Customer Reviews

Rudyard Kipling: A Life

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

 

 

Clearly the best Kipling biography in many years. Mr. Ricketts has a fine touch, especially for Kipling's early years. If his later life wasn't as exotic and interesting, that's Kipling's affair. I think the mainstream reviewers had it right ('Splendid,' said The Atlantic Monthly, 'irresistibly readable,' said The New Yorker). Insightful and engaging.

This was difficult to read because the author skips around in Kiplings life so It was difficult to follow the sequence of events. Kipling was such an interesting person, I am looking for his official biography written by Carrington.

This is the only biography of Kipling I've read so I can't compare it to others. The author has laid out the facts of his life in detail. He comments with insight and sympathy on Kipling's work but strangely doesn't mention one of his most famous lines,"East is east and west is west, never the twain shall meet." Maybe he thought it was overanalyzed. The most interesting aspects for me were Kipling's influences and those he influenced and corresponded with and the impact of India and it's myriad cultures on his life and work. Mark Twain, H. Rider Haggard, Henry James, and many other great British and American writers are quoted. I would have liked a little more on the Kim and the Jungle Book and more about his views of Islamic culture and Afghanistan. Also would have liked to know about his Masonic membership and it's influence on the Man Who Would Be King. But maybe the author felt that would be too much minutia to include in what is not an exhaustive or long study of Kipling.

Mr. Ricketts begins well. Kipling's ancestors are well drawn. His first years in India are well done. The years back in England when he was 7-17(roughly) are very well written. The first years as a journalist back in India, when Kipling had great success with poems and stories, is well doen too. So, the first 140 pages are useful. Then the book gets really boring. Kipling leaves India, circles the world and lives in Englamnd then the US. It's really boring. Mr Ricketts seemed to run out of energy. So read the first part and skip the last.