THE DEEP ONES: "The Mark of the Beast" by Rudyard Kipling
DiscussieThe Weird Tradition
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1semdetenebre
"The Mark of the Beast" by Rudyard Kipling
Discussion begins October 7.
First published in the magazine The Pioneer, July 12 - 14, 1890.
ONLINE VERSIONS
http://amzn.com/B004TP7AAA (free eBook)
http://www.readbookonline.net/readOnLine/2420/
BIBLIOGRAPHY
http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?78264
SELECTED PRINT VERSIONS
H. P. Lovecraft's Book of Horror
Wolf's Complete Book of Terror
The Mark of the Beast and Other Fantastical Tales
65 Great Tales of the Supernatural
MISCELLANY
http://www.kiplingsociety.co.uk/rg_markbeast1.htm
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cj2BqPKSuCo
http://www.kiplingsociety.co.uk/kip_fra.htm
http://www.biography.com/people/rudyard-kipling-9365581#life-in-england
Discussion begins October 7.
First published in the magazine The Pioneer, July 12 - 14, 1890.
ONLINE VERSIONS
http://amzn.com/B004TP7AAA (free eBook)
http://www.readbookonline.net/readOnLine/2420/
BIBLIOGRAPHY
http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?78264
SELECTED PRINT VERSIONS
H. P. Lovecraft's Book of Horror
Wolf's Complete Book of Terror
The Mark of the Beast and Other Fantastical Tales
65 Great Tales of the Supernatural
MISCELLANY
http://www.kiplingsociety.co.uk/rg_markbeast1.htm
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cj2BqPKSuCo
http://www.kiplingsociety.co.uk/kip_fra.htm
http://www.biography.com/people/rudyard-kipling-9365581#life-in-england
2artturnerjr
Read this a couple of days ago in Rudyard Kipling's Tales of Horror & Fantasy.
3housefulofpaper
I've got this in Late Victorian Gothic Tales.
4RandyStafford
>2 artturnerjr: Same for me, Art. It's in sight, and I'll cut it out of the herd of books roaming the place after they escaped their usual places in the wake of remodeling.
6RandyStafford
George Orwell's piece on Kipling is worth reading and one part in particular reminded me of a bit in this story: http://orwell.ru/library/reviews/kipling/english/e_rkip
8AndreasJ
>6 RandyStafford:, >7 housefulofpaper:
Fascinating, yes, though to me at least more for what it says about Orwell than about Kipling.
(I guess that, as a generally thing, having X go on about Y at some length is an excellent way to learn about X.)
Fascinating, yes, though to me at least more for what it says about Orwell than about Kipling.
(I guess that, as a generally thing, having X go on about Y at some length is an excellent way to learn about X.)
9semdetenebre
Kipling definitely succeeds in creating an atmosphere of dread, doesn't he? From the moment of his desecration of Hanuman, Fleete's gradual descent into beasthood is really well done, including his picking up on "the smell of blood" and his cravings for underdone pork chops (yum!). The leprous Silver Man and his incessant "mewing" is pretty unnerving and I suspect that most readers don't feel much sympathy for his ultimate torture at the hands of Strickland and the narrator.
A direct literary line can be drawn from this tale of white westerners encountering horror in the streets of India to the likes of "Calcutta, Lord of Nerves" by Poppy Z. Brite and Song of Kali by Dan Simmons.
A direct literary line can be drawn from this tale of white westerners encountering horror in the streets of India to the likes of "Calcutta, Lord of Nerves" by Poppy Z. Brite and Song of Kali by Dan Simmons.
10elenchus
The tension was the key effect of the story for me, and it was well done. Unlike Hitchcock, Kipling doesn't come out and tell the reader what is going to happen, but as noted in >9 semdetenebre:, it's clear from early on and the tension mounts as I read, anticipating it would come soon but not quite certain how.
The other effect of the story for me was visceral: Kipling weds physical torture and bodily violence to the tension, and the result for me was a variety of grisliness or horror. It worked precisely because of Kipling's ear for dialogue and behaviour, it was quite believable (for example) when the narrator stops himself from saying "Hydrophobia", it conveyed the confusion and terror he was feeling better than simply describing him as terror-stricken.
