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Rudyard Kipling
BARRACK-ROOM BALLADS (1892 and 1896) • McLean, Virginia. IndyPublish.com. 2002. Hardcover. 112pp. ISBN 10: 158827750X reviewed by Patrick Killough (1) biblio.com 07/24/2011 Would you recommend this book to other readers? Yes. * * * * * review: Rudyard Kipling's two-part (1892, 1896) BARRACK-ROOM BALLADS is holding up as a good read more than a century after its 38 poems first appeared in book form. These are soldier stories, Tommy stories, British GI in India Thomas Adkins stories. The points of view expressed usually come from rankers and non-coms in barracks in cantonments, from little people who put in their six years soldiering abroad for Queen Victoria and then go home to England, Ireland, Wales or Scotland. A half dozen of the ballads are still recited or sung today. -- (1) "Tommy":
"We aren't no thin red 'eroes, nor we aren't no blackguards too, But single men in barricks, most remarkable like you." -- (2) "Gunga Din": "E'll be squattin' on the coals/Givin' drink to poor damned souls, An' I'll get a swig in hell from Gunga Din!" -- (3) "The Widow at Windsor"; -- (4) "Mandalay": "Ship me somewheres east of Suez, where the best is like the worst, Where there aren't no Ten Commandments an' a man can raise a thirst" -- (5) "Gentlemen-Rankers": "We're poor little lambs who've lost our way, Baa! Baa! Baa! We're little black sheep who've gone astray, Baa--aa--aa! Gentlemen-rankers out on the spree, Damned from here to Eternity, God ha' mercy on such as we, Baa! Yah! Bah!" -- (6) "Cholera Camp": "We've got to die somewhere -- some way -- some'ow -- We might as well begin to do it now!." Other things being equal, buy a scholarly edition of BARRACK-ROOM BALLADS. You will profit from some historical context on the 19th Century British Raj in India, also from a glossary of Hindustani or Anglo-Indian phrases as mauled by common soldiers and from a map or two as well. But even as stand-alone verses, BARRACK-ROOM BALLADS is a strong keeper. -OOO- http://www.biblio.com/books/402726827.html =-=-=-=-=-=-=--=-= (2) lunch.com 07/25/2011 name of review: 38 Poems by Young Rudyard Kipling: Half a Dozen Immortal rating: * * * * review: Rudyard Kipling was born late in 1865 in British Bombay, India. After a few years in Bombay, raised bilingually largely by native household servants, Rudyard and his younger sister Trix spent the next unhappy years being schooled in England away from parents. He returned at age 16 to Lahore where his father was curator of a museum and worked there and in Allahabad over the next seven years for two related English-language, English-owned Indian newspapers. These papers also began to publish poems and short stories about India which young Rudyard dashed off weekly in his spare time. In 1892 when he was only 26, Rudyard Kipling published his first important book of verses: BARRACK-ROOM BALLADS (20 poems). In 1896 he added another 18 poems for a second edition. Rudyard Kipling's parents and sister were musical. He himself was not, claiming to be tone deaf. The only thing that stayed with him from music was beat, rhythm. And these he carried brilliantly, deftly into his hundreds of poems, many in the ballad meter. His poems were found to be extraordinarily musical, and many were almost instantly turned into songs. To this day, musicians select this or that Kipling poem to grace with a new tune. When I was around 12, growing up in Shreveport, Louisiana, I bought a 33-rpm recording of Songs of Rudyard Kipling and memorized Danny Deever, Gunga Din, Mandalay and other immortals. I do not recall the 18th song of 1892, "Gentlemen-Rankers" being on that 33-rpm record. But I know that members of the Yale Glee Club created in 1909 the famous "Whiffenpoof Song" as a humorous parody of the opening verses of Kipling's "Gentlemen-Rankers," which begin: To the legion of the lost ones, to the
cohort of the damned,
