THE JUNGLE BOOK

Author: Rudyard Kipling
Year: 1961 (1894)
Publisher: Instytut Wyd. "Nasza Ksiegarnia"
Language: Polish (translator Józef Birkenmajer)

In the heart of savage wilderness, amidst the ever-shifting fabric of primal existence, dwells the chronicle of a being in search of his own essence. Within this narrative tapestry, the central figure, Mowgli, emerges as a voyager on the tempestuous sea of identity formation. An orphaned child, cast adrift upon the verdant tides of the jungle, Mowgli becomes an interface, a point of juncture, between the uncouth wilderness of beasts and the supposedly cultured dominion of man. His identity hangs suspended like a pendulum swaying between two irreconcilable worlds. “Ksiega Dzungli” (“The Jungle Book”) by Rudyard Kipling thus explores the microcosm of humanity's scattered attitude toward nature and its ceaseless quest for a home.

The jungle itself can be construed as an embodiment of the dialectic that man has struggled with since the beginning of abstract thought. Here, the Hegelian thesis of nature clashes with the antithesis of civilisation. Nature and culture are pitted against each other as mutually exclusive opposites. Mowgli, the feral child, incarnates this contradiction. He is caught in the in-between, as it were, balancing on the cusp of human society and untamed biology. His very existence mirrors the Hegelian struggle for self-realization, oscillating between individuality and universality.

Mowgli’s interactions with the jungle's inhabitants, be it the motherly panther Bagheera or the sage bear Baloo, evoke the timeless conundrum of self-discovery. In these relationships, the reader is witness to a vaudeville of influence, power, and vulnerability within a matrix of order, tradition, and honour. The matrix is put on trial by the disruptive force that is the vindictive and ruthless tiger Shere Khan. This is the disturbance that is required to ignite the dialectic. The boy in need of protection faces his fiend and by defeating him becomes a man; the synthesis. The self-realisation through conflict. The rise of a man among wolves.

Although the tale of Mowgli has established itself as the most famous of the stories in “Ksiega Dzungli”, significantly influenced, no doubt, by the Walt Disney-rendition, it is actually but one of several stories in the volume. Another noted entry is that of Rikki-Tikki-Tavi. Here, the titular mongoose stands as a metaphorical benchmark, emblematic of the primal tenacity inherent within the natural world. While Mowgli grapples with humanity as an intrinsic quality in himself, Rikki-Tikki-Tavi faces off with the perils of nature as a self-proclaimed guardian of a human family. Eager to be of service to his adopted tribe, he puts himself in harm’s way, not once but repeatedly, by challenging the fierce serpents Nag and Nagaina and protecting the humans from the legless lepidosaurs’ deadly bite. While Mowgli is torn between his biological and his circumstantial natures, Rikki-Tikki-Tavi does his best to make a place for himself in a foreign world. His struggle is with his milieu, not his own being. 

Much as I acknowledge that the book was written with young readers I mind, as always, I refuse to allow this to stand as an excuse for poor writing. On the contrary, given the restraints of the immature audience’s limited knowledge and intellectual abilities, the task of a writer for children is perhaps even more challenging than to one who is free to employ the full palette of linguistic nuance. Kipling was not a novice writer when he put together “Ksiega dzungli”. More than a decade earlier he had already established himself as a journalist and poet, and one would think that he would have a good command of the written word and the ability to identify and adapt to his recipients. As my copy is a translation, I will not comment on Kipling’s use of language but the dramaturgy and character development are in my view unsatisfactory. Both are sketchy and disjointed and they lack the immersive cadence that I have learned to expect from truly accomplished writers.

Despite all, the primary benefit of having read Kipling’s famous stories is to counterbalance Walt Disney’s distorted version of the jungle and to learn what Kipling had intended when he wrote his stories. There is a depth and a message in them that, if not done away with completely, are glossed over and trivialised in the animated film. This message, albeit clad in an outdated literary cloak, is still relevant to humanity today as our destructive effect on the climate serves as a shocking reminder of our inescapable dependence on our ecosystem.