by Rudyard Kipling

Volume 1, Issue 1 (April 2025)

I feel I have been missing something for many years. Finished this little book the other day, likely a couple of hours reading. I did not take a great deal of notice because to was engrossed in the stories. I cannot recall having read anything by Rudyard Kipling. Nothing was ever offered up as a youngster and nothing at school, but now was the time to rectify the situation.

I do recall occasionally seeing snippets of the Disney production, but these are never true to the original due to the younger clientele they wish to impress. After all, how many parents want their children to see a naked boy skinning a tiger after it has been trampled by buffalo? Yes, the book is none other than Rudyard Kipling’s The Jungle Book. (I had recently acquired the beautiful 1935 volume published by MacMillan and Co., Limited of St. Martin’s Street, London which made the experience even more pleasant.)

I was quite taken by Kipling’s style as the story-teller. It also has to do with the content, but his manner allows the reader’s imagination to spark. It almost feels like we are alongside the characters themselves in their adventures. The fact that what is rendered in English is not actually spoken in English is irrelevant, our imagination takes care of this aspect.

I suppose the stories are written or geared more to the younger reader, but we of the not-so-young can still enjoy these stories. Personally, I do not think that children’s stories today come anywhere near Kipling’s work. Naturally there are other writers of children’s work, but I am only concerned with Kipling here.

It does not take long for Kipling to have his characters impress themselves upon us. He brings them to life and we watch and listen to what they say, how they behave and interact with each other. I say watch and listen because the imagination is stimulated by Kipling’s style.

Although I had a very sketchy idea what the story was about, I had no idea of the relationship between the characters or how it all came about in the first place. Thus, a bit of a learning experience for me, and still wondering how I had never read any of Kipling’s work.

Anyway, you will meet characters and likely never forget them. Mowgli (the frog or man-cub), the lame tiger, Shere Khan. I had no idea he was lame or would be killed and skinned by Mowgli. Baloo the brown bear and Bagheera the Black Panther. The description of Bagheera is something to behold:

… bold as the wild buffalo, and as reckless as the wounded elephant. But he had a voice as soft as wild honey dripping from a tree, and a skin softer than down.

How great is that?! Among others, the monkey-people or the Bandar-log which remind us of a lot of people today with their senseless chatter, and of course the mighty thirty-foot Rock Python Kaa with his powers of fascination.

There are other stories included, but the Mowgli stories I found enchanting. If you have not read the book, I think it is about time you did. There is also another volume called The Second Jungle Book with more stories, but I think you will find the first more entertaining.