Why we still don't know what to make of Kipling

Is he hopelessly outdated, a standard-bearer for a discredited part of British history, or a writer with a profound understanding for all humanity?

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The end of December 2015 marked the 150th anniversary of Rudyard Kipling’s birth. I suppose you might say that this fact proves just how long ago a century and half can seem – at least if you take the common view of Kipling as the bard of empire and the standard-bearer for a discredited part of British history. But, given the debates that still rage about Kipling, his message and his legacy, you might just as easily say how close he still seems. He is a writer of perennial interest, not just because of his undoubted talent and way with words, but because we still don’t quite know what to make of him.

Is this Indian-born, youngest ever winner of the Nobel prize for literature a parochial English figure? Is this exquisite stylist and literary innovator a hopelessly old-fashioned stick-in-the-mud? Is he a racist, or someone with sympathy and understanding for all humanity?

Related: The 100 best novels: No 34 – Kim by Rudyard Kipling (1901)

He sat, in defiance of municipal orders, astride the gun Zam-Zammah on her brick platform opposite the old Ajaib-Ghar – the Wonder House, as the natives call the Lahore museum. Who hold Zam-Zammah, that ‘fire-breathing dragon’, hold the Punjab, for the great green-bronze piece is always first of the conqueror’s loot.

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