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Review - The Jungle Book
Aug. 15th, 2009 02:19 amI guess it was the Disney 'Jungle Book' that made me expect a more coherent novel sort of story. I should probably have read this when I was little, but I never got round to it, so the £2 classics version (at nearly twenty!) had to do. I think of the two books, I liked the Just So stories better. There are some charming stories in both.
I know I have friends who would probably yell at me for reading it without really thinking about the issues of racism, imperalism, etc. I just tried to relax and enjoy it, though -- and I think if you want to, you can do that with Kipling. It's less prejudice in the sense of hate and discrimination and instead a sort of childlike assumption that white English people must be superior and they must bring enlightenment and civilisation to the natives.
My favourite story was probably the mongoose who protects the family. Having been nicknamed 'Mongoose' at one point, I feel a sort of kinship with Rikki-Tikki-Tavi.
The stories about Mowgli are probably the more famous, though, since there's more of them and because of Disney. They're nice, too. The version we get from Disney is so sanitised and idealised and so on, though -- these stories are actually a little more honest about the violence and danger, and problems like drought.
I know I have friends who would probably yell at me for reading it without really thinking about the issues of racism, imperalism, etc. I just tried to relax and enjoy it, though -- and I think if you want to, you can do that with Kipling. It's less prejudice in the sense of hate and discrimination and instead a sort of childlike assumption that white English people must be superior and they must bring enlightenment and civilisation to the natives.
My favourite story was probably the mongoose who protects the family. Having been nicknamed 'Mongoose' at one point, I feel a sort of kinship with Rikki-Tikki-Tavi.
The stories about Mowgli are probably the more famous, though, since there's more of them and because of Disney. They're nice, too. The version we get from Disney is so sanitised and idealised and so on, though -- these stories are actually a little more honest about the violence and danger, and problems like drought.
