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Rudyard Kipling
SOMETHING OF MYSELF FOR MY FRIENDS KNOWN AND UNKNOWN Benediction Classics. 2008.148 pages. Hardcover ISBN-10: 1849022623 Reviewed by Patrick Killough (1) biblio.com 03/20/2011 Would you recommend this book to other readers? YES! * * * * * review: There must be as many ways to conceive and execute autobiographies as there are authors. Nobel Prize winner Rudyard Kipling's SOMETHING OF MYSELF FOR MY FRIENDS KNOWN AND UNKNOWN (published 1937) is highly selective. It is relatively short and focuses on what made him the writer he became. It also speaks much of his travels with wife, children and servants to South Africa and elsewhere in search of a perfect home. That home turned out to be 17th Century Bateman's in Sussex. In SOMETHING OF MYSELF you can enjoy being a fly on the wall when Rudyard and father John joyously collaborate in recollecting the facts behind the great novel of India KIM. Or see Rudyard helping his Capetown neighbor Cecil Rhodes find the right words for launching the Rhodes Scholarships A favorite vignette of mine involves the baby lion that the Kiplings borrowed for a few months from Rhodes and raised at their nearby South African home, The Woolsack. They named the cub M'Slibaan, Matabele language for Sullivan. M'Slibaan came over from Rhodes with "a she-dog foster-mother," but the latter was dismissed by Mrs Kipling. She fed M'Slibaan via baby bottles. "When he was about the size of a large rabbit, he cut little pins of teeth, and made coughing noises which he was persuaded were genuine roars" (Ch 6, "South Africa"). If you like your Kipling straight, here it is. -OOO- http://www.biblio.com/books/355817569.html =-=-=-=-=-=-=--=-= (2) lunch.com 03/20/2011 name of review: "I had a vague notion of an Irish boy, born in India and mixed up with native life" rating: * * * * * review: At the beginning of Rudyard Kipling's autobiography (of sorts, it is rather brief) published in 1937, we are told that the author is 69 years old as he writes. Towards the end of the eighth and final chapter of SOMETHING OF MYSELF FOR FRIENDS KNOWN AND UNKNOWN he implies that death is not far in his future, as indeed it was not. He was born in 1865 in Bombay and died suddenly in England in 1936. In between he was a mistreated schoolboy in coastal England, a budding writer in his secondary school at Westward Ho! in Devon, a very young assistant editor in India, a world traveler, poet, short story writer, novelist, husband and father, 1907 winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature and supreme interpreter of what it felt like to revel in the British Empire. SOMETHING OF MYSELF moves straightforwardly ahead chronologically, sketching years at a time. The final chapter lays out the tricks Rudyard had learned about how to write, or at least how he, Kipling, should write. Verify your facts. Write too much then edit it down. If you deliberately "write short" the first time, your piece will not catch fire. Ignore critics. Etc. We form the impression that for every word that he published, Kipling destroyed a hundred. His best works, including KIM and THE JUNGLE BOOKS, he thinks, virtually wrote themselves. Kipling simply gave his Daemon its head. Some of his best work was done collaboratively, notably KIM, hammered out with his father who famously appeared in the novel as Curator of the Lahore Wonder House. "I had a vague notion of an Irish boy, born in India and mixed up with native life." Kipling did much the same with his friend Rider Haggard. For one long stretch of years his family wintered near Capetown, South Africa and summered in England. Rudyard was in South Africa during the Boer War and the founding of Rhodesia. Cecil Rhodes was his neighbor. And we see the tongue-tied Rhodes begging Kipling to help him find the right words to launch his Rhodes Scholarships. Rhodes also loaned from his little zoo up the hill from the Kiplings a lion cub rejected by its mother. Mrs Kipling nursed the baby with a bottle and for several months the youngster was quite the pet. Rudyard Kipling also tells what was on his mind when he wrote the famous poem, "If," as well as semi-autobiographical tales such as his 1899 classic of English boarding school life, STALKY & CO. If you love Rudyard Kipling, this book is a