***** - Excellent
**** - Good
*** - Okay
** - Bad
* - Terrible
+ - Half-star
Captains Courageous
Rudyard Kipling
Public Domain Books
Fiction, YA? Adventure/General Fiction
*
DESCRIPTION: Young Harvey Cheyne, son of an American business goliath, never knew a day of poverty or hardship in his life. Raised by an overprotective mother and
absentee father, his pockets fairly bulging with his overgenerous allowance, he saw his future set before him on a gilded platter. While traveling to Europe for a dose of
Continental education, Harvey falls overboard into the dark waters of the Atlantic Ocean. A cod-fisher snags him in his dory and brings him back to the Gloucester schooner
"We're Here." Nobody believes his grandiose claims of wealthy (and grateful) parents waiting to receive him. Out here, he's just another body on a vessel with no room for
idlers. During the ensuing summer, the spoiled young Harvey learns more about people and life than he has at any of his fancy schools.
REVIEW: An object lesson in how to bore and alienate an audience, Captains Courageous wallows and drifts like a waterlogged dory. The narrative, thick with
sailing terms and thin on explanations, hardly cares whether or not the reader is intimately familiar with nautical lore. Likewise, the dialog demonstrates how aggravating it
is when an author writes exclusively in near-phonetic dialect; English itself becomes a foreign language when rolling off the tongues of New England sailors. Things appeared to
happen, as often as not without significantly affecting Harvey (his growth from spoiled brat to sure-footed sailor boy happens largely by implication), but for the life of me
half the time I couldn't figure out what, let alone why I should care. I came closer to giving up on this story than I have in many a moon. Unfortunately, my persistence went
unrewarded as I slogged through a boring, overlong ending which only confirmed the racial, ethnic, and social stereotypes that ran rampant through the whole thing. (Normally,
I cut older books more slack in this department, but I was disgruntled enough at this point not to bother here.) Despite being a free-for-Kindle public domain download, I
nevertheless walked away convinced I'd overpaid.
You might also enjoy:
Beyond the Western Sea (Avi, YA Fiction - In the mid-1800's, two Irish orphans and a runaway English lordling seek new lives in America)
The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle (Avi, YA Fiction - A well-born girl, sole passenger on a trans-Atlantic sailing ship, is accused of murder)
Tarzan of the Apes (Edgar Rice Burroughs, Fiction - Born to marooned English aristocrats, a boy raised by apes in Africa returns to civilization)
Stowaway (Karen Hesse, YA Fiction - A boy stowaway becomes part of Captain Cook's landmark circumnavigation of the globe)
The Liveship Traders trilogy (Robin Hobb, Fiction - Living ships, a scheming would-be pirate king, man-eating sea serpents... an excellent fantasy trilogy!)
The Perfect Storm (Sebastian Junger, Nonfiction - The story of the devastating 1991 Atlantic storm, which claimed many fishing vessels)
The Piratica series (Tanith Lee, YA Fiction - Recovering from amnesia, a 16-year-old girl sets out to relive her mother's glory days as an honorable pirate queen)
The Bloody Jack Adventures (L. A. Meyer, YA Fiction - A plucky street girl from London poses as a boy aboard a British ship)
Hatchet (Gary Paulsen, YA Fiction - A plane crash in the Canadian wilderness forces a boy to grow up)
Treasure Island (Robert Louis Stevenson, YA Fiction - An English boy finds himself caught up in the hunt for a dead pirate's treasure)
Rogue Wave (Theodore Taylor, YA Fiction - Short stories of adventure by land, sea, and air)
The Leviathan trilogy (Scott Westerfield, YA Fiction - In an alternate World War 1, the son of assassinated Archduke Ferdinand befriends a British girl posing as a midshipman)
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The Jungle Book
Rudyard Kipling
Woodsworth Edition
Fiction, YA? Fantasy/General Fiction
****
DESCRIPTION: This is a reprint of Kipling's classic tales of the Indian jungle. Included are:
The Jungle Book: The boy Mowgli is raised in the Indian jungle by wolves, the black panther Bhageera, and the bear Baloo, after the great tiger Shere Khan kills
his father.
