Book Review: The Jungle Books

What is the Law of the Jungle? Strike first and then give tongue

I am not the biggest fan of Rudyard Kipling - is it because he had some very backward attitudes to Empire and ‘doing one's duty’? As problematic as that is (and awful), No. It is not the main reason. It’s mostly because he used his prestige and influence to send his blind son off to fight in the First World War. His son went missing on his first day in action and has never been found. So - I went into reading ‘The Jungle Books’ with a little bit of bias and anger. I also found that the book is vastly different from the Disney version of events that we all know and love. Maybe I was expecting the Disney version, but what I read was a lot more enjoyable and problematic than expected.

So, to begin, Disney liked to focus solely on the Mowgli stories, the villain is the same Shere Khan is still as menacing in the books as he is in the films. But Shere Khans' arc ends relatively early. The story arc of Mowgli is built more along the lines of a bildungsroman as we watch Mowgli grow up in the jungle. Kaa the python is an ally of Mowgli and helps him to defeat various foes throughout. You can see at this point how Disney has ‘Westernised’ the book - snakes in Western culture are typically associated with the fall of Adam and Eve and their expulsion from the Garden of Eden.

There are other aspects to the book that do not just focus on Mowgli; there are stories of British soldiers and their adventures in India. And yes, that was an awkward read, and yes, there was language used that would mean this book would never be published today. But, there were other stories, the ones that stood out were the ones based on the Inuit peoples and their animals in northern Canada. I also really enjoyed those - it did feel a little odd to have stories in ‘The Jungle Book’ that were so far removed from the jungles of South Asia. It was as though I could feel the temperature of the novel change when we moved from story to story.

Some of the more beautiful moments in the novels were the poems and songs that were associated with the animals and characters that we met. I also appreciated the natural disdain in which Kipling wrote about humans. Kipling writes with a lot of respect for the natural world and writes with a sense of awe at the vast variety of animals and their habitats that can be found all over the world. David Attenborough would approve… just.

Now, we cannot ignore the fact that Kipling had some strong colonial opinions. He was, after all, born and raised in India before coming to the UK to be educated. I do get a sense of deep admiration and love for India in his writing. However, whether that admiration comes from British rule in India and the way that India was run under British rule… well, I’m not sure we’ll ever truly know. The Mowgli stories were charming, as were a few others, but take it with a large pinch of salt.