Customer Reviews

Hunting Mowgli

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Hunting Mowgli is a concise and thought-provoking adaptation of the traditional short story by Rudyard Kipling. Antinori uses Kiplings thematic setting in revealing a world where humans and beasts have become separate enemies. Mowgli, a human orphan, having been brought up in the "wild," walks the line of demarcation between the two. When the animal kingdom is threatened by a hunter, Mowgli is faced with a decision that could cost him his life. The consummation of the action poses several questions that have long been pondered by philosophers, epistomologists and scientists alike: At what point did humans and animals become separate? Was the development of reasoning abilities progression or regression for the human race? How do we define progress? In observation of historical patterns and political science, how different in actuality are humans from other animals? While this book can be enjoyed by the younger reader, its thematic content provokes thoughtful pondering in the adult reader as well.

This is a beautifully written story in an attractively bound book. Many if us adults have grown up with the story of Jungle Book and remember the Disney version. The boy Mowgli is mysteriously left in the jungle and grows up among the jungle animals in a lush green tropical paradise. But his identity catches up with him when he has to make choices about which world he belongs to. I think this book recreates and deepens this theme. True, we don't have cheery songs and funny-faced bears in this version. But we have basically the same characters, this time trying to figure out what to do with the hunter in the forest who thinks Mowgli is an evil spirit and is bent on bagging him. We observe the world of animals and their own set of rules, codes of conduct, habits, skills and social interactions. The story is divided up into chapters that nicely pace the story, almost like a fade-in and fade-out in a movie, and each chapter heading (and the cover) is illustrated by beautifully detailed etched drawings. The lead-up to the ending is fresh and thoughtful. Mowgli is again choosing and sorting through his feelings for his own species. Will Mowgli treat the hunter with compassion because he is another human being or because he is another being worthy of compassion? Will Mowgli be disappointed if he finds out that all beings do not share his compassionate nature or code of honor? To which tribe does Mowgli "belong"? While complicated, these themes are simply put forward in the drama between the hunter and Mowgli, surrounded by the wild and dignified animals that love their forest.

I feel the book will appeal to adults and children above 9 or so. Those who have enjoyed reading or seeing Huck Finn, Bambi or any Robert Louis Stevenson story will certainly enjoy this one.

Written in a style that evokes images of the original Tarzan series, Antinori gives the character of Mowgli more depth than is found in the original pulp classics by Edgar Rice Burroughs.

The story shows that man is utterly out of place in the wilds of the jungle, and can only be strong and self-confident outside the protected village with the crutch of a rifle. The man fears Mowgli and does not believe he is a man, for man cannot possbily live as an animal does. Thus, he hunts Mowgli to exterminate a so-called "devil" that is cursing his village.

While Tarzan's character may move between the civilized world and the jungle, Mowgli, on the other hand, is completely repulsed by man's ways and civilization through a violent encounter with the hunter, where his panther friend, Bagheera, is killed. While Mowgli could have been tempted to embrace man's way of life for a brief moment, he completely rejects humanity to live out his life with the freedom of an animal.

The book may be enjoyed by young teens who may also be reading such books as Tarzan, Conan or similarly adventurous stories.

This is a very short book - at just 44 pages, it's more of a short story.

This is not the first time an author has written a sequel to Kipling's Mowgli stories, of course; Pamela Jekel's "Third Jungle Book" appeared in 1992. But I can't help feeling that Jekel's book was more true to the spirit of Kipling than Antinori's.

Antinori's story is simple enough. A human hunter is stalking Mowgli the man-cub who dwells in the jungle with the animals. Mowgli's friend Bagheera the panther wants to kill the man, but Mowgli wants to try and reason with him first.

The book is not very consistent. On the one hand, Mowgli acts as if he's never seen a human before, but on the other hand he is able to speak fluently to the hunter. Another inconsistency is that the hunter is finally identified as Buldeo. In the original Jungle Books Buldeo is portrayed as old, lazy and complacent, yet the hunter in this story is young and ruthelessly efficient. There are also a couple of odd lapses in Antinori's research - the word "bandar-log" (monkey-people) is consistently misspelled.

The core of the story is the conflict between Mowgli's human and animal instincts. Should he return to human society or remain with the animals? Unfortunately the way that Antinori resolves this conflict seems to me to be needlessly violent, inconsistent with Kipling's chronology, and far too upsetting for any children who might be given this book in the belief that it's just like the original Jungle Books.

In this book, Antinori has tried to analyse the complex motivations of a classic literary character who isn't sure what world he belongs to, and he should be congratulated for making the attempt. Unfortunately in my view the attempt was unsuccessful.