WALT Disney never did Rudyard Kipling any favors. As children grow up these days they are inundated with Disney Plus and any hope that they will meet the Mowgli that Kipling intended is remote. The cute adventures of the little boy and his animal friends bear little resemblance to the stories themselves. In my youth kids still joined Cubs in droves, experiencing The Jungle Book through Lord Baden-Powell. How well I remember that inane call of “I will dib-dib-dib. I will dob-dob-dob.” This was meant to be the simulated wolf calls of the Seeonee pack. Despite this I don’t recall anybody explaining to me that there were Mowgli books with stories that I could read for myself.
And this is a shame. Because the Mowgli stories are wonderfully exotic and violent. Kipling was a master storyteller. Each of these tales is finely-crafted to entertain. Not preach or moralize but entertain with substance. Few people can tell the difference any more. Arthur Conan Doyle had it. H. Rider Haggard had it. Kipling in spades.
Disney redressed some of their sins with the live-action version of The Jungle Book starring Jason Lee. I used to say it was the best Tarzan movie I ever saw. (It is better than most.) But after reading the stories in The Second Jungle in particular I saw that this just isn’t true. There is much of the spirit of the later Mowgli stories, the ones that happen after he returns to humanity, in that film. Tarzan is an obvious descendent of Mowgli, so much so Kipling frowned upon Burroughs and his apeman. But Tarzan exists in a jungle of Burroughs’ imagination, not a real place. Mowgli’s jungle is filled with an authentic power that Tarzan lacks.
The violence – or action if you prefer that term – in these stories is inherently part of what happens. Like the struggles of man and beast in the Klondike tales of Jack London, the threat of death hangs over the jungle. Mowgli’s killing of Shere Khan and then victorious glee over his dead skin on the council rock are powerful images. Not quite civilized. Certainly not Disney material. The trampling of a village by the elephants as Mowgli teaches them a lesson is not as blood-thirsty since no one is killed. The attack by the Red Dog is a powerful battle scene worthy of an Allan Quatermain adventure and a fine finish towards the end of the book. Kipling usually knows violence handled right adds power and spice but too much and the recipe becomes unpalatable. The critics of his horror tales felt “The Mark of the Beast” an abomination that should never have been published. (For more on this, see “Imperial Gothic: The Best Horror Tales of Rudyard Kipling”.) The Mowgli stories were written for children. The last line of “‘Tiger! Tiger!'” ends: “But that is a story for grown-ups.” Clearly Kipling has delineated these tales as a children’s work. Still, his gory side that reveled in lepers and torture in the short stories can’t be entirely hidden. Enough leaks out to satisfy any young boy or girl. Or any youngster grown older, such as myself.
The original illustrations for The Jungle Books were done by John Lockwood Kipling (1837-1911), Kipling’s father. Sadly his work is largely forgotten.
W. H. Drake (1856-1926) is probably the best remembered of the Kipling illustrators.
P. Frezeny (1840-1920) added a few illustrations to the Drake edition.
Maurice de Becque (1878-1926) was the French illustrator of Kipling. He also drew for Jack London’s work.
Stuart Tresilian (1881-1974) is my favorite of the bunch with his masterful use of shadow.
Edward J. Detmold (1883-1957) was one twin of a pair of illustrators, along with brother, Charles Maurice Detmold. So the Brothers Hildebrandt weren’t the first.
