Rudyard Kipling is a name that I associate with The Jungle Book. I have read various renditions of that book and seen numerous movie adaptations as well. However I would be hard pressed to tell you anything else that Kipling wrote. So when I stumbled across this title I thought it was the perfect opportunity to see what else Kipling wrote about.
The story is a fairly simple one and Kipling does a good job of describing how Dick Heldar is feeling throughout the book. He is a brash young man with the world at his fingertips. He has traveled as a war correspondent and following an injury returns to England. He then crosses patches with his childhood sweetheart and instantly realizes that he is still in love with her.
She does not have the same feelings but she does want the success that he has achieved as an artist. She tells him that she won’t ever have feelings for him but wants his advice and help to become a better artist. He agrees thinking in time she will fall in love with him. The story takes a turn when she returns to France and he goes blind.
Overall the story did not have an ending I anticipated and it changes this book from a 2 star into a 3 star rating.
William Wilberforce has been called an agitator for his commitment to ending the slave trade. One of his well known speeches on the subject was given on May 12, 1789.
Cardinal Richelieu has been hailed as a great statesman and as a subversive authoritarian. Depending on who you talk to he was a man needed to strengthen the monarchy in France, or he was a tyrant seeking personal power. Next week I will have a book review that may shed more light on Cardinal Richelieu.
When Lenin was working on his major writing projects he would often pace across the room formulating the ideas that he would write down by saying them out loud. Once he had the idea for what he wanted to write he would often repeat the idea to Nadezhda Krupskaya, who would provide feedback. Once this process was complete he would then write the ideas down.
Here is an AI rendering of what that might have looked like when he was drafting What is to be Done.
This month this community will focus on political subversion. What is subversion? When is it justified? What is the interplay between subversion and agitation? These are some of the topics to be discussed this month.
“You get used to the despot’s shortcomings, when they are not great vices, and the change of an autocratic ruler leads to involuntary fear.”
Sergei Trubetskoi
