The Light That Failed

Редьярд Киплинг, прекрасный писатель, написал роман о художнике, потерявшем зрение в результате старой травмы головы в ходе военной кампании в Африке. Как водится, герой благороден, богат, влюблен, чист и честен, но вот так сложились обстоятельства. Перед самой потерей зрения, превозмогая пьянством блики и круги перед глазами, он написал свою самую лучшую работу «Меланхолию». Он едва успел насладиться ее созерцанием, как тут же потерял зрение, и он не узнал, что тупая и злобная служанка, служившая моделью, скипидаром смыла и ножом соскребла краски. Его друг был к нему добр, но ушел на войну. Его возлюбленная пришла к нему после потери зрения, но она была свободная художница, у нее были свои планы на карьеру, и она ничего ему не обещала, и вообще у них был один довольно целомудренный поцелуй. Она не стала посвящать свою жизнь ему. Он встречает ту самую служанку в парке, и деликатный хозяин квартиры, в которой он проживал, оставил их наедине. Бедная девушка сразу оценила возможности, которые дарует ей возможность ухаживать за ним – обеспеченная жизнь, наряды, как у дам, и почти никакой работы. Наш герой почти воспрял духом, и начал чувствовать и радоваться, что кому-то небезразлично, как он выглядит. Но тут глупая служанка сделала еще одну глупость – рассказала ему о своей подлой выходке. И тут он понял, что ему хотелось бы больше всего. Он написал завещание в пользу своей возлюбленной, сжег свои этюды и картины, дал 100 фунтов служанке и уехал на фронт к другу. Там добрая пуля почти мгновенно после встречи с другом милосердно убила его. Так и закончилась жизнь автора уничтоженного шедевра. Сентиментально, грустно и благородно.

I enjoyed this one, though not quite as much as Kim. The characters are very intriguing and some of the themes it deals with, especially around unrequited love, art and loss of sight, are really interesting. However, I found the ending (indeed, both endings, for it has an alternative one as well as the original) a little disappointing - it didn't quite live up to the rest of the book.

After seminary graduation and moving my possessions back from New York City to Illinois, I was invited to visit Norway by family there, my first visit since 1962. Most of the time I stayed with Mother in her apartment in the Majorstua neighborhood in Oslo, not far from Vigland Park.<br /><br />Arriving, travelling light, I found little to read. Mom hadn't been long back in her homeland and, except for some John Jakes novels, most of her books were in Norwegian. One exception was a bunch of old Rudyard Kipling novels which I presumed she had gotten from her stepfather, Fin Graff, who had been raised in Eau Claire, Wisconsin before the suicide of his father, Dr. Harald Graff, and the separation of his family, he being sent back to relatives in Norway, his brother (my paternal grandfather) and sister being raised by their mother in the States.<br /><br />Except for Kipling's children's stories, I only knew him as a poet whose work celebrated British imperialism in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. I didn't want to read him! But, until I got to know the neighborhood and find the good bookstores carrying English titles, I had little choice.<br /><br />The Light That Failed was completely unknown to me. A quick perusal showed it wasn't primarily about lording it over the darkies in India, so I selected that volume and lay down in my room to read.<br /><br />I was amazed! Not only could Kipling plot well and write beautifully, his characterizations were actually believable. I became captivated by the love story at its heart and anguished tearfully with the protagonist.<br /><br />I may have finished the book over the course of one night, perhaps two. It was hard to put down.

I first read this book, Kipling’s first novel, over forty years ago as a fifteen year old kid. I only knew Kipling at the time through a Classics Illustrated comic of Kim. I saw his name, and arbitrarily grabbed it off our home bookshelf so I could have something to keep me busy in study hall. What I discovered was the perfect tale for a young man with a bent toward tragic romance. Adventure in a war zone, starving artists struggling for success, comaraderie between manly men, a tragic, unrequited love story, and a darkly tragic ending all zapped my young brain just so. <br /><br />Rereading it as a much more grizzled and cynical adult all these years later it held up remarkably well. The unrequited love story is a bit over the top for modern readers, but still works, possibly because the young Kipling was drawing from his own experience. The characters are engaging, and Kipling’s writing is superb, even at this early stage of his career. Glad that I chose to reread it.

