By Ruyard Kipling, first published in 1901, still in print as ISBN 978-1593081928.

Political correctness is a more insidious beast than it seems. Everyone always laughs at the ridiculous situations that arise from political correctness, but the real damage often goes unnoticed. Such it is with Rudyard Kipling's novel Kim. Political correctness (and more than a little bit of post-modern twaddle) has relegated Kim to the dusty back shelves when it should be celebrated as one of the best novels of the nineteenth century.

A good example of this foolishness is this essay by Ian Mackean. Now, of course, I'm a nobody and Mackean is famous, but that doesn't make his politically correct, post-modern analysis any less irritating. Take his assertion on the "Male Friendships" in the book: "Kim is a male-orientated novel, as we might predict from the phallic image with which it opens - Kim sitting astride a canon..." We know, from the book The Quest For Kim that children still, to this day, climb on the cannon Zamzama in Lahore (and that policemen still chase them off). We know that Kipling almost certainly saw children playing on Zamzama while his father was curator of the nearby museum. What are the chances that Kipling, writing in the 1890's, thought of those children and decided, "perfect, I'll open my novel about a young boy with the phallic image that those children playing on Zamzama bring to mind." It's absurd and everyone knows it. Postmodernism and political correctness, two different species of bed-bug, demand that a novel like this be tweezed apart and the slivers mocked. Some day, far in the future, our current period of time will be considered the Crazy Years of academia.

The Place

The fact is that Kim is one of the major achievements in the form of the novel and it deserves to be right on the top shelf with the other masterpieces of the form. Kim is set in 1890's India, a time of British colonialism and the Great Game (more on this later). This mixture contains the most racially, politically and linguistically diverse set of characters of any novel I can remember. The main character, Kim, is the orphan son of an Irish soldier who grows up in India, speaking and thinking in Hindi (as did Kipling, who wasn't an orphan, but actually sort of was). Other major characters include native Indians of many castes and religions, a British army colonel, a Muslim mentalist, an Afghani horse trader and a Tibetan monk.

No matter what you think of British colonialism (and it's a far more complex subject than you think), the time of the British Raj was a fascinating time in the history of India. India was naturally diverse, with many peoples and many religions before the British arrived. When you add to that the geopolitical complexity of Britain's relationship with the states surrounding India (e.g., present day Burma and Bengal), as well as Russia and China, and the complexity of British rule over such a land, the density of the diversity approaches black-hole proportions. There are no two characters in the book, large or small, who come from similar geological locations, cultures, languages or traditions and no two characters in the book have similar feelings towards the events that unfold.

The Plot

(Caution, some spoilers here) The plot is far too complex to explain in any detail. In short, Kim is a bright boy, living on the streets of Lahore. He's not only street wise, but his associations with people of all sorts have made him both philosophical and practical. Desiring "new air and water," he agrees to become the chela (student, disciple and servant) of a "Red Lama" (an unreformed buddhist Monk of the Nyingmapa sect who wears a red hat) he finds wandering the streets of Lahore. The Lama is on a quest to find a certain river that washes away all sin and Kim joins in to get a chance to see new things.

Kim already has a relationship with Mahbub Ali, an Afghani horse trader. In the past Kim has run errands and delivered messages for Mahbub Ali and received small amounts of money in exchange. As the plot opens, however, Mahbub has a bigger job for Kim: deliver a message to a certain Colonel in Umballa, a hundred miles away. Kim uses his Lama's quest as an excuse to travel to Umballa and deliver the message. The message concerns a plot that has been set in motion by several bordering Kings who plan to start a border war with India and the Colonel, upon receiving it, starts a troop movement that includes "eight thousand men, plus guns." Kim not only delivers the message, but manages to sneak in and hear the Colonel giving the orders to start the war.

This initiates Kim into the machinations of the Great Game, the rivalry between Britain and Russia to control Central Asia during the late 1800's. Kipling wrote several times about the Great Game, but Kim is immersed in it. Most of the characters are tied up in the thrust and parry of the Great Game, either directly as spies or indirectly as informants.

