An enjoyable collection of some very random and sometimes hilarious stories with strong undercurrents of Victorian attitudes and prejudices. ( )

This collection of stories from Rudyard Kipling is a mixed bag--some are really good, and some are meandering, and some are outright unintelligible, in the case of the few that are written in the dialect of some of the soldiers. I tried to read those few out loud, which helped to a certain extent. I am a fan of Kipling--I liked Kim, and the Jungle Book, and some other, longer short stories, so I came to it with positive feelings. I enjoy the way he seems to be tongue-in-cheek poking fun at the British aristocrats and military in India. The unfortunate thing about Kipling is that, well, he lived in colonial India, and the underlying racism and otherizing of native Indians is cringingly evident, and can make a couple of the stories, not hard to read, but I feel like I am embarrassed for him, and the fact that the culture he lived in will make him increasingly unpalatable for modern readers. There are some gems though, and those who enjoy his writing will find a few stories in this collection that reflect what we love about Kipling. ( )

Nadie discute hoy que Rudyard Kipling es uno de los grandes maestros en el difícil género denominado "short story". Sobre todo, cuando pint en estos cuentos la vida de aquellos ambientes angolindios, militares y coloniales, que conocí tan profundamente en su juventud, en contacto con su tierra natal.

Cuentos de cuando la India era una colonia británica, con sus bailes, con sus intrigas y con su vida.

Un mundo en el que los nativos apenas figuran porque forman una sociedad por aparte.

Muy lindos relatos de una tierra que hoy es más fantástica que la Tierra Media. ( )

Winding through this slow-moving book of thankfully short short boring and redundant stories
of the English experience with the natives of British India, I tried to find a favorite.
The "object-letters" in "Beyond the Pale" were intriguing, then came the horror story ending.

Instead, there was this:

"A man should, whatever happens,
keep to his own caste, race, and breed.
Let the White go to the White, and the Black to the Black."

Worse still, on pages 254 and 255, ever so casually appear the N-words.

Geez, even from the expected taint of Mr. White Man's Burden, this was unexpected.

The book is valuable only for the illustrations of Howard Mueller. ( )