The other effect of the story for me was visceral: Kipling weds physical torture and bodily violence to the tension, and the result for me was a variety of grisliness or horror. It worked precisely because of Kipling's ear for dialogue and behaviour, it was quite believable (for example) when the narrator stops himself from saying "Hydrophobia", it conveyed the confusion and terror he was feeling better than simply describing him as terror-stricken.
11paradoxosalpha
That story was one of the most genuinely horrific we've ever read, I think. Passing over the torture with a restrained nod was a great example of increasing horror by omitting the details. I don't want to imagine it, but I can't help doing so at least a little.
12AndreasJ
I was a bit taken aback at how readily Strickland and the narrator resort to torture. I guess it was less taboo then, but I was nevertheless surprised. Which doesn't hurt the impact of the tale at all, of course.
Speaking of now and then, I imagine the Silver Man gets a good deal more sympathy from a modern audience than from a (Western) 1890 one!
I really liked the introductory paragraphs about the party and the sort of people there, especially the line about annexing Burma. Kipling is very effective at painting a vivid and colourful tableau here.
Speaking of now and then, I imagine the Silver Man gets a good deal more sympathy from a modern audience than from a (Western) 1890 one!
I really liked the introductory paragraphs about the party and the sort of people there, especially the line about annexing Burma. Kipling is very effective at painting a vivid and colourful tableau here.
13housefulofpaper
>8 AndreasJ:
I think Orwell's essay is useful for throwing light on the Imperialist attitudes of late Victorian Britain from the vantage point of the next generation (allowing that Orwell was already middle-aged by 1942). Not only that, but Orwell also had personal experience of Empire (his family background, and serving in Burma - in the Indian Imperial Police in the 1920s). Of course, we can look at Orwell from our vantage point and see differences in perspective between him and us. We would differentiate racism and colonialism from fascism, I think; and the comment about all Left wing ideology being hypocritical because improving the lot of the working man (in the Western world) always relies on exploiting the developing world (to use modern phraseology), sits oddly, maybe ironically, with neoliberal Capitalisms claims to have driven rises in living standards across the developing world in a way socialism and/or communism didn't.
Anyway, accepting that this story will come with this baggage, what did I make of it?
I have read hardly any Kipling, and most of it his children's literature or poetry, so I don't know how typical this story is (of Kipling or indeed of this strain of late-19th Century British literature as a whole - from first-hand knowledge, I mean. I've read literary histories, I've read essays etc about Kipling, about the Raj, etc.).
It works I would say as a brutal "slice-of-Frontier-life", the rather boorish Englishmen with their love of drinking, dogs, and horses still very much in evidence (I write in the week of the Conservative Party Conference); also as a "shocker" with a particularly "Other" evil foreign magician: mewing rather than speaking, silver-coloured flesh, literally faceless, and what alone would make him a figure of horror and ostracism, a leper. And then there is the torture that Strickland resorts to to force the Silver Man to take back his curse. But perhaps the original readership would find most unsettling the strong implication that the Gods of India are stronger, in their home country, than Christianity. Kipling's almost the exact opposite of an evangelising missionary here.
A few stray observations:
Strickland is the most active and insightful character here, but is not the narrator. The actual narrator is somewhat like Doctor Watson to his Sherlock Holmes. I wonder how many other stories of this era are constructed using the same type of set-up?
Was the Silver man, just-tortured, really sent off dragging a heavy bedstead with him, and was that considered a kindness by the characters (and, one supposes, by Kipling)?
I couldn't quite visualise how the torture took place. I'm not sure I feel bad about that.
I think Orwell's essay is useful for throwing light on the Imperialist attitudes of late Victorian Britain from the vantage point of the next generation (allowing that Orwell was already middle-aged by 1942). Not only that, but Orwell also had personal experience of Empire (his family background, and serving in Burma - in the Indian Imperial Police in the 1920s). Of course, we can look at Orwell from our vantage point and see differences in perspective between him and us. We would differentiate racism and colonialism from fascism, I think; and the comment about all Left wing ideology being hypocritical because improving the lot of the working man (in the Western world) always relies on exploiting the developing world (to use modern phraseology), sits oddly, maybe ironically, with neoliberal Capitalisms claims to have driven rises in living standards across the developing world in a way socialism and/or communism didn't.
