Ръдиард Киплинг – самотният, неразбран Маугли

Чудесен писател обиколил света и запознал се с много култури. Нещо трудно за постигане дори и сега а за времето си постижимо само за единици.
Кой не е чел "Книга за джунглата" !

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https://www.orwellfoundation.com/the-orwell-foundation/orwell/essays-and-other-works/rudyard-kipling/

One reason for Kipling’s power as a good bad poet I have already suggested – his sense of responsibility, which made it possible for him to have a world-view, even though it happened to be a false one. Although he had no direct connexion with any political party, Kipling was a Conservative, a thing that does not exist nowadays. Those who now call themselves Conservatives are either Liberals, Fascists or the accomplices of Fascists. He identified himself with the ruling power and not with the opposition. In a gifted writer this seems to us strange and even disgusting, but it did have the advantage of giving Kipling a certain grip on reality. The ruling power is always faced with the question, ‘In such and such circumstances, what would you do?’, whereas the opposition is not obliged to take responsibility or make any real decisions. Where it is a permanent and pensioned opposition, as in England, the quality of its thought deteriorates accordingly. Moreover, anyone who starts out with a pessimistic, reactionary view of life tends to be justified by events, for Utopia never arrives and ‘the gods of the copybook headings’, as Kipling himself put it, always return. Kipling sold out to the British governing class, not financially but emotionally. This warped his political judgement, for the British ruling class were not what he imagined, and it led him into abysses of folly and snobbery, but he gained a corresponding advantage from having at least tried to imagine what action and responsibility are like. It is a great thing in his favour that he is not witty, not ‘daring’, has no wish to épater les bourgeois. He dealt largely in platitudes, and since we live in a world of platitudes, much of what he said sticks.

Разбира се, това е погледът на левичаря Оруел, при това през 1941 г. , епоха, в която британската класова система направо се разпада. Но си струва да се прочете, защото има някои много точни наблюдения за "запознаването с културите", как третира армията и др.

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Не можеше без това нали:)
"Жените в книгите на Киплинг, ако изобщо ги има, не са най-привлекателните образи, а, макар като консерватор да заклеймява хомосексуализма, има съмнения, че се отдава на мъжките наслади"

За тик-ток поколението, през 19-ти век "заклеймяваш хомосексуализма" не защото си "консерватор" а защото живееш в 19-ти век.

Тогава няма значение какъв си, това е дефолт позицията, освен ако не поддържаш нарочно скандален либертински образ ала Уайлд. Но дори и там всичко е зад пет пласта намеци.

Иначе ето поемка на Киплинг за британската кампания в Афганистан:
When you're wounded and left on Afghanistan's plains,
And the women come out to cut up what remains,
Jest roll to your rifle and blow out your brains
An' go to your Gawd like a soldier.

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