To my brethren in their sorrow overseas, Sings a gentleman of England cleanly bred, machinely crammed, And a trooper of the Empress, if you please. Yea, a trooper of the forces who has run his own six horses, And faith he went the pace and went it blind, And the world was more than kin while he held the ready tin, But to-day the Sergeant's something less than kind. We're poor little lambs who've lost our way, Baa! Baa! Baa! We're little black sheep who've gone astray, Baa—aa—aa! Gentlemen-rankers out on the spree, Damned from here to Eternity, God ha' mercy on such as we, Baa! Yah! Bah! etc., etc. etc. Sometime before he graduated from Harvard in 1898, young Guy H. Scull set Kipling's famous poem to music. By1907 "Gentlemen-Rankers" was a popular song even on the rival Yale campus in New Haven, promoted mostly by a singing group called the Growlers, '08. In 1909 Kipling's poem, as rendered by Harvard's Scull, had been recast and parodied by a small male singing group called "The Whiffenpoofs" and made into their signature tune, which it remains in 1911. Here, for comparison, are excerpts from "the Whiffenpoof Song": To the tables down at Mory's,
Kipling's
"Gentlemen-Rankers" shows the power of a great and serious poem to live
on even when gentled down by satire and humor. If a silly song leads
people who enjoy it to its far better original, "Gentlemen-Rankers,"
then Kipling would be the first, I think, to applaud. Pick your
favorite singer from Rudy Vallee to Bing Crosby to Elvis Presley and
hear Rudyard Kipling echoed in "the Whiffenpoof Song." To the place where Louis dwells, To the dear old Temple Bar We love so well, Sing the Whiffenpoofs assembled With their glasses raised on high, And the magic of their singing casts its spell. Yes, the magic of their singing Of the songs we love so well: "Shall I, Wasting" and "Mavourneen" and the rest. * * * We are poor little lambs Who have lost our way. Baa! Baa! Baa! We are little black sheep Who have gone astray. Baa! Baa! Baa! Gentlemen songsters off on a spree Damned from here to eternity God have mercy on such as we. Baa! Baa! Baa! The worst that can be said of Kipling's 30-odd Barrack-Room Ballads that are less than immortal, is that they are here and there flat, pedestrian. But there is not one without a nugget worth your searching for: otherwise, a pearl of great price. -OOO- http://community.cafelibri.com/reviews/d/UserReview- Rudyard_Kipling_BARRACK_ROOM_BALLADS-74- 1752075-210726-38_Poems_by_Young_Rudyard_ Kipling_Half_a_Dozen.html =-=-=-=-=-=-=--=-= (3) bn.com 07/26/3011 (Submitted, but I am not sure that it was picked up). title of review: What's was it like in old Mandalay? rating: * * * * review: Rudyard Kipling claimed to be tone-deaf. But scholars are finding that he meant his poems to be sung -- or at a minimum read aloud. Rudyard often, apparently, had particular popular tunes in mind during his composition of a particular poem, like the 38 included in BARRACK-ROOM BALLADS (1892, 1896). From that collection of BARRACK-ROOM BALLADS alone, for example, Brian Mattinson, as he wrote on-line in September 2007, has discovered so far "six settings of 'Tommy," nine of 'Danny Deever,' ten of 'Gunga Din,' and nineteen of the old favourite 'Mandalay." I first discovered the songs of Rudyard Kipling on a 33-rpm record that I bought in Shreveport, Louisiana when I was 12 years old (I am now 75). BARRACK-ROOM BALLADS contain at least a half dozen incontestably great poems, whether set to music or not. Let's look very briefly at the rhythm of one of the best known, "Mandalay" as a stand-in for all the other great ones: "By the old Moulmein Pagoda, lookin' lazy
at the sea,
There's a Burma girl a-settin', and I know she thinks o' me; For the wind is in the palm-trees, and the temple-bells they say: "Come you back, you British soldier; come you back to Mandalay!" ............... On the road to Mandalay, Where the flyin'-fishes play, An' the dawn comes up like thunder outer China 'crost the Bay! .................................... Ship me somewheres east of Suez, where the best is like the worst,/ Where there aren't no Ten Commandments an' a man can raise a thirst." I don't recall that Kipling ever went to Mandalay. But he made a point of knowing, in India, plenty of British Tommies who had fought or been stationed in Burma. He listened carefully. He had a good ear for accents and intonations. And the results included travelogue poems like "Mandalay" and "Rolling Down to Rio." Who doesn't yearn to know what's it really like "somewheres east of Suez?" And if Kipling himself didn't set "Mandalay" to music, many did. Late in life Kipling observed: "I wrote
a song called 'Mandalay' which, tacked to a tune with a swing, made one
of the waltzes of that distant age."