Rikki-Tikki-Tavi: A mongoose protects a British family from deadly cobras.
The White Seal: A seal tries to save his fellows from hunters.
Toomai of the Elephants: A young boy witnesses a never-before-seen marvel of elephant culture.
Her Majesty's Servants: A man overhears the animals of the British army discussing their jobs.
REVIEW: This is another book I'd always thought I should read but never got around to until now. The dialog is a bit thick with "thee"'s and "thy"'s, but beyond that
it's a fairly good book. Mowgli's tale and Rikki-Tikki were the best, followed by The White Seal. I didn't find much of a point to Toomai, and the last tale seemed
disjointed and over-talky. Admittedly, some of this is the result of me being a modern person looking back at the views and practices of another time. For instance, catching
and beating wild elephants (in Toomai and the Elephants) doesn't strike me as a particularly noble occupation, but I'm looking at it during a time when both elephants
and the Indian ecology teeter on the edge of extinction. No doubt Kipling's era saw an endless wildland begging to be tamed. On the whole, however, Kipling's stories
are well-paced and memorable, which is more than I can say of a few "classics" I've read. I found it odd how Kipling seems to write with a sort of reverence for the Indian
subcontinent's wildlife in some stories, then glorifies its destruction and English rule in others. A different idea of "reverence," I suppose, from another era.
You might also enjoy:
The Alexander Cold trilogy (Isabel Allende, YA Fiction - An American teen discovers danger and mysticism in the remote corners of the world)
Heart of a Tiger (Marsha Diane Arnold, YA Picture Book - In India, a shy gray kitten wants a tiger's name)
Tarzan of the Apes (Edgar Rice Burroughs, Fiction - The classic story of a boy raised in the African jungle by apes)
The Sword and the Cross (Fergus Fleming, Nonfiction - Nineteeth-century Europeans attempt to "tame" the Sahara)
King Solomon's Mines (H. Rider Haggard, Fiction - Three Englishmen seek legendary diamonds in the heart of colonial Africa)
The Leopard's Daughter (Lee Killough, Fiction - In prehistoric Africa, a warrior girl with a leopard's soul seeks acceptance among humans)
The Blue Sword (Robin McKinley, YA Fiction - Far from her distant homeland, a girl finds herself immersed in a strange land, a strange culture, and a stranger magic)
Rudyard Kipling's The Jungle Book
(1994 movie DVD - An underrated version of Kipling's classic story)
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The Second Jungle Book
(Sequel to The Jungle Book)
Rudyard Kipling
Public Domain Books
Fiction, YA? Fantasy/General Fiction
**+
DESCRIPTION: After Mowgli defeated the tiger Shere-Khan and fled the cruel and superstitious Man-village, he thought he could return to his old life, as a child of
the Seeonee wolf pack, hunt-brother of the panther Bagheera, and pupil of the bear Baloo. But the mark of Man is upon him, a poison in his blood, and even as he rises to
Master of the Jungle, his birthright calls to him. Mowgli's further adventures are interspersed with tales of Jungle lore and other short stories.
REVIEW: To be honest, a good half a star was lost to the Public Domain version I found online; inexplicably, it cut out some of Kipling's work, most notably the songs
and Jungle law, with unhelpful bracketed summaries of the prose I'd hoped to read left in their stead. Unfortunately, the other two stars were lost honestly. While lush with
intricate descriptions and imaginative lore, the stories themselves drag and meander, mostly so Kipling could cram in yet more descriptions and lore. I also found Mowgli to
be a clueless, selfish little twerp more often than not; why Bagheera, Kaa, and the rest put up with him for so long without gutting him, I cannot fathom. Once again, Kipling's
works display a strange duality of nature, being both a literate love song for the wonders of the wilderness and a not-so-subtle praise of the English domination and destruction
of said wilderness. In his time, perhaps, the two somehow melded into a unified vision, but from my 21st-century American standpoint I can't see how. In any event, this sequel
hardly seems necessary.