must. -OOO- http://community.cafelibri.com/reviews/d/UserReview-Rudyard_Kipling _SOMETHING_OF_MYSELF_FOR_FRIENDS_KNOWN_AND_ UNKNOWN-74-1720119-204262_I_had_a_vague_notion_of_an _Irish_boy_born_in.html-=-= =-=-=-=-=-=-=--=-= (3) bn.com 03/21/2011 title of review: "it came to me that 'reading' was ... a means to everything that would make me happy." rating: * * * * * review: Nearing 70 and with little longer to live, Rudyard Kipling wrote SOMETHING OF MYSELF FOR FRIENDS KNOWN AND UNKNOWN. This autobiographical sketch was published in 1937 shortly after his death. It is not a long book. It is witty, self-deprecating and whimsical. SOMETHING OF MYSELF is built chronologically around incidents selected for their importance to Kipling's growth both as human being and especially as writer. Even the most unpromising periods and events are presented as contributing to Kipling's writing skills. This is true of his nearly seven miserable years spent with younger sister Alice ("Trix") in a cruel boarding house in coastal England when his parents returned to India. Why had the youngsters not been left with their mother's affluent relatives in London? To young Ruddy he and his sister lived in "the House of Desolation." "It was an establishment run with the full vigour of the Evangelical as revealed to the Woman." The homesick young siblings went to school locally. "Myself I was regularly beaten" -- by both the recently widowed housekeeper and "her only son of twelve or thirteen as religious as she." But something wonderful happened to young Ruddy: "I
was made to read without explanation, under the usual fear of
punishment. And on a day that I remember it came to me that 'reading'
was not 'the Cat lay on the Mat,' but a means to everything that would
make me happy. So I read all that came within my reach."
(Quotations are from (Ch 1, "A Very Young Person.") After that there was no stopping Rudyard Kipling the writer: next in secondary school at Westward Ho!, then seven years in India as young assistant editor of Anglo-Indian newspapers, where he began to publish poems and short stories. Then he began to live well from writing books such as KIM (1900). In 1907 42 year-old Kipling was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. He wrote only a few sentences describing receiving the prize from the hands of the young King. The latter's royal father had died while Kipling was at sea en route to Stockholm. The old king's dying words were, "Don't let
them shut the theatres for me"
-- and the Swedes honored His Majesty's wish. Sense in Rudyard Kipling the amiable person who better than any other caught the atmosphere, the glory and, yes, "the white man's burden" of what it meant for Britain to possess its Empire. Go down memory lane with Kipling as he recalls how he came to write STALKY & CO., "The Man Who Would be King," "If," and much, much more. If you love THE JUNGLE BOOKS, JUST-SO STORIES," "Gunga Din" and, indeed, Rudyard Kipling the man, then SOMETHING OF MYSELF is must reading. -OOO- recommended reading: -- Arthur R. Ankers - JOHN LOCKWOOD KIPLING: THE PATER -- Saint Augustine - THE CONFESSIONS -- Edith Stein - LIFE IN A JEWISH FAMILY 1891 - 1916 http://my.barnesandnoble.com/communityportal/review.aspx?reviewid=1595384 =-=-=-=-=-=-=--=-= (4) amazon.com 03/21/2011 title of review: "the lies I soon found it necessary to tell ... the foundation of literary effort" rating: * * * * * review: I have read and reread with great pleasure many a paragraph and sentence in Rudyard Kipling's 1937 autobiography, SOMETHING OF MYSELF FOR FRIENDS KNOWN AND UNKNOWN. Kipling was 69 when he began sketching highlights of his life and writing career. He recalls his birth in Bombay in 1865, a miserable six years with his even younger sister Trix in a boarding house in England while his parents went back to India and his more pleasant secondary boarding schooling at Devon's Westward Ho!. Kipling points to the rapid rise in his literary reputation during seven years as a very young journalist in India. Then follow his world travels, marriage, fatherhood, books like KIM, THE LIGHT THAT FAILED and THE JUNGLE BOOKS. His 1907 Nobel Prize for literature when he was 42 is a highlight. Much the rest of SOMETHING OF MYSELF details yearly travel between England and Capetown, South Africa during the Boer War years