Quest for Kim: In Search of Kipling's Great Game

The title says it all: this is a travelogue following the plot line of Kipling's Kim and winkling out the real life places an people who inspired Kipling's "Kim". Reads well, quickly, written in a chatty style. As one who has never read Kipling, this book may persuade me to give him a go, as Peter Hopkirk certainly holds Kim in very high esteem.

Written after Hopkirk’s Trespassers on the Roof of the World, it touches on the same territory - the exploration of Central Asia, but here it deals with the intersection of truth and fiction contained in Kipling’s Kim.

Part travelogue, and part treatise, Hopkirk follows in Kim’s footsteps across the Punjab, up to Simla and into the foothills of the Himalayas. He attempts (with varying success) to relate the scenes of the book to actual locations, and characters to actual people.

Fairly light rather than erudite, this is probably best read as an adjunct to reading Kipling (not just Kim, but other works are mentioned as part of the context of the Great Game). I found it an enjoyable read.

Recommended.

For those who have read and admired Kim, by Rudyard Kipling, this is a fascinating travel book trying to retrace Kim's footsteps as he travels through India and identify possible real people for the characters.
The prose is adequate to the task, but is not inspired, as for example William Dalrymple's travel books of India.

Peter Hopkirk (1930 – 2014) was a journalist who wrote six books about the role of the British Empire in Central Asia – eastern Turkey, Russia, the Caucasus, Pakistan, India, Iran, China, and Nepal. Hopkirk was the chief reporter, Middle East and Far East specialist at The Times for more than 20 years. The books he wrote are a direct off-shoot of that work, and demonstarte a profound interest in the region, joined with the adventurous spirit of the older generation, particularly found in authors such as Erskine Childers and John Buchan. Perhaps this mentality was a family tradition. In any case, by the time the books were written and published in the mid-1990s, Hopkirk's enthusiasm for the British Empire was already dubious.

Quest show more for Kim. In search of Kipling's Great Game is just such a book, written in the celebratory spirit of colonialism and the British Empire. The book is not at all scholarly, but a purely personal interest of the author to explore the background of Rudyard Kipling's novel Kim.

The book creates the impression that very little material was at hand and what was there is drawn out to make the most of it. Thus, in the opening part of the book, several pages are devoted to the personal significance of the novel Kim to various people, including the author.

What follows is a travelogue to places of importance in Kipling's novel. Hopkirk convincingly demonstrates that Kipling found his inspiration very close at home, showing that many buildings and objects in the novel exist in the real world, in fact, many buildings are preserved into the modern time.

The region in which Kim is set, in now a dangerous border region, divided between India and Pakistan. For nearly two centuries, the world powers have tried to conquer this region unsuccessfully.

Quest for Kim. In search of Kipling's Great Game is moderately interesting, particularly for those with an interest in the history of the British Empire in the region, or nostalgia for colonial times. Likely, the book is more appealing to readers familiar with Kipling's work. show less

Peter Hopkirk fulfils a life-long dream to find the places mentioned in Kim and follow his trail. He finds that a lot of the places Kipling mentions in the story are real, or based on real places, however borders and wards have changed the landscape forever.

It's interesting but sometimes it isn't quite enough. He trails off occasionally and doesn't fill out details, but still it was an interesting addition to the story.

A interesting book to pick up and read after a trip though the Kipling classic "Kim". Peter Hopkirk goes on a trip of a lifetime to find the places mentioned in Kim. This book is a cross between a travelogue and a literary review of "Kim".

Enjoyable enough that I finished it in one night.

Found it tedious and dull. Flat travelogue approach to local of Kim.