Quest for Kim: In Search of Kipling's Great Game [Paperback]

Peter Hopkirk (Author), Janina Slater (Illustrator)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0472086340 | ISBN-13: 978-0472086344 | Publication Date: October 7, 1999

This book is for all those who love Kim, the masterpiece of Indian life in which Kipling immortalized the Great Game, the centuries-old power struggle between Russia and Great Britain in the depths of Central Asia. Fascinated since childhood by this strange tale of an orphan boy's recruitment into the Indian secret service, Peter Hopkirk here explores the many mysteries surrounding Kipling's great novel.

"This is a fascinating, brilliantly written book, as interesting in its description of the author's journeys as it is in its investigation of the reality that lies behind 'the finest novel in the English language with an Indian theme,'" as Kim has been described by Nirad Chaudhuri." --T. J. Binyon, Times Literary Supplement

"In an original combination of autobiography, travel writing, and literary detective work, Hopkirk manages accessibly to tell the story of Kim and his own obsession with it. Hopkirk illustrates how creatively and thoroughly the reading of a work of fiction can shape a whole life's experience." -- John R. Bradley, Independent on Sunday

". . . a reminder of just how absorbing was the world Kipling knew, and how fabulous was his transformation of it into literature." --Richard Bernstein, New York Times

Peter Hopkirk has traveled widely over many years in the regions where his books are set--Central Asia, Russia, China, India, Pakistan, and the Middle East. His nearly twenty years with The Times included work as an Asian affairs specialist. His previous books include The Great Game, Foreign Devils on the Silk Road, Trespassers on the Roof of the World, Setting the East Ablaze, and Our Secret Service East of Constantinople. His works have been translated into twelve languages.

Editorial Reviews

Review

Few would challenge the unrivaled standing of Rudyard Kipling's Kim in the exotic adventure category. Vibrant, colorful and engaging, Kim seizes upon its readers taking them into teeming Lahore, along the Grand Trunk Road-that "great highway of all humanity" where Hindu, Moslem, Buddhist, great merchant. soldier, petty trader, pilgrim, spy, and counterspy surge along on their various journeys north toward Peshawar or south toward Benares. And always in evidence is the Great Game-the quest for military and political intelligence that would enable Britain to anticipate and counter any Russian plans to advance into Tibet or India. No "game" in fact; in 1889, Colonels Gromchevski and Younghusband actually met at 18,000 feet in the Pamirs and shared a civilized lunch, each with a bellicose empire in rear. Peter Hopkirk's concern is to identify the real-life characters Kipling drew upon singly or collectively in creating Kim, the military orphan wise beyond his years; Colonel Creighton, a British military man wise enough to recognize Kim's intelligence; Mahbub Ali, the larger-than-life Afghani horse trader: Hurree Chunder Mukherjee, man of letters turned spy, Lurgan Sahib, the mysterious dealer in jewels and exotica, and the gentle, mysterious Tibetan lama seeking the river in which Buddha's arrow fell. As a long-time and respected writer-researcher on Central Asia and the Great Game, Peter Hopkirk is very well qualified to solve these and related mysteries of identification. In most cases does do convincingly, with a fine retelling of the trial, tribulations and unexpected breaks in so doing. But he gives us much more, including a concise history of the Great Game and its players, both British and Indian; insights into life in Simla, British India's summer capital, cool, forested and delightful on its mountain ridge; the educational system for British and Anglo-Indian children, and starting points for those interested in early and recent critical evaluations ("politically correct" or not?) that Kim has received as a novel of India and the Great Game at the turn of the century. Previous readers (ought one say "aficionados?) and new ones can now enjoy the great rewards of Kim with knowledgeable and engaging guide at their side. -- From Independent Publisher --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

About the Author

Peter Hopkirk has travelled widely over many years in the regions where his six books are set: Central Asia, Russia, China, India, Pakistan, and the Middle East. Before turning full-time author, he worked for The Times for nearly twenty years, latterly as an Asian affairs specialist. In the 1950s he edited the West African news magazine Drum, sister-paper to its legendary South African namesake. Before entering Fleet Street he served as a subaltern in the King's African Rifles - in the same battalion as lance-corporal Idi Amin, later to emerge as the Ugandan tyrant. No stranger to misadventure, Hopkirk has twice been held in secret police cells - in Cuba and the Middle East - and has also been hijacked by Arab terrorists. His works have been translated into thirteen languages. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

