Excellent review, fantasyfan!
I unfortunately only thought this was mediocre, and it's a shame since I was looking forward to it. I like a good adventure tale, I like the time period and setting, but I just found the story lacking. Perhaps I'm overlooking some interesting meaning to it.
I think it was very interesting to set a story in Kafiristan; it's "exotic" and no longer really exists anymore in the present day (the whole area has basically been "Islamified" and the people either killed or converted excepted for a very small minority now). But the story's much more a fantasy than anything realistic, and even that's fine if it were interesting, a sort of an "into the jungle" adventure tale with treacherous mountains instead. I just found everything so obvious or random in the story and the characters and situation not particularly engaging. I did enjoy the last few pages, but it didn't make up for the rest.
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Originally Posted by caleb72
I didn't mind this. Was it actually more about India than Afghanistan do you think? There was something about the Kafiristan people being more English than the English that reminded me of comments made about Indians under British rule.
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I don't know but there actually is (was) a region of Afghanistan called Kafiristan that was different. I don't think they were "English" but they weren't Muslim. Either Kipling knew their particulars and still chose to fantasise them to be something else, or (my guess) it was something of a less known realm then with wild stories about it in India and Kipling ran with it. I haven't looked anything about this story up on the internet so perhaps there's more details known about what Kipling knew.
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It was interesting that Kipling chose two distinctly biblical images in the ejection of our rogues from Kafiristan. The beheading of one, a little like John the Baptist - the head is later presented to the narrator, and the crucifixion of the other - proclaimed more a God because he survived the act. Given that they had set themselves up as gods, I found this quite interesting.
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Yes, that was interesting. I feel like perhaps there just might be a more complex symbolism or allegory or metaphor at work here, but if there is I'm not seeing it. After all, Jesus was the last person who would've decided to become a king through war. That would be much more like Muhammed, but I think you're right about the Jesus/John the Baptist parallel. If anyone has any other ideas on any "meanings" in the story I'd be interested in hearing them.