Khan take him. The tiger swears to hunt Mowgli, and Mother Wolf tells Shere Khan that one day, Mowgli shall hunt him down. (And so it is, in the story "Tiger, Tiger!")

"Ye choose and ye...more

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Apr 23, 2008 dead letter office rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: suitable-for-children

at the very base of the himalayas, there's the lush green of tropical rainforests: rhododendron blossoms, rivers, tigers, snakes; mowgli's rainforests, if you know the jungle books. but ten days of walking (there are no roads, of course) bring you to the high altitude desert of jomsom: windswept, desolate, utterly beautiful in a barren, bleak way. and still, the mountains tower thousands of feet above. these stories imbued my childhood with wonder.

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Oct 07, 2010 Bsdnathand rated it 5 of 5 stars

It all starts with a wolf, Father Wolf was his name and he was head of his pack. He was going to go hunting one morning when Tabaqui, an animal that none of the other animals liked one bit, they called him crazy. Father Wolf talked to him and he told them that Shere Khan, a vicious tiger, was on it's way to their home. He heard Shere Khan coming and saw him jumping for something, a Man cub. The boy would later be called Mowgli and he would have the biggest adventure he could ever ask for.

My favo...more

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Nov 28, 2011 Rodriqueze rated it 4 of 5 stars

The Jungle Book was a Project Gutenberg e-text that I read in spare moments on my PDA - it's well suited to this type of reading, as each chapter is more or less stand alone.
I had forgotten that (contrary to Disney) only the first half of this book deals with Mowgli the Man-Cub and his adventures in the jungle. The remainder of the book is short stories and related poetry about wild (and not so wild) animals, mostly in India.
My personal favorite is Rikki-Tikki-Tavi - possibly because I have fo...more

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Jun 06, 2012 Quayd added it

I chose to read Kipling's The Jungle Books truthfully because I felt that if I did not finish the book I would be able to write about it based on my memory of the 1967 Disney animation that I watched so many times as a child. I'm so glad that I chose to read this book. It differs from the Disney animation in so many ways. The Disney animation of the Jungle Books is full of fun and foolishness, whereas Kipling's original is full of danger and wisdom. Mowgli is just the most famous of the characte...more

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Nov 17, 2011 Jaclyn rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: books-i-own, childrens, classics, india, fantasy-science-fiction, young-adult

I am so impressed with Kipling's knowledge of the jungles of India, and of wild life in general, especially considering the time in which this book was compiled. That paired with his very vivid imagination make for a collection of great stories. I did not realize when I began, that this book is really a collection of short stories, and that Mowgli, and the jungles of India, are only featured in some of them. However, many of the other stories were just as enjoyable as Mowgli's stories, so once I...more

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Jun 17, 2011 Alexander Williams rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: fantasy, historical

Perhaps surprisingly, I don't recall ever having read Rudyard Kipling's "The Jungle Books," despite obviously having done so having grown up in the public school system in the South. There's no way that I could have possibly evaded reading this book, and I even have a slight, fleeting recollection of reading Rikki Tiki Tavi at some point in my existence – somewhere, somehow, some little bit of that beyond the Disney presentation made its way into my hindbrain.

I have no idea how.

Regardless, this...more

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Nov 07, 2012 Anna rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: children-s, classics, onceuponatime-chlg, kindle, unfinished

3 and 1/2 stars to the first part. I really enjoyed Mowgli's adventures in the jungle (even though the book is quite different from the Disney's movie we're all accustomed to). Baloo, Bagheera, the wolves from Mowgli's pack, Kaa, Shere Kahn the Lame: they're all memorable characters. But what struck me the most was the description of the ruins where the terrible monkeys lived and how they were not trusted at all by the other jungle inhabitants because they didn't obey to the common jungle Laws....more

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May 13, 2011 Michelle rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: and-smart-too, i-own-it, earned-its-fame, too-rich-prose