• Paperback: 288 pages
• Publisher: University of Michigan Press (October 7, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0472086340
• ISBN-13: 978-0472086344
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.5 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.3 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #167,615 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Peter Hopkirk has traveled widely in the regions where his six books are set - Central Asia, the Caucasus, China, India and Pakistan, Iran, and Eastern Turkey. He has worked as an ITN reporter, the New York correspondent of the old Daily Express, and - for twenty years - on The Times. No stranger to misadventure, he has twice been held in secret police cells and has also been hijacked by Arab terrorists. His works have been translated into fourteen languages.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

27 of 28 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars You'll love this if you love Kim, June 4, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Quest for Kim: In Search of Kipling's Great Game (Hardcover)

Okay, I'm one of those people who, like author Peter Hopkirk, am totally enamored of the novel Kim. Hopkirk researches and traces the sources and inspirations for many of the characters and places in Kim. I confess that when I started to read Hopkirk's book, I was fearful lest it spoil Kim's magic. But I found the very opposite to be the case. The more I read Hopkirk's book, the more Kim grew in richness, depth, and life, and the more I felt awe for Kipling's masterpiece.

19 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Not Hopkirk's best, but enjoyable, February 3, 2002

By 

Mark E. Hall (Winnemucca, NV) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Quest for Kim: In Search of Kipling's Great Game (Paperback)

While not as scholarly or well written as FOREIGN DEVILS ON THE SILK ROAD, this was an enjoyable book to read. Hopkirk combined a bit of travelogue, detective story and literary criticism in writing this volume.

The essence of this volume is Hopkirk's search in the Northwest Frontier of Pakistan and northern India for Kipling's Kim. While few of the characters in Kim have direct historical parallels, there were models Kipling drew on for many of them. Kim himself was probably based an orphan of mixed parentage; his father was probably a British army soldier and his mother a Tibetan. Colonel Creighton was probably modeled off of Colonel Montgomerie of the Survey of India, while Lurgan
is believed to be modeled off of A. M. Jacob, a notorious jeweler in Simla. St. Xavier's in Lucknow was probably the source for La Martiniére.

Hopkirk does an excellent job in setting Kim into the Great
Game-the Russo-English rivalry over Afghanistan and the Anglo-French rivalry over the India trade. Throughout the book he also discusses whether Kipling was a racist or not. Unlike many critics who would judge Kipling by today's standards, Hopkirk tries to judge him the mores and values of Victorian England.

16 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Light but enjoyable introduction to India and Kim., March 21, 2002

By 

Conrad Risher (Washington, DC USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Quest for Kim: In Search of Kipling's Great Game (Paperback)

That Mr. Hopkirk comes to the study of "Kim" as an historian and not as an author of literature is immediately apparent to the reader of "Quest for Kim". The prose could hardly be called beautiful, and phrases and large passages are repeated throughout the work. With that fact recognized, Hopkirk's pedestrian prose is certainly sufficient to convey the information he has put together, and even the most ill-formed of his writing cannot cover his deep and passionate love for his subject. And this is what makes "Quest for Kim" such a joy to read, even for one who knows much of what Hopkirk says: his love of the work is contagious and inspiring; it brings pleasure to see how much pleasure he gets from it. Many readers may, as this one was, be uninterested in whether the characters in "Kim" were modelled after real-life contemporaries of Kipling, let alone where these real-life men lived, and yet the sections -- and there are many of them -- seeking out the homes of Colonel Creighton and Lurgan Sahib never fall into dullness because they are buoyed up with their historically interesting descriptions of late 19th-century India and the fun that Hopkirk clearly had looking into the matter.
On finishing "Quest for Kim", one may be left with the feeling that the historical information contained therein could have been greater in both quantity and detail. One will certainly not feel greatly informed on the literary qualities of "Kim", beyond that Hopkirk is extremely impressed by them. "Quest for Kim" is not a great scholarly tome, but it is an enjoyable read, encompassing a light, welcoming introduction to a study of British India and "Kim" itself wrapped in a pleasant narrative of one man's brief travels through Pakistan and India.