A udiobooks, as I’ve written before, are a godsend for long car rides, boring days, or house-cleaning sessions. (Or if, like me, you have large wedding afghans to crochet and don’t feel like watching a movie.) And it was through one such audiobook, narrated by the golden-voiced Jim Weiss, that I was introduced to Rudyard Kipling’s Just So Stories.
Depending on which collection you find, there are around a dozen of these tales, each detailing how some facts of nature became facts. Unlike many of us, Kipling doesn’t take it for granted that the elephant has a trunk. With child-like persistence, he puts forward his views on phenomena ranging from the formation of the alphabet to the genesis of the whale’s throat.
First, though, let’s clear the air. Kipling has picked up a reputation as a colonialist, and, certainly, some of his views on other peoples and cultures were bad. The older editions of his Just So Stories contain the “N” word in “How the Leopard Got Its Spots.” While we shouldn’t remove this type of language from works such as Huckleberry Finn and To Kill a Mockingbird, those are books best introduced to high-schoolers, who should be engaging with the texts and the historical realities that come with them. Does an elementary- or middle-schooler who would enjoy the Just So Stories need to know about British colonialism and racial slurs? No. I would make the case that reading Kipling’s stories aloud and censoring the word, or buying a later edition without the slur is perfectly acceptable. This then frees up readers to appreciate these eccentric tales, their extraordinary use of language, and their clever imagery.
Eccentric really is the right word here. Kipling uses repetition, carefully placed capitalizations, real and made-up names, and other tools to draw the reader into his world. Some creatures are described within an inch of their lives, such as the Bi-Coloured-Python-Rock-Snake, or maybe it’s an object, such as the Parsee’s hat, from which “the rays of the sun were reflected in more-than-oriental-splendour.” Kipling cared deeply not just about the words on the page but how they sounded when read aloud. Take this part of “The Sing-Song of Old Man Kangaroo”:
Up jumped Dingo—Yellow-Dog Dingo—and said, ‘What, that cat-rabbit?’
Off ran Dingo—Yellow-Dog Dingo—always hungry, grinning like a coal-scuttle,—ran after Kangaroo.
Off went the proud Kangaroo on his four little legs like a bunny. . . .
He ran through the desert; he ran through the mountains; he ran through the salt-pans; he ran through the reed-beds; he ran through the blue gums; he ran through the spinifex; he ran till his front legs ached.
He had to!
Still ran Dingo—Yellow-Dog Dingo—always hungry, grinning like a rat-trap, never getting nearer, never getting farther,—ran after Kangaroo.
He had to!
For the full effect, read it aloud, even if it’s sotto voce.
Kipling made sketches to go along with many of his stories, and depending on the version you have, they are often accompanied by funny asides that match the tone of the tales. In an offhanded sort of way, he explains why some story elements are included in a drawing and others are omitted, as if he’s anticipating the reader’s probing questions. I’m particularly fond of the drawing accompanying the story “How the Whale Got Its Throat,” which shows the small ’Stute Fish hiding beneath the Door-sills of the Equator.
“How the Whale Got Its Throat” is my favorite of the tales in the Just So collection, mainly for the phrase, “you must not forget the suspenders, Best Beloved.” There are not, alas, many regular opportunities to quote this phrase in real life, but “Best Beloved” is a charming term of endearment.
This story is simple and contains only three characters, but in a handful of well-chosen words, Kipling tells us all about them. There’s the endlessly hungry Whale, who’s eaten all the fish in the sea; there’s the small ’Stute Fish, who swims behind the Whale’s right ear; and then there’s the shipwrecked mariner, “who is a man of infinite-resource-and-sagacity.”
Originally told as bedtime stories to his oldest daughter, who died at a tragically young age, these tales from the prodigious writer are now beloved the world over. And though he uses enough hyphens to make the editors at NR cry for mercy, do give him a chance. It’s vitally important that you know where the camel’s hump came from, the origins of letter-writing, and exactly how powerful the stamp of a butterfly can be.