Kim was told by his father, before he died, that his future was tied up with "a Red Bull on a green field" and "nine hundred devils." As the Lama and Kim walk the Great Trunk Road, they encounter an Irish regiment (the Mavericks) making camp, and their insignia is a red bull on a green field. Kim worms his way into the camp, curious about his destiny, and encounters the Catholic priest of the regiment. The priest is at first intrigued over an apparently native boy who speaks English, but is dumbfounded when Kim shows him papers from an amulet around his neck that prove him to be a son of a former member of the regiment. For the next few years, Kim will lead a triple life. He will be sent to a British school to get a basic education. When he has time away from there, he will wander with his Lama, but also train for his part in the Great Game. Most of this training will come in the shop of Lurgan Sahib, a man who ostensibly runs a "curiosity shop" in the Indian town of Simla. Lurgan Sahib trains Kim (and others) in spycraft: Kim learns to disguise himself by donning the garb and manner of any number of native types, he learns powers of observation and memory, and he learns to measure distances and draw maps.

Eventually, Kim graduates from school and is given leave to wander with his Lama for a period of months, while those in charge find an assignment for him. Along the way, however, he gets caught up in a plot concerning a pair of Russian spies out to chart an invasion route for a future army. Kim, his Lama, his fellow spy Hurree Chunder Mookherjee and Mahbub Ali all work to rob the Russians of their data and foil their plot (although the Lama has no idea what is unfolding around him: he is seeking his river and enlightenment and worldly intrigue is beyond his scope).

The Language

There are many languages spoken in the course of the book, but Kipling actually uses none of them (aside from the occasional untranslated word or phrase). All of the characters always speak English. Kipling uses a clever device: as each character speaks in a different language, their accent, phrasing and figures of speech change to match the language. So, when the Colonel speaks English, it's the standard British English of the day. When he speaks Hindi, Kipling renders his English into a sort of antiquated English with native turns of speech:

Yes, and thou must learn how to make pictures of roads and mountains and rivers – to carry these pictures in thine eye till a suitable time comes to set them down upon paper.

True, but thou art a Sahib and the son of a Sahib. Therefore, do not at any time be led to contemn the black men. I have known boys newly entered into the service of the Government who feigned not to understand the talk or the customs of the black men. Their pay was cut for ignorance.

The device is clever and so unobtrusive that you're halfway through the book before you notice it. Kipling also introduces many native sayings, turns of speech and slang phrases. Here are some examples:

• When, in Mahbub's own picturesque language, he had muddied the wells of inquiry with the stick of precaution, Kim had dropped on him, sent from Heaven and, being as prompt as he was unscrupulous, Mahbub Ali, used to taking all sorts of gutsy chances, pressed him into service on the spot.
• …if evil men were not now and then slain it would not be a good world for weaponless dreamers.
• Their Gods are many-armed and malignant.
• The husbands of the talkative have a great reward hereafter.
• Life as a Sahib was amusing so far; but he touched it with a cautious hand.

The Result

The result is a novel that has to be read many times to fully enjoy. It's one of those few novels that can be read endlessly, because it's impossible to wrap your head completely around it: it's just too much bigger than your head. A whole book could be written just about the Lama's search. A whole culture is hinted at just in Mahbub Ali's trade in horses. Lurgan Sahib's backstory could run to a trilogy. The interplay between the British and the Indian peoples has libraries of volumes behind it. Somehow, Kipling manages to keep the book from overwhelming you, but I'm not smart enough to sense how he does it.

If Kim interests you sufficiently, pick up The Quest for Kim, linked above. In it, Peter Hopkirk explores the background of the Great Game and the places and people that Kipling likely encountered before writing the book. Astoundingly, it turns out that most of the characters are based, loosely at least, on real people. Even the more bizarre characters, such as Lurgan Sahib or Colonel Creighton, had real-life counterparts. Almost all of the locations were real and many can be visited today.

The book is, of course, politically incorrect to a degree that will cause a modern professor of English to bleed out of the eyes. The n-word is employed here and there (nearly always by British characters), various insults are hurled at women in general, several religions and more than one culture. If you're too sensitive for this sort of thing, or if you have a degree in English or use the word "postmodern" a good deal, then I would suggest you skip the book. Everyone else will find it all great fun, because there isn't a page in the book where Kipling isn't expressing his deepest love for all the peoples, cultures, religions and even the scenery he finds in India.