Together, as they walk the roads of India and meet many people, Kim also gets himself wrapped up in British espionage. When he meets a holy man, a lama on a quest to achieve enlightenment by bathing in a certain river, he is fascinated and decides to become the lama's apprentice. He's lived in the streets all his life, running amok just as the other Indian boys do, with little knowledge or care that he is white. Kim is an orphaned Irish boy, who has grown up under the care of an Indian woman. Then he gets involved in intelligence work with the British foreign service while accompanying an aged Tibetan lama.By all means read this book, and enjoy it. Kim's nickname is "Friend of All the World", for he befriends all, but is taken in by none. What may be missed by Americans is that at the time, this was rather counter cultural of Kipling to make the hero an Irish lad. For the plot, Kim, an Irish solder's orphan (Kimball O'Hara), lives on the streets of India, passing as a Indian. There is no political correctness in the book: various cultures strengths and weaknesses are depicted and the English do not come out as the most noble of the group. For the 21st century American reader, what is striking about Kim's tale is how little material benefits are considered valuable rather, it is the quality of one's work that is prized by the British and the Indians alike. It is a "coming of age" yarn, with deep background on British ruled India, the relationships between various Indian cultures, and the ruling British. I also was more focused on plot than the descriptive sections.Forty years later I read it again and thought it was one of the best books I've read all year. I found it confusing and hard to understand: Kipling used dialect and a lot of Indian and British vocabulary. by ] I first read this book about 40 years ago in my teens. I must say that as a kid I enjoyed the adventure but now I enjoyed the details and having just read the Skull Mantra the difference in acceptance of Tibetan monks and the casual way in which the imperial system is accepted as being for the "betterment" of the "natives" is an interesting look into the past. His ability to be different people helps the situation immensely. But still this story of an Irish orphan being trained to do work for the powers that be as part of the Great Game played by people in order to manage the country. Yes it's a time when the British Raj were in charge in India and one of their major issues was the possible incursion of Russia or France (or Russia and France) from Afghanistan. Re-reading as an adult, and with more knowledge of the world changes my view a bit, though a lot of the issues I had were more to do with the era of the book rather than the actual story itself.Yes there are very few female characters of note. This is a book I read many years ago and enjoyed, and I think being a teenager helped my enjoyment.
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