Oh, the works that get passed over. Some of the greatest work of the greatest authors is ignored because it's missing some of the charm of their more popular works. Rudyard Kipling may be known best for The Jungle Book, Kim, and Captain Courageous, but he possessed a deeper observation of the world than just the adventures palatable to children. The Earth he lived on was full of failures, darkness, and pain, and any man given to the arts has the tools to express what he's seen.<br />The Light That Failed is just such a book. I originally picked it up off a corner bookshelf in an obscure bookstore in my hometown (the 1910 Art Type edition; I absolutely adore it) and only bought it for the author's name. However, after a year of trying to find time to read it and constant interruptions, I was able to immerse myself in the story and see the real beauty and skill that Kipling is famous for.<br />The book tells the story of two orphans, Dick and Maisie, who form a naive childhood relationship while under foster care before going out into the world. Dick goes abroad and to war, and Maisie goes to France for her education. The book skips forward about ten years, and we find Dick a talented artist who is injured in combat and sent home to London. There, in a chance meeting, he finds Maisie again, who has grown into a beautiful young woman with the same airy charm he remembers, and he renews his love for her. They are both artists, and he instructs her in a competitive way, but his unrequited love for her tortures the relationship. Then, to his horror and disbelief, Dick finds himself going blind from an old wound and must deal with the repercussions.<br />The primary attraction is the beautiful prose. Kipling is best known for his command of the English language, simultaneously making us snort with laughter and ponder what it means, turning us to and fro with quick but thoughtful words. Few other authors show his sense of humor in tandem with heavier thoughts. The Light That Failed is definitely of a different breed than his other works, but it is not out of character nor his style.<br />That being said, the symbolism is thick here. The concept of Dick being essentially castrated and removed from life by the old wounds of war is something that translated to today's soldiers (PTSD, anyone?) and Kipling's distaste for Britain's foreign involvements is clear. Of course, he takes a good-natured English stab at the French by his descriptions of the ridiculous art instructor Kami, but the serious current of concern runs beneath. Distance separates Dick from everything he loves, and even when he tries to go back, nothing is the same ever again after being exposed to the world.<br />The title is twofold: both literal, for his blindness, and for disappointed hopes.<br />Beware: this book is a tearjerker in some places. Kipling holds no details back when going down the disappointed hopes vein. He clearly believes that our efforts, no matter how much talent or time backs them, can still result in nothing when faced by the whims of the world. This fits perfectly in line with the sentiment of the time— the fin de siecle era was full of decadent and disenchanted modernist writers— but it is nonetheless upsetting to those who are looking for hope. In particular, the scene where Maisie finally visits Dick after his blindness completely takes over is moving. Kipling uses the full power of detached observance and vivid adjectives to convey how pathetically we can decline when struck by powers that we cannot understand.<br />In line with one of my other absolute favorite books, Till We Have Faces by C.S. Lewis, The Light That Failed has been passed over with time. That's terrible unfortunate, because I would contend that this is a landmark in the modernist movement and one of the better novels I have read from that era. Brief, poignant, and deeply felt, Kipling has given us a moment in time that we've all felt: something is irretrievably lost.<br />Because it's not popular, this novel is available for as little as $3.99 on the Kindle or $9.41 in paperback from Amazon. Or, believe it or not, it's cheaper on the Barnes &amp; Noble Nook for $1.99. Your library is likely to have a copy because it's been 113 years since this book first appeared, but I would highly recommend buying yourself a copy. This book will not take you a long time to read, but I suspect it will hang around in your thoughts for quite some time after.

19 AUG 2014 -- recommended to me by Cheryl, Dagny, and Karen while reading The Four Feathers by A.E.W. Mason (find it here, among lots of other places on the web -- <a target="_blank" rel="noopener nofollow" href="http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/18883">http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/18883</a>.)<br /><br />A free download of The Light That Failed may be found:<br /><br /><a target="_blank" rel="noopener nofollow" href="http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/2876">http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/2876</a><br /><br />Chap. 1 -- opening sentences -- <br /><br />'WHAT do you think she'd do if she caught us? We oughtn't to have it, you know,' said Maisie.<br />'Beat me, and lock you up in your bedroom,' Dick answered, without hesitation. 'Have you got the cartridges?'<br />'Yes; they're in my pocket, but they are joggling horribly. Do pin-fire cartridges go off of their own accord?'<br />'Don't know. Take the revolver, if you are afraid, and let me carry them.'<br />'I'm not afraid.' Maisie strode forward swiftly, a hand in her pocket and her chin in the air. Dick followed with a small pin-fire revolver.<br /><br />And more to do with the cartridges:<br /><br />'I know it has gone out to the Marazion Bell-buoy,' said Dick, with a chuckle. 'Fire low and to the left; then perhaps you'll get it. Oh, look at Amomma!—he's eating the cartridges!'<br />Maisie turned, the revolver in her hand, just in time to see Amomma scampering away from the pebbles Dick threw after him. Nothing is sacred to a billy-goat. Being well fed and the adored of his mistress, Amomma had naturally swallowed two loaded pin-fire cartridges. Maisie hurried up to assure herself that Dick had not miscounted the tale.<br />'Yes, he's eaten two.'<br />'Horrid little beast! Then they'll joggle about inside him and blow up, and serve him right.... Oh, Dick! have I killed you?'<br /><br />Silly goat. <br /><br />21 AUG 2014 -- this book left me with more questions than satisfaction. Were Maisie and the red-haired girl in a lesbian relationship? Might Turpenhow and Dick have engaged in a homosexual relationship? Does "the light that failed" refer to both Dick's lost sight and the loss of love for Maisie? No soldier would have endangered his fellow soldiers to have returned sightless to the battlefield - his fellow soldiers' focus would be with him and not on the focus of war and staying alive. Parts felt so real and others implausible. But, in the end, I enjoyed The Light That Failed.

The Light That Failed took me into a different realm of Kipling's writing. It's the tale of an artist who draws what he sees of war, and then, as his eyesight is failing, sets out to complete his Melancholia.<br /><br />I won't give any more spoilers than that, except to say that his portrayals of the friendships he experiences with both men and women are still very moving to me.

I assumed I wouldn't like this, just another boring, over-written 19th century novel. It was in a faded red, cloth-bound, one-volume collection of Kipling's works published by Black's Readers Service in 1928. The book was on a shelf next to the cot in the room I was staying at. I had nothing else to read and I had time with nothing to do, so I began reading, and before I knew it I was utterly drawn into the story, the world and the life it depicted. It was not boring and certainly not over-written.<br />In fact, the writing was direct and vivid. <br />Setting a scene: "A thin grey fog hung over the city and the streets were very cold, for summer was in England."<br />Portraying a character's mood and attitude: "I have my own matches and sulfur and I'll make my own hell." <br />Describing a picture: "Your paintings smell of tobacco and blood. Can't you do anything except soldiers?"<br />Depicting the smoke from black-powder-cartridge-firing rifles during a skirmish: "Gradually the scattered white cloudlets drew out into long lines of banked white that hung heavily in the stillness of the dawn before they turned over wave-like and glided into the valleys."<br />George Orwell once called Kipling a good second-rate author. I beg to differ. He is certainly good, but there is nothing second-rate about him.<br />One thing I like about reading novels from past centuries is how they sometimes reveal in casual, unintended ways what it was like to be alive then. In one scene in "Light," for example, Kipling is describing the emotional disorientation of the protagonist as he copes with going blind, and he writes, "there are noises under the sea, and sounds overhead in a clear sky." That is effective description--but it made me think that it was more effective in 1890 than today: today we hear sounds in a clear sky all the time; in fact, sometimes the clear sky can be intolerably noisy. And we know, if we haven't heard ourselves, that the sea is full of noisy marine life, not to mention the throb of ship propellers.<br />But in Kipling's time, the only sound to come from the sky was thunder, ships sailed the sea under canvass silently, and what was below was unknown.<br />Good story, well written, thought-provoking, grim and sad. <br />

This is a story about two friends Dick and Maisie who drift apart from each other after one of the friends leave to go to Paris to go to school. They reunite ten years later both working as artists. One is a war artist and the other one is studying under the teacher Kami, a teacher Dick had learned his craft from for ten years. Will the two friends continue to be friends or will Dick's romantic feelings end their friendship? Read on and find out for yourself.<br /><br />This was my first ever read by Rudyard Kipling and I enjoyed it. It was a pretty good and sad story about friends and what happens when you lose them due to petty pride for their career <input type="checkbox" class="spoiler__control" aria-label="The following text has been marked spoiler. Toggle checkbox to reveal or hide." onchange="this.labels[0].setAttribute('aria-hidden', !this.checked);" id="1f18ad33-e8ee-4cd0-87ec-914634216bc1" /><label aria-hidden="true" class="spoiler" for="1f18ad33-e8ee-4cd0-87ec-914634216bc1">which ruins one of the character's lives.</label> If you like this time of story about art and more, definitely check this book out. It is available at your local library and wherever books are sold.

Originally published on my blog <a href="http://simonsbookblog.blogspot.co.uk/2000/10/rudyard-kipling-light-that-failed-1891.html" rel="nofollow noopener">here</a> in October 2000.<br /><br />One of Kipling's most interesting novels, The Light that Failed hovers on the edge of sentimentality for most of its pages, never quite slipping. Dick Heldar is an artist, who becomes successful through drawings of a war in Sudan for one of the London newspapers - this being in the days before photographs filled the newspapers. Returning to London, he begins to work as a serious artist, and re-encounters his childhood playmate, Maisie, and falls in love with her. Just as he begins work on what is to be his masterpiece, he has to seek medical advice for a problem with his eyes and is told that he is going blind, incurably, as a result of the after affects of a head wound received in the Sudan.<br /><br />In the original published version of the story, The Light that Failed ended here, with Maisie marrying Dick to look after him. Kipling later changed this, saying that he was restoring the story to what he had always wanted it to be, and wrote a much longer ending (about a third of the novel as it now stands) in which Maisie abandons Dick and leaves him to sink into squalor. The original ending is trite and sentimental, and the novel as it now stands has far greater power.<br /><br />The Light that Failed works because of the way it is written, with the contrast between the high spirits of a group of bachelor friends in the first half, and the serious theme of the second. Both parts are extremely well written, the earlier part being like the more cheerful army stories or parts of the Jungle Book. It is carefree, and this makes Dick's physical disintegration in the second half more powerful.<br /><br />The novel is not really a particularly deep one; its concern is more with Dick's physical dissolution than with an in depth analysis of his psychology and the effects of his blindness. By leaving this to the imagination of the reader, it is extraordinarily effective, while remaining easy to read.