Friday 12 May 2017

Rudyard Kipling and the House of Desolation: Part III

Part I describes the abandonment of Rudyard Kipling and his younger sister by their parents. Part II continues the story and ends with his release from what seemed to him like a prison sentence with torture thrown in.

There are still a few questions outstanding and points to be made.

Did Kipling lie about or exaggerate his suffering?
remember reading somewhere that when Kipling's parents first read the account of his time in Southsea, they tried to get his sister Trix to say that it hadn't been as bad as he said it was. This is what happens in many such cases; people said the same thing to Charlotte Brontë, when actually she had toned down her account of life at the dreadful school.

There is a lot that could be and has been said on this subject. Writers certainly use their imagination to create good stories. For many, what happens in their imagination seems real to them, more real even than what really happened. Some use what happened in real life as just the starting point for building a whole edifice of fiction. Some present occasional incidents as happening frequently and such things as minor criticisms as vicious attacks. This may seem like lying and exaggeration to some people.

However, it is not only a case of what actually happened, but the kind of person it happened to and what the effects were. Some collective-minded, grounded people might be resilient and recover quickly; they might let it all go, put it behind them, forgive and forget and get on with their lives. Others, perhaps more imaginative and sensitive and wide open to subtle energies, may have little insulation or resistance and be permanently affected in the core of their beings. Some people feel everything on an archetypal level; some get bad feelings in overwhelming and concentrated doses, enough for one hundred normal people.

I believe that Rudyard Kipling told the truth about what happened and did not exaggerate the effect it had on him. I also believe that a very different type of boy might have been much less affected and even been treated better. Jane Eyre said much the same thing about herself.


Similar cases
There seems to be some unwritten rule that selected children must be put through an extremely painful process, tortured even. Some are removed from their parents and isolated; in other cases – those of Diana Wynne Jones and August Strindberg for example - it is the parents who are the prison guards. Strindberg too felt that his childhood was a prison sentence; he even called it hell.

Rudyard Kipling wrote of his life in Southsea, “I had never heard of hell, so I was introduced to it in all its terrors...I was regularly beaten.”

Charlotte Brontë was handed over to the care of an Evangelical clergyman and Kipling to committed Evangelical Mrs Holloway. Both were stern disciplinarians; they put children through hell in the name of saving their souls from hell.

The ordeal had long-term effects
Rudyard Kipling often overworked, and he and his sister would become depressed and disintegrate from time to time. Neither was very happy in life, Rudyard despite his success, fame, and fortune.

Trix married but had no children; two of Rudyard's children died and his surviving daughter had no children, so the direct line died out. The same thing happened with the Brontë family.

Did Rudyard benefit in any way from his ordeal?
Kipling said that his life in Southsea was not an unsuitable preparation for the future; it demanded constant wariness for example, and the noting of discrepancies between speech and action. This reminds me of what Lady Colin Campbell said in Daughter of Narcissus about how life with her malignant narcissist of a mother prepared her for recognising and dealing with lawyers' dirty tricks.

Rudyard Kipling was illiterate when he arrived in Southsea; strangely, his parents had never taught him to read and write. Mrs Holloway was charged with the task of ensuring that he learned so that he would be able to read the books and magazines his parents sent him. Just like Jane Eyre, he read partly to escape from his miserable life and partly out of fascination with the subject matter. He found solace, education and food for his imagination in various books and poems. Some of what he read inspired him when he became a writer.

Was it the Southsea episode that made a writer of Rudyard Kipling? We will never know for sure. Perhaps his suffering attracted the daemon that he said helped him with his writing. Perhaps his daemon arranged it all to soften him up and put him on the path that was arranged for him.

It would have been a great loss to us if Rudyard Kipling had never become a writer, and this applies to more than just Kipling's works. Rosemary Sutcliff, author of the wonderful story about Roman Britain The Eagle of the Ninth, said that people who didn't read Kipling would miss something they would not get from any other writer. I agree with this. She loved his work and acknowledged a great debt to him; his stories about the Romans inspired her stories about the Romans. Robert A. Heinlein is just one of the many other authors he inspired. Our gain may have been Kipling's loss. His sad words show how he felt about his life:

"Beware of overconcern for money, or position, or glory. Someday you will meet a man who cares for none of these things. Then you will know how poor you are.

"Too much work and too much energy kill a man just as effectively as too much assorted vice or too much drink.“

Lorne Lodge, Southsea and me
Lorne Lodge still exists. It is a typical early Victorian building. I don't know whether it is true that, in the dank basement where Kipling used to play, etched into a whitewashed wall you can still make out the word, 'Help'.

I was astounded when I realised that I had lived just around the corner from The House of Desolation. Not only that, but I have since discovered that I was living close to a house where another great man had stayed. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle arrived in Southsea in 1882, to set up a doctor's practice. He wrote the first two Sherlock Holmes stories while living there. I will never know now why my family moved to Southsea, but what a coincidence that the house where I lived is right between the two other houses and roughly the same distance from both!

You can see 'Lorne Lodge' on the gateposts:




Some final words from Rudyard Kipling
His little poem The Appeal asks that people pay attention only to his books during the short time that he will be remembered after his death. He wants to be left to rest in peace; he does not want to be investigated and discussed.

Kipling has been borne in mind for much longer than the short time he predicted. His appeal for personal privacy has not been heeded; biographical works about various aspects of his life are still being produced. In modern times, nothing is sacred.

The Appeal

If I have given you delight
   By aught that I have done,
Let me lie quiet in that night
   Which shall be yours anon:

And for the little, little, span
   The dead are borne in mind,
Seek not to question other than
   The books I leave behind.