Kim (by Rudyard Kipling)

Sometimes I read books so you don't have to. Not that Kim is bad, exactly, in spite of the words of my fiance, which were something like "Life's too short to read Kim or Saul Bellow." It's one of those books that I started about eight billion times, since it's available as an etext, but could never get past the first paragraph of. Sort of like Lord Jim now that I think about it.

So is it worth getting past the first paragraph? Not exactly. I enjoyed the character of the lama and his relationship with Kim, but I don't know enough about the Crimean war or even the English rule of India (which I should know about since I studied it extensively in my British Empire class in college) to understand half of what happened. At times I popped into Barnes and Noble to read the annotated version, since Spark Notes doesn't have notes on Kim, more's the pity.

Anyway, it was a little confusing, mildly entertaining, well written at parts, but trust me, you don't have to read it if you don't have to. You know what I mean.

"He did not want to cry—had never felt less like crying in his life—but of a sudden easy, stupid tears trickled down his nose, and with an almost audible click he felt the wheels of his being lock up anew on the world without. Things that rode meaningless on the eyeball an instant before slid into proper proportion. Roads were meant to be walked upon, houses to be lived in, cattle to be driven, fields to be tilled, and men and women to be talked to. They were all real and true—solidly planted upon the feet—perfectly comprehensible—clay of his clay, neither more nor less. He shook himself like a dog with a flea in his ear, and rambled out of the gate." (Chapter 15)