Line #40 Literature/Kim


1	[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/fc72f54a_914c_40d0_a22b_b632727cd018.jpeg]]
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3	This is one of the most beloved works of Creator/RudyardKipling, published in 1901. The title character is a street urchin named Kimball O'Hara (called Kim throughout the novel), the orphan son of an Irish officer and his wife. Kim has been befriended by the [[ProudWarriorRaceGuy Pathan]] [[IntrepidMerchant horse trader]] and spy Mahbub Ali. He wanders around the streets of the city of Lahore happily, mingling with all the many races, and occasionally running secret errands for Mahbub. He meets Teshoo Lama (usually called the Lama) who is WalkingTheEarth [[SeekerArchetype seeking enlightenment]]. Kim follows him and has adventures over a long period leading all the way to the Himalayas, where he foils a Russian and a French agent. It is left with an open ending as Kim must decide whether to continue as the Lama's disciple or become a full time spy.
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5	This novel is a formless one in plot, almost {{Picaresque}}, and depends primarily on character and setting which is not unknown for Creator/RudyardKipling (Kipling's greatest talent was arguably in setting rather than plot). It is one of the first spy novels ever told though it was in fact something of a [[GenreBusting Genre Buster]] because its focus went beyond espionage. Interestingly it captures the feel of RealLife espionage quite well. The actual nature of given missions is seldom revealed, nor is the identity of the enemy they are facing at a given time (with the exception of a Russian expedition in TheShangriLa at the end) and at first Kim doesn't even know who his own side is; which is of course what things would be like for a real spy. One of the book's strengths is its beautiful cross-section of life in British India.
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7	In 1950 ''Kim'' had a well-received [[TheFilmOfTheBook film adaptation]] directed by Victor Saville, starring Creator/DeanStockwell as Kim and Creator/ErrolFlynn (in his last great adventure movie) as Mahbub Ali.
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9	In 2008, it received its first AnimatedAdaptation from Italian production companies Creator/MondoTV and [[Creator/{{Rai}} Rai Fiction]]. Tropes in relation to that adaptation go [[WesternAnimation/{{Kim}} here]]. Not to be confused with that '''''[[JustForFun.OneMarioLimit OTHER]]''''' [[WesternAnimation/KimPossible teenage spy named Kim]].
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12	!! This work contains examples of:
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14	* AuthorAvatar: Kim may have been an expression of [[Creator/RudyardKipling Rudyard Kipling's]] nostalgia for his boyhood.
15	** The keeper of the Lahore museum or "wonder house" is a portrait of Kipling's father who really was the curator of a museum there.
16	* BadassAdorable: Kim
17	* BoardingSchool: Kim spends three years at one, but "A boy's time at school is of no interest to anyone but his parents, and Kim was an orphan."
18	* BrotherhoodOfFunnyHats [=/=] AncientConspiracy: Kim's father was a freemason. Like Reverend Bennett, Colonel Creighton, and the author of the novel.
19	* CanonWelding: the "Woman of Shamlegh" who gives Kim and the Lama sanctuary in her village is the central character of Kipling's early short-story ''Lispeth.'' (It's not very important to the plot, though if you've read the story you will get a whole new insight into the way she behaves around Kim, and why.)
20	** It also is an example of CanonDiscontinuity, as the DownerEnding to ''Lispeth'' ("in a little time, she married a woodcutter who beat her after the manner of ''paharis'', and her beauty faded soon") is ignored and as the Woman of Shamlegh she is a woman of substance who lords it over her two husbands and would not mind making Kim her third.
21	** Strickland, the police officer who "arrests" E23, appeared in several earlier short stories, starting with "Miss Youghal's Sais", which like "Lispeth" was collected in ''Plain Tales from the Hills''.
22	** Mahbub Ali (or at least a character with the same name) appears in ''Ballad of the Kings Jest''.
23	* TheChampion: the Lama's inexperience causes Kim to be this for him.
24	** There is a bit of calculation to this as being the disciple of a wandering seeker makes for good cover in India, a fact that Kim is well aware of. However Kim does have affection and a considerable protective instinct for the unworldly Lama. And the calculation is mainly on the part of Kim's superiors. The boy had voluntarily been the Lama's disciple before being officially involved in the spying, and to him, playing the "Great Game" and being a disciple are just different parts of himself.
25	* CharacterDevelopment: The novel is mostly about Kim's coming of age story, but the Lama also changes, becoming much more comfortable with crowded India and modern transport, travelling all over India with trains and steamships while Kim is stuck in school.
26	%%* TheChessMaster: Colonel Creighton
27	%%* CityOfSpies: Lahore just to start with.