“Kipling is intensely loved and hated. Hardly any reader likes him a little... One moment I am filled with delight at the variety and solidarity of his imagination; and then, at the very next moment, I am sick, sick to death, of the whole Kipling world. Of course, one can reach temporary saturation point with any author; there comes an evening when even Boswell or Virgil will do no longer. But one parts from them as a friend: one knows one will want them another day; and in the interval one thi...more “Kipling is intensely loved and hated. Hardly any reader likes him a little... One moment I am filled with delight at the variety and solidarity of his imagination; and then, at the very next moment, I am sick, sick to death, of the whole Kipling world. Of course, one can reach temporary saturation point with any author; there comes an evening when even Boswell or Virgil will do no longer. But one parts from them as a friend: one knows one will want them another day; and in the interval one thinks of them with pleasure. But I mean something quite different from that; I mean a real disenchantment, a recoil which makes the Kipling world, for the moment, not dull (it is never that), but unendurable—a heavy, glaring, suffocating monstrosity....
“The first cause for my sudden recoil from Kipling, I take to be not the defect but the excess of his art…. Sometimes the story has been so compressed that in the completed version it is not quite told…. But even when this is not so, the art overreaches itself in another way. Every sentence that did not seem to Kipling perfectly and triumphantly good has been removed. As a result the style tends to be too continuously and obtrusively brilliant. The result is a little fatiguing. Our author gives us no rest: we are bombarded with felicities till they deafen us. There is no elbow room, no leisureliness. We need roughage as well as nourishment in a diet; but there is no roughage if a Kipling story—it is all unrelieved vitamins from the first word to the last…
“The fault of which I am here accusing Kipling is one which only a great artist could commit.”—C.S. Lewis, Selected Literary Essays, “Kipling’s World.”
I find it very difficult to add to this quotation. I loved the Jungle Books exactly in the hot-and-cold style Lewis describes, and thus it took me a great deal of time to read them. His beasts are somehow both very human and very animalistic, not people in furry suits but wild creatures with a few human traits. I completely understand why Walt Disney told his writers to never read this book--though of the adaptations I've seen, his was both the farthest apart and the most satisfying film. Others actually try to capture the spirit of the piece, and fail--though an animated Rikki-Tikki-Tavi was almost word-for-word and very good. Now I must have some roughage, though.
Good Hunting!
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Jan 18, 2010 Nicholas Karpuk rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

In a really roundabout way, Kipling is responsible for you crying at Bambi (I didn't cry, I was just confused. The subtlety of the gunshot of camera didn't register. I spent the rest of the movie thinking Bambi's dad had gained sole custody. I was kind of stupid kid sometimes.) The Jungle Book is one of the early popular cases where an author so thoroughly anthropomorphosized animals.

It's really a smug assumption that fits well with the British imperial mindset of the book. In a position of safe...more In a really roundabout way, Kipling is responsible for you crying at Bambi (I didn't cry, I was just confused. The subtlety of the gunshot of camera didn't register. I spent the rest of the movie thinking Bambi's dad had gained sole custody. I was kind of stupid kid sometimes.) The Jungle Book is one of the early popular cases where an author so thoroughly anthropomorphosized animals.

It's really a smug assumption that fits well with the British imperial mindset of the book. In a position of safety and power it's easy to act like animals are just people that speak a language we're unable to translate.

Animals are animals. If they think they can take you, they'll kill you, sometimes for safety, sometimes for food. Otherwise they will run. We domesticate animals because humans find such behavior annoying.

Trying to empathize with things that can not actually communicate gets people killed and eaten every year.

For all his research, there's an odd sort of cluelessness to Rudyard Kipling's writing. The tales are chocked full of fun facts about animals and their habitats, but he doesn't seem to be aware that he was partially able to experience sites like India because he was a member of a massive Victorian empire. He's too busy imagining what animals would sound like in different casts and royal orders.

Yes, these animals often talk like they work at a ren fest. Along with his dorky poems it's a fun reminder that as long as there's been writing, there's probably been nerds.

Fortunately his poetic tendencies inform the prose, which flows smoothly, making the bulk of the stories a pleasant read. It's easy to visualize most scenes, and the writing paints a clear picture.

Mr. Kipling had more of an impact on my childhood than I realized. Ricky Ticky Tavi and The White Seal were both adapted by Chuck Jones, and I watched those two cartoons obsessively as a child. Reading the source of those stories was slightly surreal, details lining up with images baked into my brain years ago. The secret seal island only accessible from beneath still sounds pretty awesome.

Structurally the layout is rather wonky. It starts with the Mowgli stories, which are told out of sequential order, and then drifts off into a few short subjects.

Kipling's style, while amusing, just doesn't emotionally engage. The one major advantage of the Disney adaptation of the Jungle Book was the addition of humor. The source material is fairly reserved, no nonsense stuff.

I read the first book on my iPhone Stanza reader using a public domain copy. At this point , unless you're hellbent on having a paperback copy, you don't need to pay for almost any text more than a 100 years old. I listed the Amazon Kindle edition because it's the only one similar. I don't actually feel compelled to read the Second Jungle Book anytime soon, I've had my fill of his outlook on the wild.(less)

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About Rudyard Kipling

Awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1907 "in consideration of the power of observation, originality of imagination, virility of ideas and remarkable talent for narration which characterize the creations of this world-famous author."

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“For the strength of the Pack is the Wolf, and the strength of the Wolf is the Pack.” — 107 people liked it

“I will remember what I was, I am sick of rope and chains -
I will remember my old strength and all my forest affairs.
I will not sell my back to man for a bundle of sugar cane;
I will go out to my own kind, and the wood-folk in their lairs.
I will go out until the day, until the morning break -
Out to the wind's untainted kiss, the water's clean caress;
I will forget my ankle-ring and snap my picket stake.
I will revisit my lost love and playmates masterless!” — 29 people liked it

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