The Jungle Book

Rudyard Kipling amazed me once again with his fables. After Just So Stories last April, now he amused me with the even better one: The Jungle Book. The main story of it is of Mowgli, a little boy who is adopted by a pair of wolves after his parents died. When Mowgli first appears before the wolves’ cave, Shere Khan—the Bengal tiger—is haunting him to make him his dinner. Father Wolf saves him, and brings him to the wolf pack conference. He is at first rejected by the forum, until Bagheera—the black panther—guarantees him. Bagheera then becomes Mowgli’s best friend, along with Baloo—the bear—who teaches him the law of the jungle.

Shere Khan is angry of losing Mowgli; he wants to kill him but could not do that as long as Akela becomes the leader. Right after Akela is dethroned by his people, they repel Mowgli who is not a wolf like them—thanks to Shere Khan’s provocation too—and Mowgly doesn’t have any choices than leaving the jungle to live with his own kind. So now Mowgli must live by his own while Shere Khan keeps haunting him. At the end, Mowgli must have a fight with Shere Khan; what will he do? And will he survive it?

Thanks to the Disney version of Mowgli, I used to imagine The Jungle Book as childish as what we see on TV. But I was surprised and amazed at the same time, finding that the original story is much deeper than that. What Kipling portrayed in The Jungle Book is what we find in our own world. How difficult it is for us to accept others who are different from us, who have not the same origin or culture. We used to be suspicious of them, that we could not see a villain with wicked plan among us, because he is ‘one of us’; just like the wolves who blindly trust Shere Khan more than Mowgli.

The fight of Mowgli and Shere Khan is both thrilling and emotional. It is in difficult times that love and friendship would be purified. I was touched by Bagheera’s and Baloo’s love to their little friend, and their respect to old Akela. Kipling also highlighted how men praise freedom, but at the same time they could not live without a leader. The law of the jungle is something we should adopt in our society too; look how the entire animals work together to help Mowgli, although he is not their own kind. Humanity surmounts differences. The goods fight together against the bad, each contributes his talent.

Apart from Mowgli’s adventure, this book also contains three great fables. There is Kotick—the white seal—who persistently searches a new saver home for his people after he saw his friends being slaughtered by men. It portrays our society too; we often refuse to see the injustice among us, just because it ‘has been like that for a long time’. Most of us accept that as faith, and we surrender our dignity and life in the hand of more powerful authorities. When there is finally someone brave enough like Kotick, who is willingly to take risks for our salvation; instead of helping him, we laugh at him as a foolish dreamer. That makes us an easy victim of colonialism and oppression.

The second one is about a young mongoose called Rikki-Tikki-Tavi, who is carried away by flood—separated from his parents—to a bungalow, where he is finally adopted by a human family as a pet. From his new friends in the garden—a tailorbird and a mouse—he gets acquainted with a pair of huge cobra: Nag and Nagaina (they reminded me of Voldemort’s Nagini! :D). The cobras plan to kill the humans for taking the garden which they have been previously dominated. Rikki-Tikki is angry when he overhears their brutal plan, so he builds a strategy to fight both cobras. The attack scenes are quite horrible; I was shivered imagining how the family must have been terribly terrified while a huge cobra suddenly showed up while they were dining. You would not know whether you should run away or keep still; well…normally you wouldn’t escape that brutal attack, if you don’t have a protector. Rikki-Tikki is an example of real hero; even though he is a stranger, he fights bravely to save the family and the inhabitants of the garden, simply because it is wrong to kill the innocent who is weaker; and so it is his duty to protect them.

The third story is my most favorite: the story of Little Toomai, the son of an elephant hunter. His father drives Kala Nag—an old elephant, the cleverer and most senior among the others. One day the boss, Peterson Sahib, is amazed by Little Toomai, and professes that one day he might become a good elephant hunter. When Little Toomai asks his permission to enter the stockade (which is normally too dangerous for a little boy), he promises that he can do that only after witnessing an ‘elephant dance’, which in their culture means ‘never’. It is believed that numbers of elephants sometimes dance in a clearing. Nobody has ever seen it, but some flattened grounds are the proof.

