Kipling as They Knew Him

Harold Orel's two volume miscellany provides a smorgasbord of tidbits from a number of widely disparate individuals who knew or met Rudyard Kipling. The more than ninety pieces by school friends, literary associates, family members and enthusiastic fans introduce little that is new; most of the material has already appeared in biographies of Kipling by Angus Wilson, Lord Birkenhead and Charles Carrington. The text is divided into six sections that cover Kipling's childhood and schooling, his early life in India, his growing fame and sojourn in America, his travels, and his ultimate return to England. The authors, people, places and events are briefly identified in the notes, and there is an index at the end of the second volume. Within each section Orel has arranged the material in roughly chronological order, and he achieves a good balance between the very brief sketches and the pieces of somewhat greater depth.

References to the considerable body of Kipling's work occur rather less frequently than might be expected. In most cases it is the genesis of the work that is alluded to, or a rather interesting sidelight regarding its history. For instance, one unusual revelation by Kipling's sister contends that it was their mother who gave Kipling what is surely the single line of his work that is most easily identified: "East is East and West is West, and never the twain shall meet."

It is not surprising that critical analysis is not the focus of a work in which most of the contributors are neither authors nor critics, but enthusiastic fans. But the poet when, according to T. S. Eliot, "communicated. . .little of his private ecstacies and despairs," remains somewhat obscure despite, or perhaps because of, selections like "Kipling and Winter Sports" (he liked ice-skating and curling), "Rudyard Kipling and His Rolls Royce Car" (it got eight miles to the gallon). Even when a discussion of literature is the focus of the reminiscence, a daunting array of "I said" and "he said" provides an effective barrier to understanding the writer as well as the man. Some authors whose names are familiar, like Mark Twain, Arthur Conan Doyle, and Christopher Morley, are represented but, by reason of their casual acquaintance with the subject, offer no real insights. Conan Doyle's contribution is "Teaching Kipling How to Golf."

Nevertheless, there is sufficient detail to reconstruct the broad outlines of Kipling's life, and enough gossip to place Kipling in the role of charming dinner companion with whom it seems possible to share two or three hours of wide-ranging but casual conversation. The essays are uneven in both style and appeal, but there emerges from the bits and pieces the broad outline of a vigorous, peripatetic, self-confident and talented figure. One selection in particular seems to embody the tone that characterizes the majority of the recollections. Michael O'Dwyer's piece begins: "It is almost exactly fifty years since I made the acquaintance of Kipling in the Old Punjab Club at Lahore." As a conversational gambit this is enticing, and for Kipling fans the piece offers a light but graceful epilogue for those already familiar with the works, all thirty-five volumes of them.