Oscar P. (Oscar) reviewed on + 23 more book reviews
From Bibiomania: Kim is Rudyard Kiplings most enduringly successful serious novel. It was published in 1901 and is the story of the orphaned son of a soldier in the Irish regiment. His full name is Kimball OHara, but he is known, as the title suggests, as Kim. The novel takes place in India, then a British colony, and Kim spends his childhood as a waif in Lahore where he meets a Tibetan lama or holy man who is on a quest to find a mystical river. Kim joins him on his journey, but meets his fathers old regiment. He is adopted by them and is sent to a school although in his holidays he continues with his wandering. Partly as a result of his spirited lifestyle, Kim is selected by Colonel Creighton of the Ethnological Survey who notices his promise as a secret agent for the British. Under the instruction of the Indian, Hurree Babu, he becomes a distinguished member of the secret service, getting hold of the papers of some Russian spies in the Himalayas. The novel is notable for its detailed portrait of Indian life, its religions and some of the humbler aspects of a land with a great population and associated problems. Some of Kiplings jingoism does show through in the latter stages of the novel, however, but this does not detract much from what is a highly successful study of life in India and of a boy who combines both Oriental and Irish and therefore East and West in his nature.