One night Kala Nag seems to ‘hear the call’ from the native elephants. He slips out of his pickets, and picks Little Toomai on his back as the boy is excited to go with him. Kala Nag walks towards a clearing up in a hill where many other elephants are gathering too, while Little Toomai is watching silently from the elephant’s back. There he witnesses the elephants stamping their feet up and down, making the ground tremble; that is the elephant dance, a dance no other human being have ever seen.

I like the story mostly because of the mystical air surrounds the elephant dance. Kipling writes wonderfully Kala Nag’s journey in the dark and foggy night when the jungle seems to be alive, and especially when the elephants start moving, ‘talking’, and finally dancing for two hours, making the ground a dance floor. The sensation is really amazing!

And finally I closed the last page of The Jungle Book totally entertained and amused. Bravo to you, Mr. Kipling, for making my end of year reading so enjoyable, intense, and interesting. Without any doubt, I grant five whole stars for The Jungle Book. Really, I have never thought that I would love a children book (which I have never read as a child) this much!

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*I read the translation edition from Atria (part of Serambi Publishing group)*

*This book is counted as:*

64^th book for The Classics Club Project

Just So Stories

I think I owed The Classics Club for their The Classics Spin fun event on last February, where the spin picked the lucky number 14; and from my spin list, it goes to…. Just So Stories! Without the Classics Spin, I might have not picked that book for a long time, as I haven’t been a fan of children tales. Now I know that I have misjudged Just So Stories, and most importantly Rudyard Kipling—I’m really sorry Mr. Kipling! :).

Just So Stories contains of twelve animal tales, mostly about how they evolved until they are like they are today, and all were told in comical yet lyrical style. To add the amusement of the stories, Kipling drew illustrations for each story and slipped some informative pieces which sometimes are quite funny too. Well, smartly-funny to be exact. Here is one of the illustrations (picked from How the Rhinoceros Got His Skin). It’s not very special, really, but I was amazed by Kipling’s idea to put the Firaun’s cart-wheel into the illustration (the circular thing half buried in the sand at the bottom of the illustration)!

And to top them, Kipling provided a sweet bonus at the end of each story: songs! Or in this case, the lyrics only. And some of them were entertaining too, here’s one of my favorite, from The Cat That Walked by Himself. If you want to know how cats—being in the beginning solitary animals—could be pets nowadays, just read this story, you’ll see that funny it is, Kipling could portrait the nature of each animal very distinctly.

“PUSSY can sit by the fire and sing,

Pussy can climb a tree,

Or play with a silly old cork and string

To'muse herself, not me.

But I like Binkie my dog, because

He knows how to behave;

So, Binkie's the same as the First Friend was,

And I am the Man in the Cave.

Pussy will play man-Friday till

It's time to wet her paw

And make her walk on the window-sill

(For the footprint Crusoe saw);

Then she fluffles her tail and mews,

And scratches and won't attend.

But Binkie will play whatever I choose,

And he is my true First Friend.

Pussy will rub my knees with her head

Pretending she loves me hard;

But the very minute I go to my bed

Pussy runs out in the yard,

And there she stays till the morning-light;

So I know it is only pretend;

But Binkie, he snores at my feet all night,

And he is my Firstest Friend!”

You know, reading these funny stories suddenly made me wonder, what would Charles Darwin think/react when he have read these? :) Maybe one story that would satisfy him most is The Sing-Song of Old Man Kangaroo. Really, it could be a good way to explain Darwin’s theory to children (although I don’t have any clue what really made kangaroo hop long long time ago! :D). The Beginning of the Armadillos is also a kind of Darwinian theory about how hedgehogs and tortoises can turn to Armadillos. Moral lesson: people may change because of circumstances.

What would interest us as adults is that Kipling wrote these stories from his thorough observation during his journeys to Asia and Africa. Unlike most tales, Kipling wrote about nature, men, animals, and culture that really exist, and combined them with his imagination to turn into these amazing stories. Here and there he satirized about people too. In How the Leopard Got His Spots Kipling criticized us, adults, of often being too complicated with words for simple things:

Leopard: 'Where has all the game gone?'