You might also enjoy:
The Alexander Cold trilogy (Isabel Allende, YA Fiction - An American teen discovers danger and mysticism in the remote corners of the world)
Heart of a Tiger (Marsha Diane Arnold, YA Picture Book - In India, a shy gray kitten wants a tiger's name)
Tarzan of the Apes (Edgar Rice Burroughs, Fiction - The classic story of a boy raised in the African jungle by apes)
The Sword and the Cross (Fergus Fleming, Nonfiction - Nineteeth-century Europeans attempt to "tame" the Sahara)
King Solomon's Mines (H. Rider Haggard, Fiction - Three Englishmen seek legendary diamonds in the heart of colonial Africa)
The Leopard's Daughter (Lee Killough, Fiction - In prehistoric Africa, a warrior girl with a leopard's soul seeks acceptance among humans)
The Blue Sword (Robin McKinley, YA Fiction - Far from her distant homeland, a girl finds herself immersed in a strange land, a strange culture, and a stranger magic)
Rudyard Kipling's The Jungle Book
(1994 movie DVD - An underrated version of Kipling's classic story)
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With the Night Mail: A Story of 2000 A.D.
Rudyard Kipling
University of Toronto Libraries
Fiction, Sci-Fi
***+
DESCRIPTION: In a world where dirigibles are as common as carriages, where war itself has been rendered obsolete, take a memorable journey across the Atlantic with
a postal flight. Included with this tale are advertisements and articles from the contemporary periodical where it appeared.
REVIEW: This one lost out on a solid Good by a proverbial gnat's wing. One of the first sci-fi stories that relied on immersion (dribbling bits of information through
the text) rather than infodumping (stopping the narrative dead in its tracks to explain itself to the reader), it feels surprisingly modern for such an inherently dated
story. Kipling obviously took his time, mapping out the technology and the future world of the story - even allowing for changed cultural attitudes on gender, religion, and
nationalities. The tech-intensive dirigibles would fit right in with today's steampunk resurgence. The articles and advertisements at the end add to the milieu of his "future."
Unfortunately, the main story itself (which only covers half of the book) lacks a point. It partially succeeds as a "slice of life" glimpse into a blimp-dominated retro-future
world, but the characters are too thin to care about and the technobabble gets a bit thick now and again. On the whole, it's highly imaginative and well crafted.
(To be honest, I found myself thinking that With the Night Mail would make a great basis for a steampunk role-playing game; this is the kind of thing game makers used to
throw in with game manuals, back before a good, mood-setting game manual became a lost art in the industry. It's by a known author, it plays into a modern trend, and it's public
domain... come on, programmers! Make it happen!)
You might also enjoy:
The Supernaturalist (Eoin Colfer, YA Fiction - In a polluted and hopeless future, a boy's near-death experience grants him the ability to see invisible energy parasites)
Cold Magic (Kate Elliot, Fiction - A girl in an alternate Industrial Revolution-era Earth finds herself bound to a powerful cold mage, whose kind opposes scientific and social progress)
The Airborn books (Kenneth Oppel, YA Fiction - An alternate-Earth boy rides hydrium airships into the unexplored wonders of the stratosphere... and beyond)
Boneshaker (Cherie Priest, YA Fiction - Deadly blight gas turns a steampunk 19th-century Seattle into a ghost town full of zombies)
Larklight (Philip Reeve, YA Fiction - In a Victorian-era space adventure, two British children embark upon a singular adventure through the aether of space)
The Iron Dragon's Daughter (Michael Swanwick, Fiction - A human girl, abducted into a technological faerie realm, seeks escape and vengeance with a mechanical war dragon)
20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (Jules Verne, Fiction - Three late-nineteenth century men find themselves captives and guests aboard a madman's revolutionary submarine)
The Leviathan trilogy (Scott Westerfield, YA Fiction - In an alternate World War 1, fabricated creatures fight steampunk machinery)
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