Anyway, accepting that this story will come with this baggage, what did I make of it?
I have read hardly any Kipling, and most of it his children's literature or poetry, so I don't know how typical this story is (of Kipling or indeed of this strain of late-19th Century British literature as a whole - from first-hand knowledge, I mean. I've read literary histories, I've read essays etc about Kipling, about the Raj, etc.).
It works I would say as a brutal "slice-of-Frontier-life", the rather boorish Englishmen with their love of drinking, dogs, and horses still very much in evidence (I write in the week of the Conservative Party Conference); also as a "shocker" with a particularly "Other" evil foreign magician: mewing rather than speaking, silver-coloured flesh, literally faceless, and what alone would make him a figure of horror and ostracism, a leper. And then there is the torture that Strickland resorts to to force the Silver Man to take back his curse. But perhaps the original readership would find most unsettling the strong implication that the Gods of India are stronger, in their home country, than Christianity. Kipling's almost the exact opposite of an evangelising missionary here.
A few stray observations:
Strickland is the most active and insightful character here, but is not the narrator. The actual narrator is somewhat like Doctor Watson to his Sherlock Holmes. I wonder how many other stories of this era are constructed using the same type of set-up?
Was the Silver man, just-tortured, really sent off dragging a heavy bedstead with him, and was that considered a kindness by the characters (and, one supposes, by Kipling)?
I couldn't quite visualise how the torture took place. I'm not sure I feel bad about that.
14artturnerjr
This was a very disturbing tale, both in ways that Kipling intended and in ways he almost certainly didn't. I couldn't help reading it as a sort of weird-fictional equivalent of the Abu Ghraib debacle, and personally couldn't help but be upset that Fleete (if there's a British version of an "ugly American", he is surely it) didn't have more of a comeuppance than he did in the end.
At the same time, Kipling is really, really good at what he's trying to do, with the turning away of the camera (as it were) when the torture begins being particularly effective (as >11 paradoxosalpha: noted). Like >13 housefulofpaper:, I haven't read a great deal of his work, so I now feel like I have a better understanding of why contemporary readers feel so conflicted about him.
At the same time, Kipling is really, really good at what he's trying to do, with the turning away of the camera (as it were) when the torture begins being particularly effective (as >11 paradoxosalpha: noted). Like >13 housefulofpaper:, I haven't read a great deal of his work, so I now feel like I have a better understanding of why contemporary readers feel so conflicted about him.
15RandyStafford
Like others, I was rather hoping for something ultimately more gruesome for Fleete.
I brought up the link with the Orwell essay earlier because the torture bit reminded me of the quote "People sleep peacefully in their beds at night because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf" -- which I thought was from the essay. (As the quote investigator -- http://quoteinvestigator.com/2011/11/07/rough-men/ -- points out, I'm not the only one that thought that.
It had been years since I had read any of Kipling's fiction and then only his science fiction ("With the Night Mail" and "As Easy as A.B.C.: A Tale of 2150 AD"), but I wasn't prepared for how strongly I was reminded of Robert A. Heinlein's style, not coincidentally since Heinlein was a Kipling admirer. (Sf critic James Gunn has argued that, if he would have written more science fiction, Kipling would occupy a similar place in the genre's history that Heinlein does.)
I brought up the link with the Orwell essay earlier because the torture bit reminded me of the quote "People sleep peacefully in their beds at night because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf" -- which I thought was from the essay. (As the quote investigator -- http://quoteinvestigator.com/2011/11/07/rough-men/ -- points out, I'm not the only one that thought that.
It had been years since I had read any of Kipling's fiction and then only his science fiction ("With the Night Mail" and "As Easy as A.B.C.: A Tale of 2150 AD"), but I wasn't prepared for how strongly I was reminded of Robert A. Heinlein's style, not coincidentally since Heinlein was a Kipling admirer. (Sf critic James Gunn has argued that, if he would have written more science fiction, Kipling would occupy a similar place in the genre's history that Heinlein does.)