My current hard cover edition of BARRACK-ROOM BALLADS is IndyPublish.com's. It lists the 38 poems in traditional sequence by number under Contents, but does not give page numbers, which slows down a search. As usual, maps would be helpful as well as a glossary of hindustani and Anglo-Indian words and phrases. A young poet's earliest book collection, with a number of immortal lines. Enjoy! -OOO- recommended reading: Rudyard Kipling: JUST SO STORIES, DEPARTMENTAL DITTIES, KIM http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/barrack-room-ballads -rudyard-kipling/1004165380?ean=9781588277503&itm= 11&usri=kipling%2bbarrack%2broom%2bballads =-=-=-=-=-=-=--=-= (4) amazon.com 07/26/2011 title of review: "... the Colonel's Lady an' Judy O'Grady" rating: * * * * review: Young Rudyard Kipling (1865 - 1936) issued his first book of twenty poems, BARRACK-ROOM BALLADS in 1892. He reissued that title in 1896 with eighteen additional poems. India-born (Bombay)Kipling, after education from ages five to 16, returned to India and spent seven hard years as a journalist/editor for two related English-language, English-owned newspapers, the first in Lahore (where his parents then lived) the second in Allahabad. It is hard for me to review a collection either of Kipling short stories (PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS, MULVANEY STORIES) or of poems (BARRACK-ROOM BALLADS). Is there unity? Are individual items worth reading beyond the very famous ones? In the case of the 38 BARRACK-ROOM BALLADS, the unity is strong. The world of Britain's neglected service men, their views, their habits, their amours, their wars, their illnesses, their attitudes toward their social superiors (British officers whether civilian or military) and their "inferiors," usually Indian or Burmese natives often called "naygurs" or worse and the views of lower-class British or Indian women. Within the unifying framework, every BARRACK-ROOM BALLAD is, however, unique. The speaker is white or black, man or woman, strong or weak, plodding or clever and on and on. The enduringly famous BALLADS, in order of presentation are certainly, -- Danny Deever ("Ho! the young recruits are shakin', and they'll want their beer today, After hangin' Danny Deever in the mornin'."); -- Tommy ("But it's 'Thank you, Mister Atkins', when the band begins to play"); -- Gunga Din ("Though I've belted you, and flayed you, By the livin' God that made you, You're a better man than I am, Gunga Din!" -- Mandalay ("Bloomin' idol made o'mud -- What they called the Great Gawd Budd -- Plucky lot she cared for idols when I kissed 'er where she stud! On the road to Mandalay ..."); -- Gentlemen-Rankers ("We're poor little lambs who've lost our way, Baa! Baa! Baa! "We're little black sheep who've gone astray, Baa -- aa -- aa!"); and -- The Mother Lodge ("We'd Bola Nath, Accountant, An' Saul the Aden Jew, And Din Mohammed, draughtsman Of the Survey Office too; There was Babu Chuckerbutty, An' Amir Singh the Sikh An' Castro from the fittin-sheds, The Roman Catholick!" And what of the 30 something BALLADS each less than immortal? At worst they are flat in places, inclining to prosaic. But their best lines can be zingers. Let one example stand for all, Rudyard Kipling's "The Ladies": I've taken my fun where I've found it;
I've rogued an' I've ranged in my time; I've 'ad my pickin' o' sweet'earts, An' four o' the lot was prime. One was an 'arf-caste widow, One was a woman at Prome, {NOTE: in Burma} One was the wife of a jemadar-sais, {NOTE: a ranking horse-groom} An' one is a girl at 'ome. ....................................... There's times when you'll think that you mightn't, There's times when you'll know that you might; But the things you will learn from the Yellow an' Brown, They'll 'elp you a lot with the White! ............................................. For she knifed me one night 'cause I wished she was white, And I learned about women from 'er! I've taken my fun where I've found it, An' now I must pay for my fun, .................... So be warned by my lot (which I know you will not), An' learn about women from me! What did the Colonel's Lady think? Nobody never knew. Somebody asked the Sergeant's wife, An' she told 'em true! When you get to a man in the case, They're like as a row of pins -- For the Colonel's Lady an' Judy O'Grady Are sisters under their skins! Kipling was only 26 when BARRACK-ROOM BALLADS appeared in book form. He would write many hundred more poems. But these early products are among his musical best. Enjoy! http://www.amazon.com/Barrack-Room-Ballads- Rudyard-Kipling/dp/B000K1V0WQ/ref=sr_1_5?s =books&ie=UTF8&qid=1311449295&sr=1-5 =-=-=-=-=-=-=--=-= (5) epinions.com 07/27/2011 Title of Review: 'Mary, Pity Women!' - Kipling's BARRACK-ROOM BALLADS Review Rating: * * * * I don't know about you. But I find it daunting to review a collection of short stories or poems. It helps if there is an element of obvious unity to the collection. And that is, thank God, the case with Rudyard Kipling's BARRACK-ROOM BALLADS. They are mostly about little people, society's boiler room folk, men or women, white or colored, eloquent or mute. Rudyard Kipling, born in India in 1865, and by age five speaking better Hindustani than English, was early drawn to every kind of person in his environment, not just to clones of himself, his talented but unwealthy parents or their super-achieving relatives back in England. When, at age 16, he returned from