and the founding of Rhodesia and his friendships with men like Cecil Rhodes and H. Rider Haggard and others and, increasingly, the search for the perfect home in England. The book ends with a thorough review of the lessons that life had taught Rudyard Kipling about writing, especially how he in particular did his best work. I find myself returning over and over to Chapter One: "A Very Young Person" and within that to Rudyard's earliest years when left by his parents alone with Trix in Lome Lodge, a very odd sort of boarding house. When "Ruddy" was five and Trix three, their parents, Johh Lockhart and Alice Kipling, came with them by ship from India and dropped them off without even saying goodbye. The place was Southsea, a suburb of Portsmouth. Brother and sister were placed in the care of Sea Captain and Mrs Holloway, who specialized in boarding children of British parents resident in India. The Holloways lived in "a new small house smelling of aridity and emptiness." The Captain was kind to Ruddy and took him on walks. "Then the old Captain died, and I was sorry, for he was the only person in that house as far as I can remember who ever threw me a kind word." Ruddy and Trix had never heard of Hell before. But now they experienced it. "It was an establishment run with the full vigour of the Evangelical as revealed to the Woman." Mrs Holloway even made Ruddy go to and from the wretched local school bearing a sign proclaiming him "Liar." He was repeatedly beaten for lying by his hostess and her bully son seven years Kipling's senior. To Ruddy this was "the House of Desolation." Torture and cruelty were everyday expectations. Only when he learned to read, did Ruddy find a path to happiness. But soon his tormentress then took away his books, even those sent him from India by his parents. Kipling also found that perfecting the lies necessary to survival made him pay close attention to the "calculated torture -- religious as well as scientific" that the Holloways imposed. Dissecting people for motives behind their evil would later help Kipling as a writer, through "the lies I soon found it necessary to tell ... the foundation of literary effort." Only when his mother's wealthy sister on a visit discovered that Rudyard was virtually blind and had suffered a breakdown, did his mother rush back from India to rescue her children and eventually bring them back "home" to Lahore. His mother "told me afterwards that when she first came up to my room to kiss me good-night, I flung up an arm to guard off the cuff that I had been trained to expect." Every chapter contains writing as good and as sometimes as poignant. See Rudyard being begged by his Capetown neighbor Cecil Rhodes for "the right words" to launch the Rhodes Scholarships. See Mrs Kipling feeding milk with a bottle for months on end to an orphaned lion cub on loan from Cecil Rhodes. Watch "the Father," John Lockhart Kipling, work closely with his gifted son to co-create KIM. It is all there. And all is written up as only Rudyard Kipling can write. -OOO- tags: rudyard kipling, lorne lodge, portsmouth, cecil rhodes, captain and mrs. holloway, "trix" kipling, john lockhart kipling http://www.amazon.com/Something-Myself-My-Friends-Known/product-reviews/ 1849022623/ref=cm_cr_dp_all_summary?ie=UTF8&showViewpoints=1&sortBy =bySubmissionDateDescending =-=-=-=-=-=-=--=-= (5) epinions.com 03/21/2011 Review Title: Rudyard Kipling Recalls A Life Spent in Writing Product Rating: * * * * * Pros: A Nobel Prize winner tells how his life made him a writer. Witty, self-deprecating, informative. Cons: Not many. Perhaps twice as much detail would not have been too much. The Bottom Line: Learn how Kipling's life begat KIM, THE JUNGLE BOOKS, "If," "Gunga Din" and all your other favorites. Empathize with Ruddy and sister Trix during years in a boarding house. aohcapablanca's Full Review: Rudyard Kipling was conceived in England and, after a long sea voyage, was born in December 1865 in Bombay, India. There Ruddy spoke various native languages with household servants who had to remind both himself and two years younger sister Trix after their daily nap and their subsequent gussying up for dinner: "'Speak
English now to Papa and Mamma.' So one spoke 'English,' haltingly
translated out of the vernacular idiom that one thought and dreamed in"
(Ch. 1).