Ethiopian: 'Can you tell me the present habitat of the aboriginal Fauna?'

(That meant just the same thing, but the Ethiopian always used long words. He was a grown-up.)

In another story, The Crab that Played with the Sea, Kipling even called Malayan people as “lazy”, as you can read in this: “You are lazy,' said the Eldest Magician. 'So your children shall be lazy. They shall be the laziest people in the world. They shall be called the Malazy--the lazy people.” And speaking about Malay, I found it very interesting that Kipling mentioned also my hometown, Surabaya (he called it ‘Sourabaya’) in the same story. One of the characters brought a kris (‘keris’ in Bahasa Indonesia) with him, a curving, wavy shaped dagger, traditional weapon in Indonesia. Kipling also mentioned about Indonesian tropical islands in this: “…He breathed upon the sand and the rocks, where they had fallen in the sea, and they became the most beautiful islands of Borneo, Celebes, Sumatra, Java, and the rest of the Malay Archipelago, and you can look them out on the map!” Thank you Mr. Kipling! :)

The most hilarious story is perhaps How the First Letter Was Written. It’s about how the first men first learned to communicate with others. In a comical way Kipling told us how drawings could be easily misinterpreted in written communication, but drawings could also be simplified to create letters which we now use as alphabetic. In short, Just So Stories is very entertaining and educating, both for children (of all age, provided that they can read) and for adults!

Four stars for Just So Stories, and for Rudyard Kipling!

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I read the ebook version from this.

This book is counted for:

The Classics Spin

4^th book for Fun Year With Children Literature

38^th book for The Classics Club

Kim

Membaca novel karya Rudyard Kipling ini, baru aku menyadari bahwa antara tahun 1830 hingga 1870 pernah terjadi peristiwa sejarah yang disebut The Great Game (Permainan Besar), yaitu perseteruan politik Kerajaan Inggris dan Kerajaan Rusia untuk berkuasa di Asia Tengah. Dalam buku yang masuk di urutan 78 dari 100 buku berbahasa Inggris terbaik abad 20 ini, Permainan Besar ini menjadi makin populer.

Kim adalah nama seorang bocah laki-laki yatim piatu yang suka berkeliaran di jalan-jalan kota Lahore. Nama aslinya Kimball O'Hara, putra seorang prajurit kulit putih di sebuah resimen Irlandia. Sebelum meninggal, ayah Kim mewariskan dokumen-dokumen yang menyatakan jatidiri Kim, yang lalu dijahit dalam paket yang senantiasa terkalung di lehernya. Meski berkulit putih dan putra seorang Sahib, Kim lebih suka berpakaian Hindu. Ia dijuluki Kawan Kecil dari Pelosok Dunia, dan kerjaannya meminta-minta di jalanan, sambil menjadi mata-mata kecil seorang pedagang kuda Pashtun bernama Mahbub Ali. Mengapa pedagang kuda butuh mata-mata? Karena pedagang kuda yang satu ini sejatinya adalah agen rahasia Inggris. Inilah jejak pertama intrik politik dalam kisah yang awalnya nampak sebagai kisah petualangan spiritual saja.

Suatu hari ketika sedang duduk di atas sebuah senjata yang disebut Zam-Zammah, takdir Kim mempertemukannya dengan seorang lama (biarawan) Tibet tua yang sedang melakukan Pencarian. Konon Sang Buddha pernah menembakkan anak panah dalam suatu kontes untuk melamar seorang gadis. Anak panah itu meluncur jauh, lalu menancap ke tanah. Dari sana keluarlah air dan akhirnya menjadi sungai. Sungai itu dipercaya dapat membersihkan seseorang dari segala dosa, dan disebut sebagai Sungai Anak Panah atau Sungai Penyemuhan. Sungai inilah yang hendak dicari sang lama demi melepaskan diri dari belenggu Roda Kebendaan. Seperti layaknya semua peziarah, sang lama membutuhkan seorang chela (murid) untuk melayaninya agar ia dapat fokus pada urusan spiritualnya. Kim yang berjiwa petualang segera menemani sang lama dan dengan demikian menjadi chela-nya.

