Gunga Din

Kipling, Rudyard (Author); Amis, Kingsley (Introduction)

ISBN 10: 0152004564 / ISBN 13: 9780152004569

Published by Gulliver Books Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, San Diego, CA, 1987

About this Item

Four loose leaf, landscape orientation 'booklets' with protective dust jacket, within plastic sleeve, all in very good condition. Publisher review slip laid in. Introduction by Kingsley Amis and illustrated by Robert Andrew Parker. Dark yellow coloured end pages, and full colour illustrations throughout, including a map of India and its surrounding countries. Small tear to the rear upper edge of the plastic sleeve. Jacket is a little scuffed and edges are slightly creased and nicked. Content is clear and bright. LW.

Seller Inventory # 611764

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Gunga Din
• Publisher: Gulliver Books Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, San Diego, CA
• Publication Date: 1987
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0152004564
• ISBN 13: 9780152004569
• Binding: Paperback
• Illustrator: Parker, Robert Andrew
• Condition: Very Good
• Book Type: Used
• Seller catalogs:
  • Children & Young Adult Reading

About this title

Synopsis

An illustrated edition of the classic poem, in which a British soldier recalls his experiences in the army in India and pays homage to the courage of the Indian water carrier Gunga Din

Reviews

Grade 7-12 Parker's watercolors provide another dimension to this most famous of Kipling's Barrack-Room Ballads, first published in 1890. Its last line, ``You're a better man than I am, Gunga Din,'' is perhaps one of the most oft-quoted in the English language, yet how many have actually digested the whole of this tale of prejudice, brutality, and class consciousness during the Indian Mutiny of 1857? Gunga Din is the despised and much-abused water carrier for a British regiment who bears his lot with quiet dignity until, while saving the life of the narrator, he loses his own. A foreword by Kingsley Amis sets the historical context for the poem, and a map of India is included. Parker's impressionistic watercolors depict the events in a dream-like sequence while he gives more clarity to the beginning and ending pictures of soldiers at a table hearing of the story. Kipling's greatest strengththe colorful rendering of the soldier's dialectmay prove difficult to interpret for today's American students, and one wonders how they will react to such lines as: ``Of all them blackfaced crew/ The finest man I knew/ Was our regimental bhisti, Gunga Din,'' or ``An' for all `is dirty 'ide/ `E was white, clear white, inside/ When `e went to tend the wounded under fire!'' While the message of the poem is anti-prejudice, there is an essential condescension toward another race that is perhaps best left to students of English literature to discuss in Kipling seminars. Connie C. Rockman, The Ferguson Lib . , Stamford, Conn.
Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Parker's paintings elegantly interpret the British Cockney soldier's eulogy to Gunga Din. The selection from Kipling's Barrack-Room Ballads is illustrated with views of India in the late 19th centuryvivid pictures of disciplined troops with banners held high, in stunning contrast with scenes of fierce battles. Through all the chaos and terror, Gunga Din is there: carrying water to the beleaguered soldiers whom he serves faithfully while they insult and abuse him, until he dies. Younger readers may need help with the dialogue, but they'll catch the spirit expressed in rhyme and pictures. An introduction by Kingsley Amis not seen by PW. Ages 6-up.
Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc.