117 Years Ago

You don’t have to agree with George Orwell to wonder about Hollywood’s long love affair with Rudyard Kipling. “A jingo imperialist,” “morally insensitive,” “aesthetically disgusting” and possessing “a definite strain of sadism” were among Orwell’s descriptions of him. On the other hand, “The Jungle Book,” whose stars are mostly animals, is at least somewhat inoculated against not only Kipling’s harshest critics but also the range of views about him that have emerged over the last century.

And so here we are with yet another adaptation of “The Jungle Book,” a live-action feature from Disney based on its 1967 animated classic, set to open next week, and Warner Bros. has its own version in the pipeline. It’s hard to keep track of all the film adaptations, but they date back to 1942, with one starring Sabu.

An essay in The New York Times in 1899, when Kipling was still in his prime, predicted his sticking power, and seemed in particular to get to the heart of how he would secure his place in the firmament of childhood. The essay, in what was The Saturday Review of Books and Art, was headlined “Kipling’s Claim on Posterity” and began like this:

“At the age of thirty-three Rudyard Kipling has attained the dignity of being a classic. In other words, he has achieved immortality.”

The essay went on to examine all aspects of Kipling’s work to see how they might be remembered, if it all. “The work of Kipling is, as a whole, of such high order that one hesitates to pronounce any of it ephemeral,” the article said.

On the other hand: “In the nature of things he cannot be to our descendants what he is to us; they will demand a fresh message adapted to their needs, and, despite all we may say, will judge him by the dispassionate, impersonal standards of ‘mere’ literature, unmoved by contemporaneous thrills of sympathy and interest.”

But then the essay found its answer, among not the humans but the animals:

“Were his work at an end, upon what would his claim to the consideration of posterity be founded? What has he produced thus far that entitles him to immunity from oblivion? Of all his prose works the ‘Jungle Books’ possess most indubitably the elements of immortality; in regard to the longevity of his fiction there may fairly be a difference of opinion, but hardly so as to these animal stories.

This is by no means tantamount to saying that they are pre-eminently superior to his other tales or more interesting to present-day readers; it is simply a statement based upon historical teaching; the perpetrator or creator of the animal epos is sure of a permanently sympathetic audience. The reason for this is not far to seek. The brute creation is the incarnation of the basic elements of humanity, which are eternal, changeless despite modifications in the forms of civilization. It is, therefore, hardly cause for wonder that mankind everywhere and at all times feel an interest in the avatars of their own constant passions and instincts. There is, indeed, a great deal of humanity in a dog.”

Dr. Dolittle could not have said it better. Certainly the essay went to greater lengths to examine the work than the brief review that appeared in The Times five years earlier, when the work was first published. “Perhaps Anglo-Indian children would understand ‘The Jungle Book’ better than American ones,” that review concluded.

The essay concluded differently: “We may rest assured that our children’s children will buy the ‘Jungle Books’ for their children and will read them aloud with the same enjoyment for big folks and little folks as that experienced by reader and listener to-day.”