Kim - Couverture rigide

Rudyard Kipling

Couverture rigide

ISBN 10 : 0783813538 ISBN 13 : 9780783813530

Editeur : Folio Society, 1995

A propos du livre

Revue de presse

Kim, the 'little friend of all the world' and chela or disciple to the questing lama, is caught up in the espionage of 'the Great Game'. The real protagonist in his magical adventure, however, is India in all its teeming life, mystery and beauty, highlighted by a captivating narration. --Rachel Redford, The Observer

Espionage has become so sophisticated and hi-tech that it's difficult to believe that this, the greatest of all spy stories, was published more than a century ago when agents relied on wits rather than gadgets. Set against the background of the Great Game being played between Britain and Russia on the north-west frontier after the second Afghan war, it tells the story of an 11-year-old orphan boy who looks and sounds like a native but beneath his filthy rags is white. Kim, né Kimball O Hara, wears his Irish soldier father's ID round his neck and survives by running errands for a wily Pashtun horse trader with an ancient Islamic proverb to suit every occasion. 'Children should not see a carpet on the loom until the pattern is made plain,' he advises, his great red beard wagging solemnly. What Kim doesn t know is that his mentor is also a chain man or spy for the British. Mahbub Ali's constant travels through the subcontinent, selling horses to army officers and maharajahs, affords the perfect cover. How Kim, travelling with a holy lama in search of the sacred river, meets Colonel Creighton, who recognises his unique qualifications and talents and sends him to a mysterious spymaster to learn the secrets of espionage, is riveting. Adventures aside, Kipling's descriptions of India, its exotic people and places, are awesome, as are Sharma's seemingly inexhaustible collection of accents British and Indian in Kim's case, a subtle mixture of both. No mean feat. --Sue Arnold, The Guardian

Kimball O'Hara, orphaned son of an Irish soldier, survives by his wits in the back streets of India's teeming cities. Caught and identified as a white boy, he is sent against his will to boarding school, then trained as a spy in the 'Great Game' the power struggle between Britain and Russia for control of India and central Asia. Kim, 'little friend of all the world,' works with an Afghan horse trader serving as a British agent, outwits Russian spies in the high Himalayas, and becomes the disciple of a Tibetan holy man in search of a sacred river. With his rich old-school elocution and Shakespearean training, British actor Madhav Sharma is the perfect reader for this book. Sharma grew up in Calcutta, studied drama in London, and has appeared in stage, television, and radio productions in the U.K. The Calcutta Telegraph calls him 'the Indian actor in England with... the most impeccably spoken English.' Sharma's career has taken him back to India, as well as to Singapore, Malaysia, and Hong Kong. He has read Kipling's Jungle Books and Rikki-Tikki-Tavi for Naxos, too. Each CD in this production has its own separate jacket, the tracks identified either with chapter numbers or phrases identifying the start of the track. That helps greatly in finding a passage or in pairing the listening with reading. A little booklet tells you about the book and the author. --Betsy Woodman, SoundCommentary.com

Présentation de l'éditeur

Rudyard Kipling was one of the most popular writers in English, in both prose and verse, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The author Henry James said of him: "Kipling strikes me personally as the most complete man of genius (as distinct from fine intelligence) that I have ever known." Notable for its detailed portrait of Indian people, culture, and its varied religions, Kim is Kipling's best serious long novel. One of the particular pleasures of reading Kim is the full range of emotion, knowledge, and experience that Rudyard Kipling gives his complex hero. Kim O'Hara, the orphaned son of an Irish soldier stationed in India, is neither innocent nor victimized. Raised by an opium-addicted half-caste woman since his equally dissolute father's death, the boy has grown up in the streets of Lahore: Though he was burned black as any native; though he spoke the vernacular by preference, and his mother-tongue in a clipped uncertain sing-song; though he consorted on terms of perfect equality with the small boys of the bazar; Kim was white—a poor white of the very poorest. From his father and the woman who raised him, Kim has come to believe that a great destiny awaits him. The details, however, are a bit fuzzy, consisting as they do of the woman's addled prophecies of "'a great Red Bull on a green field, and the Colonel riding on his tall horse, yes, and'—dropping into English—'nine hundred devils.'" In the meantime, Kim amuses himself with intrigues, executing "commissions by night on the crowded housetops for sleek and shiny young men of fashion." His peculiar heritage as a white child gone native, combined with his "love of the game for its own sake," makes him uniquely suited for a bigger game. And when, at last, the long-awaited colonel comes along, Kim is recruited as a spy in Britain's struggle to maintain its colonial grip on India. Kipling was, first and foremost, a man of his time; born and raised in India in the 19th century, he was a fervid supporter of the Raj. Nevertheless, his portrait of India and its people is remarkably sympathetic. Yes, there is the stereotypical Westernized Indian Babu Huree Chander with his atrocious English, but there is also Kim's friend and mentor, the Afghani horse trader Mahub Ali, and the gentle Tibetan lama with whom Kim travels along the Grand Trunk Road. The humanity of his characters consistently belies Kipling's private prejudices, and raises Kim above the mere ripping good yarn to the level of a timeless classic. — Alix Wilber

Détails de l'édition

• Éditeur: Folio Society
• Date d'édition: 1995
• Langue: anglais
• ISBN 10: 0783813538
• ISBN 13: 9780783813530
• Reliure: Relié
• Coordonnées du fabricant: non disponible
• Personne responsable: non disponible