Inilah Zam-Zammah yang benar-benar ada dan hingga kini masih dipajang di depan Museum Lahore, tempat pertemuan Kim dengan lama-nya di buku ini

Tugas seorang chela antara lain mengemis makanan dengan menggunakan mangkuk derma, dan menyiapkan tempat untuk tidur bagi sang lama dan dirinya sendiri. Dalam tugas pertamanya, Kim--tanpa menduga sama sekali, mulai terjerumus ke dalam intrik politik Permainan Besar. Mahbub Ali yang keberadaannya sudah dicurigai pihak musuh, mendapat ide untuk mengirim surat rahasia lewat perantaraan Kim. Siapa sih yang akan mencurigai dua orang peziarah miskin berpakaian kumal itu? Namun Kim yang cerdik tak serta merta percaya bahwa kabar yang dikirimnya berkaitan dengan kuda jantan putih. Dari mencuri dengar, ia tahu bahwa sesuatu yang besar dan penting sedang berlangsung.

Dalam kondisi itulah sang lama dan sang chela berangkat melakukan peziarahan. Sang lama fokus pada Pencariannya, sementara sang chela belumlah lega kalau tugas rahasianya belum terlaksana. Keindahan buku ini terletak pada--salah satunya, keindahan desa dan pegunungan di daerah-daerah yang dilalui Kim, juga semrawutnya kota-kota besar dalam kemiskinannya. Kipling dengan sukses membawa pembacanya seolah meneropong langsung budaya dan sosial India abad ke 19.

Sementara itu, Permainan Besar sedang diam-diam berlangsung. Meski tak diceritakan dengan detail, ketegangan mulai terbangun ketika satu persatu 'oknum' agen rahasia itu bersilangan jalan dengan sang lama (yang lugu dan tak menyadari adanya sesuatu yang tidak biasa) dan Kim. Menyadari kecerdikan dan keberanian Kim, agen rahasia bermaksud melatih Kim untuk menjadi seorang agen. Ia sempat mengenyam pendidikan yang menjadi hak anak seorang sahib, hingga tumbuh menjadi seorang pemuda.

Apakah yang akan terjadi kemudian? Berhasilkah Kim menjadi agen rahasia sungguhan? Bagaimana dengan Pencarian sang lama, akankah ia menemukan Sungainya?

Bila anda merasa asing dengan gaya penulisan Rudyard Kipling--yang telah diterjemahkan dengan baik oleh mbak Rini Nurul Badariah, jangan menyerah dan langsung menutup buku ini. Telan saja istilah-istilah asing yang bertebaran sedari awal halaman, dan kunyah saja perlahan kalimat-kalimat panjang di sana sini. Kalau mau, catatlah nama atau istilah yang terasa asing. Teruslah membaca sambil berusaha mencerna. Karena setengah bagian ke belakang, saat anda sudah mulai terbiasa dengan gaya penulisan Kipling, dan cerita mulai menegang dengan intrik politik dan mata-mata, anda akan keasyikan sendiri membaca buku ini.

Meski awalnya aku berencana memberi tiga bintang saja karena plot yang sulit dimengerti dalam buku ini, namun setelah membaca sampai akhir, aku berubah pikiran. Empat bintang kuberikan untuk buku ini. Gaya penulisan Kipling memang agak sulit dipahami, namun justru gaya itulah yang membuat buku ini sangat khas. Lama kelamaan, aku jadi suka juga dengan gaya Kipling bertutur....

Note:
Buku ini kubaca karena kebetulan Rudyard Kipling berulang tahun di bulan Desember. Sebagai hadiah, aku persembahkan review ini tepat di hari ulang tahunnya yang ke 146, hari ini: 30 Desember 2011. Happy birthday Paman Kipling!

Judul: Kim
Penulis: Rudyard Kipling
Penerjemah: Rini Nurul Badariah
Penyunting: Dhewiberta
Penerbit: Bentang Pustaka
Terbit: Juni 2011
Tebal: 453 hlm