Re-read Lukundoo now. This, too, is probably the second or third time.
I think White's method of narration is better than Kipling's in Beast. He chose a less overcooked narrator (Singleton), and told much of the story in dialog--which seems highly unlikely that Singleton, in recounting to story to the others, would have used dialog, but..."poetic license" :^) .
This, too, is a sort of never the twain shall meet story, in that there is no real explanation of what supernatural mechanisms are in play, or what sort of cosmos would permit them, but that's OK for this kind of story.
White does a very interesting thing with characterization. He sets this in a private club, looks like (BTW, this is how I see the ED forum... :^) ), and a sort of alpha male (Twombly) is holding forth by the fire. Then Singleton, a wallflower by comparison, interjects his story, and here's what's important in establishing a sort of enhanced credibility: by comparing a blustering bullshitter (Twombly can easily be imagined to be like that) to a reserved observer, when the observer speaks, we *listen*, and his views have a sort of default credibility.
Then we get Van Rieten, who is a Euro-centrist, if ever there was one--proud, arrogant, and Echtam, who is:
Quote:White
Even though he was in tatters and had five days' beard on, you could see he was naturally dapper and neat and the sort of man to shave daily. He was small, but wiry. His face was the sort of British face from which emotion has been so carefully banished that a foreigner is apt to think the wearer of the face incapable of any sort of feeling; the kind of face which, if it has any expression at all, expresses principally the resolution to go through the world decorously, without intruding upon or annoying anyone.
Salt of the earth, that.
This makes him a lot like Singleton--relatively high credibility, which is needed to plausibly get the Van Rieten expedition to go one week out of its way to help Stone, Echtam's leader, and the veritable model of the 19th C British gentleman's manly ideal, complete with the sin of hubris.
(Here I'll note what I think is a plot flaw: why was Echtam traveling with two tiny heads? Sure, it turned out that he needed to show them to Van Rieten to finally motivate him to go to Stone--but how in the world would he have clearly known in advance that this might be needed? I mean, he did a forced march thru terrible conditions for a week, bringing along with him two tiny heads?
...but this falls *just barely* within what I'll accept, if the payoff is sufficient. Yet there was no real reason that White had to do it that way--he did it to advance the plot in a manipulative fashion, so far as I can see.)
So Van Rieten--who,if you think about it, is a lot like Van Helsing, if Van Helsing had decided to explore Africa instead of becoming the world's leading expert on vampires--sees the heads, goes to Stone (otherwise, he ignores Stone, and so Singleton would have no tale to tell at the club, later), sees the eruption of the latest head, lops it off, and has a deathbed discussion with Stone, who bravely faces his deserved fate, then expires.
And if this all sounds unlikely to you, Singleton realizes it and says, at the end:
Quote:"I did not expect you to believe it," he said; "I began by saying that although I heard and saw it, when I look back on it I cannot credit it myself."
Too, the story scores even *higher* on The YUK! Factor scale than Beast. It's hard to top a terminal leper in repugnance, but the "carbuncles" do it for me.
Still, I feel that the story conveyed more care and author commitment to the finished product than Kipling showed in the Beast.
My opinions, only.
--Sawfish
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"The food at the new restaurant is awful, but at least the portions are large."
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