219. Kim

Kim
Rudyard Kipling
1900
Around 300 pages

I have read "The White Man's Burden" in class and really had no desire to revisit this author again. Of course, the List had other ideas and I have pledged my devotion to it, for better or for worse. This is leaning in the "for better" category, so maybe we can upgrade Kipling from horrible bigot to well-meaning moron.

Kim is the orphaned son of Irish parents living a vagabond existence in India. He befriends a Tibetan lama who is on a quest to achieve nirvana. Kim is sent to an English school, but he doesn't forget his friendship with the lama. And then he becomes a spy. It makes sense when you read it anyway.

So this is a decent story, but it is certainly not the best depiction of childhood I have read. Now, I know childhood is a privilege that Kim arguably did not possess, but I still feel like authors such as Dickens and Martel do a better job of capturing the unique voice of a child. Kipling always sounds like Kipling.

But the setting of the story is so interesting that the novel works regardless.

RATING: ***--

Interesting Facts:

Referenced in The English Patient.

Listed as UK's best loved novel in BBC's The Big Read poll.

UP NEXT: Buddenbrooks by Thomas Mann. I am going to wait and see how this apocalypse thing shakes out first. Hopefully, it will get me out of reading this.

218. Lord Jim

Lord Jim
Joseph Conrad
1900
Around 400 pages

As everybody stocks up on toilet paper, I am making sure to equip myself with the actual essentials: books and diet soda. You have your priorities, I have mine. I will probably get a lot of reading done over the next couple of weeks rather than going to the parties I usually frequent. Ahem.

Lord Jim is a sailor with a troubled past.  His story is narrated by Marlow, a sea captain who tries tries to reconcile Lord Jim's story with his own notions of what a sailor should be. Lord Jim is a richly drawn character, and seemed very real. Conrad's striking descriptions of Jim were my favorite parts of the novel.

I love reading rollicking adventures, so why do I never like sailing stories? Maybe it's because there are typically 0-1 female characters in those stories, and the men are always manly men, who drink scotch and say manly things, so I don't find them very relatable. Also, these narratives are usually bogged down by unfamiliar lingo for me, so I find it difficult to picture certain key scenes.

I am not blaming Joseph Conrad for these things; sailors are manly men (or at least the ones I have met) and it's not his fault that all my sailing knowledge comes from Nancy Drew books and crossword puzzles. Naturally, the one female character is a trope straight out of Haggard's novels, but I did love the way Jim described her: "she was audacious and shrinking. She feared nothing, but she was checked by the profound incertitude and the extreme strangeness – a brave person groping in the dark."

Our first Conrad is under our belts, and so far I am pretty impressed. Still, we'll have to see if he is worthy of five spots on the List.

RATING: ****-

Interesting Facts:

Ranked as number 85 in Modern Library's list of 100 best English Language novels of the 20th century.

The abandonment of the ship was based off of a real life event, the sinking of the S.S. Jeddah.

UP NEXT: Kim by Rudyard Kipling.

217. Sister Carrie

Sister Carrie
Theodore Dreiser
1900
Around 450 pages

Welcome to the 1900s! This is actually a good representation of what's in store for the next century, at least in terms of American literature. No more happy endings and the American Dream is dead. I can't wait!

18-year-old Carrie Meeber takes the train to Chicago, intending to stay with her sister and brother-in-law and fulfill her dreams of becoming a stage actress. On the train, she meets Charles Drouet, a salesman who thinks she is a snack. Carrie starts working at a factory, and naturally wishes that she didn't have to. She starts planning more creative ways of paying the rent. Sort of like the American Nana.

So this was pretty great. There are certainly a lot of books like this that come after it, which really speaks to its influence. Of course, that somewhat undermines the enjoyment, because the story feels very predictable now.

There are more powerful novels that expand on these themes later, but this is still pretty good, and worth a read.

RATING: ****-

Interesting Facts:

Theodore Dreiser gave up on this manuscript several times and had trouble finding a publisher.

UP NEXT: Lord Jim by Joseph Conrad.