His life, especially his life in writing, Rudyard Kipling, then age 69, set down at moderate length on paper not long before his death in 1936. He calls his memoir SOMETHING OF MYSELF FOR MY FRIENDS KNOWN AND UNKNOWN. The author proceeds chronologically but selectively. At considerable length he early on describes six years of "calculated torture -- religious as well as scientific," including regular beatings, by a sea captain's widow, Mrs Holloway. All this took place in a suburb of Portsmouth. There, in a house called Lome Lodge, Mrs Holloway, aided by her bully son (seven years Ruddy's senior), boarded children of Anglo-Indians residing in India. These expatriates included Ruddy's parents, art teacher John Lockhart and fiery Scotswoman Alice Broune MacDonald Kipling. They, without even saying goodbye, placed Ruddy (age 5) and Alice (age 3) in "a new small house smelling of aridity and emptiness." Ruddy called it "the House of Desolation." Happily for the two children, for five or six consecutive Decembers the siblings were paroled to their mother's sister Georgiana in London. Aunt Georgy was happily married to painter Sir Edward Burne-Jones. Under their welcoming roof Trix and Ruddy enjoyed their lively cousins and the Burne-Jones' rich circle of poets and painters, including Robert Browning. Young Ruddy became chums with another first cousin, Stanley Baldwin, the future British Prime Minister. After Ruddy had a nervous breakdown during a final incarceration at the Holloways,' Aunt Georgy flew to Portsmouth to investigate. Georgiana cabled her sister Alice that Ruddy had also gone virtually blind. Alice steamed to England and soon took her children out of the House of Desolation for necessary months of healing and rest. Rudyard went on to another boarding arrangement: school at the small Devon town of Westward Ho! In January 1878 he entered the United Services College where he agonized through his first crush on a young female, later immortalized in THE LIGHT THAT FAILED. Kipling also enjoyed male bonding with two schoolmates, recorded in the story collection STALKY & CO. There is not a dull page in SOMETHING OF MYSELF. There is humor, self-deprecation, travel, house hunting, time spent near his wife's family in Vermont and many happy months spread over years living near Capetown, South Africa where Rudyard became pals with Cecil Rhodes and H. Rider Haggard. During those years he authored KIM, (with the active participation of his father John), THE JUST-SO STORIES, poems like "Gunga Din" and "If," and was awarded in 1907 the six year old Nobel Prize for literature. He was selected "In
consideration of the power of observation, originality of imagination,
virility of ideas and remarkable talent for narration which
characterize the creations of this world-famous author."
Kipling was the first writer in English so honored and remains to this day the youngest Nobelist for Literature (he was 42). In SOMETHING OF MYSELF he tells of the death of the old King of Sweden while the author was at sea en route to Stockholm and the subsequent atmosphere of mourning in which his Royal son, the new King, bestowed the prize. Kipling's friends occasionally let flash the greenness of their envy of his success. Writing of his stay in New Zealand, Kipling reported: "A
friend long ago taxed me with having enjoyed the 'income of a Prince
and the treatment of an Ambassador,' and with not appreciating it. ...
But what, I ask you, could I have done except go on with my work and
try to add to the pleasure of those that had found it pleasant? One
cannot repay the unrepayable by grins and handshakes" (Ch. 4).
The final chapter (Eight) of SOMETHING OF MYSELF records Kipling's insights into his personal strengths and weaknesses as a writer. Unless you are convinced that you are a better writer than the author of "The Road to Mandalay" or "The Ballad of East and West," you might like to cast a glance into that chapter. And for sheer enjoyment, you may do worse than reading chapters One through Seven. -OOO- Recommended: Yes. http://www1.epinions.com/review/Book_Rudyard_Kipling_Something_of_Myself _and_Other_Autobiographical_Writings/content_544872500868 http://www.patrickkillough.com/books/kipling_myself.html |