education in England to begin a seven-year stint as assistant-editor of two English-language newspapers in Lahore and Allahabad, Kipling's work assignments put him in touch with high ranking officers, both military and civilian, even Viceroys. He was not required to seek out "barrack-rooms" or the army privates, corporals and sergeants that lived in them. But he did. Rudyard Kipling was among the early writers of English to empathize with and express the world view of Britain's little people. So unity there is in BARRACK-ROOM BALLADS. There are also 38 poems, 20 in the first edition of 1892 and 18 more in the later edition of 1896. A half dozen or so are great, another two dozen darn good, and the rest a bit flat and pedestrian. Not bad for a 26-year old poet who dashed off verses between journalistic assignments! An epinions.com book review is normally, I think, pitched at novices, potential readers, at men and women, boys and girls, who have not yet read the book in question. How much do they need to know to make up their minds to proceed farther? Not as much, obviously, as scholars already familiar with the work. So does a reviewer tell that reader that BARRACK-ROOM BALLADS are among more than 700 poems written by Rudyard Kipling over a long life? Will that help make up minds to read or not to read into these particular 38 poems? Will you want to read "Gentlemen-Rankers" because it morphed into Yale University's "Whiffenpoof Song?" Will you thirst to "get a swig in hell from Gunga Din?" Will you want to read "Mandalay" just because nineteen composers have turned it into a song? Or will you simply up and join a British Tommy once posted in Burma and crave with him once again: "Ship me
somewheres east of Suez, where the best is like the worst,
Where there aren't no Ten Commandments an' a man can raise a thirst?" Maybe you've heard some of those more famous poems, not knowing they were among the 38 of BARRACK-ROOM BALLADS. As an experiment, I have chosen to dwell with you on an unfamous BALLAD, "Mary, Pity Women." If you can abide this lesser verse, you will surely reach for the entire collection for its half dozen immortals. "Mary, Pity Women!" spreads itself across eight stanzas of different metres and line-lengths. A poor woman complains to her lover that he has impregnated her without promise of marriage. Here are some excerpts: You call
yourself a man,
For all you used to swear, An' leave me, as you can, My certain shame to bear? I 'ear! You do not care -- You done the worst you know. I 'ate you, grinnin' there. . . . Ah, Gawd, I love you so! .................................... It aren't no false alarm, The finish to your fun; You -- you 'ave brung the 'arm, An' I'm the ruined one; An' now you'll off an' run With some new fool in tow. Your 'eart? You 'aven't none. . . . Ah, Gawd, I love you so! ................................................ What 'ope for me or -- it? What's left for us to do? I've walked with men a bit, But this -- but this is you. So 'elp me Christ, it's true! Where can I 'ide or go? You coward through and through! . . . Ah, Gawd, I love you so! All the more you give 'em the less are they for givin' -- Love lies dead, an' you cannot kiss 'im livin'. Down the road 'e led you there is no returnin' (Mary, pity women!), but you're late in learnin'! You'd like to treat me fair? You can't, because we're pore? We'd starve? What do I care! We might, but ~this~ is shore! I want the name -- no more -- The name, an' lines to show, An' not to be an 'ore. . . . Ah, Gawd, I love you so! What's the good o' pleadin', when the mother that bore you (Mary, pity women!) knew it all before you? Sleep on 'is promises an' wake to your sorrow (Mary, pity women!), for we sail to-morrow! * * * * * * * * * If you can find one, then read a scholarly edition of Rudyard Kipling's BARRACK-ROOM BALLADS. Benefit from its maps, its sketch of Queen Victoria's eastern Empire from the borders of Afghanistan through India and Burma up to the borders of Siam. A glossary will help for the many Hindustani phrases as mangled by the British Army's Tommy Atkins (equivalent to our GI Joe). A good edition will remind you that Rudyard Kipling is reproducing stories that he heard real flesh and blood little people tell about themselves, their bosses, their diseases, their amours. When you read, for instance, "The Ladies," don't blame Kipling when he tells of a soldier's recollections of the many women he knew and the four who taught him most about women, including one from Mhow (near Indore, India): "Kind o'
volcano she were,
For she knifed me one night 'cause I wished she was white, And I learned about women from 'er!" BARRACK-ROOM BALLADS is strictly for adults. We are not in a child's world of JUST SO STORIES or THE JUNGLE BOOKS. Caveat emptor! -OOO- p.s. Thank you Gatekeeper DramaStef for clearing BARRACK-ROOM BALLADS for review by epinionators. Pros: Common soldiers and little people.Some of Kipling's very best poems. Kipling was 26. Cons: Here and there flat, verging on pedestrian, prosaic, non-immortal.Hindustani phrases. The Bottom Line: Kipling wrote over 700 poems. First Edition of 1892 appeared when the author was only 26. Second Edition of 38 poems contains at least six of his finest. Recommended: Yes. http://www.epinions.com/review/Rudyard_Kipling_ Barrack_Room_Ballads_epi/content_558673071748 =-=-=-=-=-=-=--=-= file: kipling_barrack http://www.patrickkillough.com/books/kipling_barrack.html |