28	%%* ComingOfAge
29	%%* CoolHorse: What Mahbub Ali deals in
30	* CovertGroupWithMundaneFront: The Ethnological Survey doubles as the secret service of British India.
31	* CrouchingMoronHiddenBadass: Hurree Chunder Mookerjee, "Hurree Babu".
32	* DeadpanSnarker: Kim is so good at this that it is his primary defensive mechanism. He can shoo away bad guys by embarrassing them.
33	** The Rissaldar-Major, a veteran of the Mutiny they met along the road said "The police of this land are thieves but at least they allow no competition."
34	* ExoticExtendedMarriage: The Woman of Shamlegh already lives in a polyandrous marriage — which was then and still is Truth in Television for a number of cultures in the Himalayas — when she indicates to Kim that she would like him to become her husband too.
35	* FatAndSkinny: Father Victor and Reverend Bennett, the Mavericks' chaplains for the Catholic Church and the Church of England, respectively. Kim calls them "the fat fool" and "the thin fool that looks like a camel".
36	* TheFederation: UsefulNotes/TheRaj is presented as this.
37	* FelonyMisdemeanor: {{Inverted\|Trope}}. Lurgan Sahib's apprentice [[TamperingWithFoodAndDrink poisoned his plate]], [[GreenEyedMonster out of envy]] of him showing more attention to Kim. How does Lurgan Sahib respond? [[TimeOut By sending him to a corner]].
38	* FishOutOfWater: the reaction of some British like Reverend Bennett and Father Victor when coming to the unfamiliar environment of India. On the other hand, Colonel Creighton, Strickland and Lurgan Sahib have almost [[GoingNative gone native]].
39	** The Lama, as a Tibetan Buddhist and someone more accustomed to using Chinese than e. g. Punjabi, also is very much this, at least at the beginning of the novel. Things change, especially after he meets up with the Sahiba, a fellow Buddhist, if a lapsed one. In later chapters he is shown navigating through India by train and steamer with much more ease and he also for a time finds a home away from home in a Jain temple.
40	* ForeverWar: The Great Game is this.
41	* GambitPileup: A continuous GambitPileup nicknamed ''The Great Game''. There are multitudinous players friendly and enemy and little is told about any of them.
42	* GenderBlenderName: Kim (although not at the time of the writing - it only became a popular girls' name in the 1920s).
43	* GenreBusting: Is this book a spy story or is it a gigantic SliceOfLife? Or is it a ComingOfAge story? Actually it's all of these.
44	* GoingNative: Kim can effortlessly go native as both a Hindu and a Muslim in India. However, he's warned at school that while Britains in India expected to blend in with the locals, "going fully native" was out of the question, and Kim steps back.
45	* GuileHero: Kim
46	* HoneyTrap: A prostitute secretly working for some unnamed RebelLeader tries to do this to Mahbub Ali. He is too smart for them and hides the message he is carrying before she can steal it, and recount gleefully later that he could sense how frustrated she was.
47	* UsefulNotes/IndianPoliticalService: It is not actually said that Kim worked for this, and it did not [[PlausibleDeniability officially]] maintain large spy rings in India at the time. However he was doing the sort of work that it did.
48	* IntergenerationalFriendship: Kim and the Lama
49	** To some extent all of Kim's important friendships are intergenerational.
50	* IntrepidMerchant: Mahbub Ali
51	* LittleHeroBigWar
52	* MagicalAsian: Teshoo Lama. He charms everyone around him with his wisdom and honesty, be they travellers in a train, Hindu priests, an old captain, an English museum caretaker, and even Kim himself. He's on [[TheQuest a quest]] for the River of the Arrow of the Buddha, which is claimed that it can cleanse anybody from sin, and could [[AscendToAHigherPlaneOfExistence detach him from the Wheel of Things]]. Kim was already marvelled on first meeting him because he couldn't tell his race or caste, having previously thought he knew them all in the world.
53	* MasterOfDisguise: Kim is pretty good at this. He can dress up in proper clothes and act like a member from any caste and religion. One of the reason the Intelligence is so interested in him.
54	** Hurree Babu is also no slouch, once even succeeding in fooling Kim.
55	* MeaningfulName: Kim is "the little friend of all the world"
56	** The Espionage profession is called ''The Great Game'', especially when the phrase is said to be inspired by chess and the main opponent is Russia.
57	* MightyWhitey: Subverted in that Kim, who is of Irish parentage, learns a lot from his European schooling, but also from his adopted homeland and the Lama, and he feels more at home being a native rather than a "Sahib" (word used to call Anglos in India). Kim himself puts it rather snarkily while referring to a British priest.
58	--> '''Kim:''' The thin fool who looks like a camel says that I am the son of a Sahib... he thinks that once a Sahib is always a Sahib.
