Dear All
Somerset Maugham, in his introduction to "A Choice of Kipling's Prose"
(macmillan, 1952) p xxii - xxiii writes :
=================
I have been more doubtful about those stories concerned with practical joking
... There is only one of these tales I have found frankly amusing ... printed
in this volume. It is called The Village that Voted the Earth was Flat. Here
the comedy is rich, the victim deserves his punishment, and his punishment is
severe without being brutal.
==================
Maugham's introduction concludes p xxvii
He is our greatest story writer. ... I am sure he can never be excelled.
==================
The whole introduction is well worth reading
Best regards
Peter Borcherds
In message <[log in to unmask]>
David Page <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Dear All
>
> I have received the following request from Dr Kate Macdonald of the University of Ghent.
>
> "I'm writing a lecture on 'The Village That Voted The Earth Was Flat',
> and am having difficulty finding anything written on that story, that
> I can mine for ideas. Could you send out an email on the Kipling list
> to ask for help?"
>
> I have suggested the following sources:
> The Harbord Readers' Guide entry is in KJ215 for September 1970. Also KJ021 (March 1932) has some comment. There have been many other mentions of the story over the years in the KJ, usually in relation to his other revenge/retribution stories.
>
> J.M.S. Tompkins has a few comments in The Art of Rudyard Kipling on the story and the whole collection, A Diversity of Creatures, as does Bonamy Dobrée in Rudyard Kipling, Realist and Fabulist. Eliot Gilbert in The Good Kipling is a little harsher in his judgement. More recently (2007) Jan Montefiore in her Rudyard Kipling does devote a few sentences to the story drawing attention to the connections between political influence and jouralism. Peter Havholm in his (2008) Politics and Awe in Rudyard Kipling's Fiction draws the revenge parallel with "Mary Postgate" whereas most of the earlier writers have looked to "Beauty Spots".
>
> If anyone has any more ideas, please will they email Kate at: [log in to unmask]
>
> Yours, David
>
>
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--
Peter Borcherds |<mailto:[log in to unmask]>
|phone 0044 (0)121 475 3029
|