Kim

Rating:
Summary: Beautifully written and completely captivating
Review: My Mom has tried to get me to read Kim for years, and I finally broke down and read it. My Mom recommends infrequently and when she does the book is always brilliant. This was no exception. I loved the slow pace of the novel that allowed you to really sink into the experiences Kim was describing. I can never be in India in that time and place, with those characters, but Kipling made them seem very real. I recommend this book for anybody who is able to slow down and feel the book with all your senses, and don't read it when you are in a hurry because you will lose much of the magic.

Rating:
Summary: SO YOU WANT TO BE BORED AND CONFUSED OUT OF YOUR MIND...
Review: If you want to be bored, comfused, and perplexed, you should read this book. I would certainly not recommend it for teens and younger people. It's very confusing dialect and the story has no plot at all. In fact, if you read the preface by the author, he actually says that the book is pointless. Heres what I mean. In one chapter, the chacters sat by the side of the road ALL DAY. Well good for them, but nobody wants to read 39 pages about it. Everyone that I have talked to about this book have all dispised it for it's lack of..well...anything. In fact, I had to sit and force myself to read a chapter. When the author ends every word with a "th" it makes it very hard to understand what is going on. Many adults say that it is supposed to be a "role model" book. Is a 13-year-old boy who smokes and calls people horrible names a role model? I don't think so.

Rating:
Summary: A Classic, But . . .
Review: This novel is well-written and an example of good literature, with an interesting plot and an even more interesting list of characters. Its drawback is that it is an inherently and unabashedly imperialistic book, and India (and Indians) are ultimately quite negatively portrayed and stereotyped. Call it a classic, but imperialism is imperialism. And somehow the story of a little British boy "triumphing" over India doesn't do it for me.

Rating:
Summary: This may the best book you will ever read.
Review: My grandfather gave me KIM when I was 8 years old; I read it when I was a teenager, and hated it. Too strange, too obtuse. Then I read it again when I was in my thirties and had traveled a bit. On the second reading, the work described as "Kipling's best" came alive, and I was gripped by the radiance of the writing and the plunging-but-comprehensible depth of the details. This "best seller of its time" captures an entire elborate culture and intriging era, and moves it indelilbly (mystically?)into your memory. Forever.

Rating:
Summary: a kipling classic
Review: This is billed as one of Kiplings greatest short stories, and I must agree, Kim (little friend of all the world.) is for me a great story and as I am also a Freemason and a member of the Kipling society. Almost as good as The man who would be king, my advice?? buy it now>..

Rating:
Summary: Why did Kipling get distracted by the Great Game?
Review: You know, I really wanted to like this book. Maybe it's the first chapter, which fills you with such goodwill for the characters, especially (what a great title Kim has) the Friend of All the World. But then the narrative gets bogged down in a whole bunch of espionage baloney. Imagine a _Huckleberry Finn_ (the supposed prototype for _Kim_) where Huck gets sent to military school for several years in the middle of the book, and you can see whata wrong direction Kipling took. I can't deny that the book abound with local color or whatever, but a plot that drags is a plot that drags, and I could never get around that. It's not helped by a prose style that is often pretty, but ultimately too flowery and opaque for an adventure story. Maybe it's just dated; but I doubt it, for some of Kipling's contemporaries, like Doyle, Stevenson, or Haggard, could write in a similar genre, and they have aged fine. I will say, though, that the ending doesn't cop out the way I'd feared it would, and is very satisfying. But a good beginning and a good ending...that's all you've got here.

Rating:
Summary: Great Adventures
Review: This was a FUN book to read, not just for the many adventures undertaken, nor only for the many fine characters (Huree Babu was my favorite), but also for the smorgasborg of different races and societies depicted from an India around the turn of the century. Kipling - who spent parts of his life in both England and India - was able to see both eastern and western approaches to life. His understanding and imagination created this fine novel revolving an adventurous boy's forays. Happy reading. . .

Rating:
Summary: A heart-lifting experience
Review: The Recorded Book (unabridged version)was my companion on a cross-country drive. The story was so compelling I had to turn it off whenever the traffic was heavy. The book was full of generous-hearted people from different backgrounds, each making his own search, each trying to live up to his idea of the good. The book also gave a vivid picture of India during the British occupation. This book is truly a classic.

Rating:
Summary: A Great Classic
Review: So why am I writing a review of a book published in the early 1900s?
I hope some young people will read all the positive reviews and pick up the book and have a great time. No Stephen King or Dean Koontz wrote this. A wonderfully narrated book of a time that is not coming back. The language is smooth as flowing honey and the Indian words are used with the skill of one born and brought up there (Kipling was later sent to England to complete his schooling).
Enjoyable even after years and years.
I would recommend to buy the hardcover (Everyman Library) edition. A bargain at Amazon's prices

Rating:
Summary: Chapter 1 has 99 footnotes!
Review: Maybe this is the way things were done a hundred years ago, but today, this book wouldn't get past the first reviewer. (Nor should it.) Read it for historical purposes, to see how bad novels used to be.

Otherwise, I recommend Laurie R. King's "The Game", instead -- or anything by her, for that matter. "The Game" follows Sherlock Holmes and wife Mary Russell in search of Kim, 30 years later.