PUCK OF POOK'S HILL: SECOND-TIER KIPLING

 

Before any evaluation of Puck of Pook’s Hill formulates it must be stated how uncharacteristic of Rudyard Kipling’s work it feels. True, as in a lot of Kipling’s work, the fantastical is a normal part of the natural world but it’s episodic compartmentalization of tales and random walk-ins by historic English personages makes for an odd literary hybrid; in part the whimsical “history of England” versions of which were composed before Kipling by Jane Austen and then Charles Dickens and part the dream-like fantasies of Lewis Carroll where the line between the real-world and wonderlands clearly exists but is so thin cross-overs are common. There is almost nothing in it that is distinctly Kipling.

That Puck of Pook’s Hill feels more Carroll than Kipling would not necessarily be a cause for alarm had the book not been reminiscent of Carroll’s worst work, the dreadful two-parter Sylvie & Bruno, which Carroll inexplicably considered his best work. In both works a little boy and a little girl from the world of humans escape into enchanted woods each day and this becomes the thread holding together a series of mostly unrelated adventures with pixies and fairies.

It must be said that Puck of Pook’s Hill is a superior work to Sylvie & Bruno. Though held by a the flimsiest of threads, each episode serves a purpose. Upon each venture into the woods, Dan and Uno, the children, meet up with Pook, the sprite from Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream and a character from a different time in British history. While Carroll, though perhaps attempting his most revealing work, got lost in the question of what story he was truly writing after all, Kipling, however the project may have been suited for his style, followed through with his ideas.

Undoubtedly, this was a work Kipling felt he needed to write. Writing both about the motherland itself or elsewhere in the Empire, Kipling never relented on his nationalism, his faith in the endeavors abroad and pride in England’s heritage. Unrecognizable though he may be in Puck of Pook’s Hill it was, perhaps, inevitable that he would arrive to such a work at this time in his career. The Queen and Rhodes were newly dead, the ethics and even practicality of imperialism were being questioned in the Western world (maybe even by Kipling himself. An alternate reading of his most controversial poem, "White Man's Burden", ostensibly a rallying cry for US intervention in the Philippines, has been as a testament to its futility), and his life in India was but a distant memory. Puck of Pook’s Hill was his reminder, if only to himself, of the legacy he stood and fought for.

Puck of Pook’s Hill suffers from being both too structured and not enough so. It is written in an easy succinct style, yet feels longer than it should since we never see it working toward anything. There are moments of charm but no cumulative strength.

Most likely, the book worked best in its original form, as a periodical publication. We are trained to take novels (or in this case a novelization)  as a more or less structured work. Even episodic classics can be seen working toward a definite end. We can take Puck of Pook’s Hill as a collection of thematically linked stories but as a novel it is merely a succession of episodes without a tangible goal.

In comparison, Kipling’s Just So Stories were altered minimally from their periodical form when collected in book form. The Jungle Book is a curious example as it is a collection of stories with some (the Mowgli stories) pulling toward a goal and others that work just as well as stand-alone pieces as they do parts of the collection. Puck of Pook’s Hill is also telling an assortment of tales, but it keeps teasing that it is building toward something more.