59	** However, towards the end, Kim starts to think of himself as a Sahib and this creates tensions between him and the Lama.
60	* [[MultiNationalTeam MultiTribal team]]: Played straight and quite well. Aside from the major characters which come from diverse castes people from all over India are met randomly along the road, or what not. There are no major villains and most characters come off as more or less likeable. The feeling is that India is a rainbow of castes and the British while the ruling class, are treated by the locals and perhaps even by themselves as just another caste. To a large degree this is TruthInTelevision, though presented in something of a LighterAndSofter manner.
61	* ObfuscatingStupidity: Used often enough by Kim and Mahbub Ali, but Hurree Babu is the master of this. (A Babu was an Indian clerk or minor official and in this context Hurree is practically ClarkKenting. (Babu is a term of respect as well as affection.)
62	* OddFriendship: Kim and the Lama
63	* TheProphecy: There are two prophecies in the novel about Kim in the book, one handed down from his father and garbled by the people who raised him, and another uttered by a Hindu priest in a village he and the Lama pass through. [[spoiler: Both turn out to be true.]]
64	* ProudWarriorRaceGuy: Mahbub Ali
65	* RippedFromTheHeadlines: In the years before the book was written, a young, light-skinned, blue-eyed Indian man was charged with murder. Around his neck, the police found a leather bag which the man claimed was a charm. When the bag was opened, it proved to contain a birth certificate proving his father was an Irish soldier. The case received a fair bit of publicity, and too many details add up for it not to have been Kipling's source of inspiration.
66	* WalkingTheEarth: Much of the book is about just travelling around like any other traveller.
67	* RuleAbidingRebel: Kim bristles at service and authority figures but gradually he comes to accept his role and function as a spy in the service of the British Empire.
68	* SeekerArchetype: the Red Lama
69	* SecretWar
70	* TheShangriLa: Subverted. Teshoo Lama as a former abbot of a Tibetan monastery arguably comes from there, but Kipling deals with Lamaism pretty much realistically. Towards the end of the book he and Kim travel into a different part of the Himalayas (further to the West) which does not fit the "mystical place in the mountains" stereotype. There is no {{Deathtrap}} or TomeOfEldritchLore, it is simply another country. And the Lama receives his enlightenment only after he leaves the mountains and returns to the plains.
71	* SpyFiction
72	* TheSpymaster: Colonel Creighton
73	* StreetSmart: Kim
74	* StreetUrchin: Also Kim
75	* TeenSuperspy: Kim is a moderate example. He starts off in a plausible non-super way as a StreetUrchin who is used by a passing spy to carry messages for him. The only thing super about him is his ability to flawlessly enter every culture in India.
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77	!!Tropes found in the 1950 film:
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79	* AdaptationalHeroism: Although she doesn't go as far as the AnimatedAdaptation would, Flower of Delight ([[NamedInTheAdaptation here named Laluli]]) cares more for Mahbub Ali than in the novel, and doesn't want to see him hurt. In fact, Mahbub Ali's [[InVinoVeritas intoxication]] and search was faked.
80	* AudioAdaptation: Had a radio adaptation for ''Radio/LuxRadioTheatre'', with Creator/ErrolFlynn and Creator/DeanStockwell (Kim himself) [[RoleReprise reprising their roles]].
81	* {{Brownface}}: InUniverse, Kim sometimes does this to masquerade as an Indian.
82	* ChromaKey: A lot of shots employ conspicuous use of the chroma key, especially the horse rides Mahbub Ali gives to Kim, and [[spoiler: the rock slide they unleash to foil the Russian-backed tribesmen]].
83	* CrashingThroughTheHarem: Kim falls through a thatched roof and right into a room of harem girls.
84	* CreatorsCultureCarryover: The Lama is not only portayed by Hungarian actor [[https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0510134/ Paul Lukas]], but his attire looks more like that of a Catholic bishop than of a Tibetan lama.
85	* FemalesAreMoreInnocent: Coupled with AdaptationalHeroism above. Laluli is [[TheSmurfettePrinciple the only henchwoman]] in the Pundit's cadre, and the only one who shows qualms about harming Mahbub Ali.
86	* HollywoodOld: 40-year-old Creator/ErrolFlynn plays the elderly horse dealer Mahbub Ali.
87	* IWantGrandkids: Kim requests food from a street vendor for the Lama, saying that he will bless her in return. The woman requests for the Lama to bless her daughter, to give her children.
88	* UniversalEyeglasses: When Kim meets the Lama, he accidentally [[DroppedGlasses drops his glasses and they break]]. When Kim goes to find food for the Lama, he also takes the glasses of a man he found sleeping on the street. Kim even pretents he "fixed" the glasses with magic. And lucky for him, the lama now could see better.

Context Literature / Kim