The Jungle Book

I saw the Disney cartoon before I read the actual book, and I remember that early sensation of extreme disappointment and frustration when I realized how much better the book was- the animals were so majestic and noble and wonderful in the book, and so not like that in the cartoon. Ugh.

I love stories about animals and humans, that intense relation which is like no other relation, and The Jungle Book is all about that, but at a mythic level.

Then I learned about Kipling being a horrible imperialist, oh fuck that. My only problem up to then had been that my brain, conditioned in a different language, couldn't get used to the name "Shere Khan", because I knew Shere meant lion, not tiger. Was Kipling stupid? Oh dear, apparently far worse. But I don't think I was horribly surprised- after all, how would a man who had written so beautifully about a boy raised by jungle beasts only to rise above them through violence into dominance not also be an imperialist?

Anyway, I realised I preferred the other animal stories in The Jungle Book to the Mowgli ones- Mowgli was not a particularly interesting character himself, whereas the White Seal and Rik Tikki Tavi obviously were.

Some time later, I read a modern US children's book about a farm girl who found her way into the town library, started reading The Jungle Book, and became so absorbed in the stories and was so still and quiet "she was far away, swimming with Kotik the white seal" that she didn't realise it was closing time, the librarian didn't see her, locked up, and the girl was trapped in the library over night. I haven't the faintest recollection what the book was or even the young heroine's name- but I do remember snorting condescendingly to myself- she was that blown away by The Jungle Book? Really?