Cover Charge #15: The Second Jungle Book
a.k.a. The Pagemaster.
Just as I was with the first Jungle Book, I struggle with what to say and how to say it with regard to its sequel, The Second Jungle Book. But now there is the added caveat that much of what I could think to say about it was already said in that review.
And it's not particularly original of me, but let's go over the tales in order, because yes, The Second Jungle Book is also an anthology like the first, but with more of a focus on Mowgli.
"How Fear Came" and
"The Law Of the Jungle"
Kipling's tales in the first Jungle Book were not ordered chronologically (what else could you do in those days when you were halfway through writing and your main villain was dead, but write flashbacks?), and this was one of those, set during a season of drought and famine when Shere Kahn was still alive. It uses a naturally occurring event (animals from across the food chain using a communal water source and mostly putting aside their hunger needs to bathe and hydrate) as the basis for world-building and elaboration on the Law Of the Jungle (which we've been told the basics of before, and is detailed in verse by Baloo as its own digression here). It's mostly dry and uninteresting (pun not intended), even when Shere Kahn shows up to boast about more of his illegal activities (Man-killing for sport, which is exponentially taboo by Law, and he deserves every bit of the trampling and skinning he would get later) and otherwise thumb his nose at all that is sacred and orderly. But this does lead to a fun, origin-style myth explaining the creation of the Jungle (dug up by a kaiju-sized elephant, a la Paul Bunyan), the food chain (the first ape and big cat brought shame and bloodshed to a vegan/fructarian society, respectively), and said tiger's stripes and relationship to Man, a.k.a. Fear (hence where the Zenescope trilogy got its God Of Fear And Fire character).
It brought back fond academic memories of my religion and mythology studies in high school and college.
"The Miracle Of Purun Baghat"
and "A Song Of Kabir"
I mentioned in my previous Jungle Book review (though in different words) that Kipling seems to only know how to write two kinds of character: talking animals, and outcast (or out-caste, because India) humans who learn to speak with animals. Basically, stories about characters like Mowgli who aren't Mowgli should have been about Mowgli from the start because he's Kipling's most popular and interesting character. However, Purun Baghat works as a Mowgli-like character because he isn't Mowgli, while also not working in comparison to Mowgli.
After some long, dry, expositional world-building, we're introduced to the title character: a former politician of wide renown, influence, and accomplishment, who resigns from his post amidst a regime change and the onset of old age to become a nomadic holy man, eventually returning to his childhood community in the mountains, where visions and the kinship of the local wildlife help him save the village from a landslide before he dies with honor and is revered as a local hero of sorts. The poem is basically a speculative companion piece, asking what would drive such a man to take up the cloth, and aside from the excessively biblical prose (I call it "the begetting," or in this case, the Baghat-ing, because it starts farther back than it should and lists off a sequence of events and people that establish, but don't meaningfully inform, the ensuing story), they're both fine. This story works because of the character's age and experience, and perhaps also because of the time period and location. But as I read, I found myself thinking, "Mowgli would have been laughed off for that" or "that would have been denounced as witchcraft" or "they would have killed this man instead of praising him." I know they're fictional characters, and different characters at that, but there are enough similarities that their differences read as hypocritical in a comparative context.
"Letting In the Jungle" and
"Mowgli's Song Against People"
This was my favorite story to this point in The Second Jungle Book once I realized where it was going. Continuing almost directly from the events of "Tiger, Tiger" in The Jungle Book (where Mowgli and the Seeone herd his water buffalo to box in and trample Shere Kahn), "Letting In the Jungle" sees Mowgli return to the Jungle after his wisdom was laughed off and he was exploited and accused of witchcraft by the village hunters (hence my tarnished view of the previous story). Upon learning that his human parents were also accused of witchcraft and sentenced to the "Red Flower" (burning at the stake or the Indian equivalent, because that's what the animals/Jungle People call fire) and are being imprisoned, ridiculed, and tortured in the meantime, Mowgli seeks the help of Hathi and the other elephants (who have past experience wiping out a human village in retaliation for violence against their kind) to do the title on his behalf so he can rescue his birth parents and erase from existence those who did them wrong. Kipling's prose bogs down the action yet again, but the dialogue is emotionally charged to a palpable degree, and again, the moment when I realized what it all meant was a mix of cathartic validation and dark introspection at the idea of rooting for such a terrifyingly powerful and emotionally unstable protagonist. Yes, Mowgli acts to benefit those he cares for, and that is correctly framed as a heroic motivation. But his increasing awareness of his literal Manhood while being of a childish, beastly mindset invites a dangerous cockiness: an entitlement to be master of all and to have whatever his emotions tell him he requires. And in this modern world, where the childish, beastly masters of all put their feelings above the word of law and send their elephants to trample whatever offends them at any given moment, the potential enemy you support is a dangerous friend to have. Beware who you root for, because they might not be as supportive of you as you wish them to be.
"The Undertakers" and
"A Ripple Song"
A stork, Tobaqui the jackal, and a crocodile complain about the English and bitch at each other for thirty pages. Somewhere in there, I may have chuckled a time or one about the crocodile getting brain freeze from eating a chunk of ice that a deck hand threw him once. Really riveting stuff, but not as riveting as the succeeding poem about a crocodile eating a woman who tries to cross a river. Or as riveting as my sarcasm. Next.
"The King's Ankus" and
"The Song Of the Little Hunter"
In my childish acknowledgement of the similarity between "ankus" and a similarly spelled but funnier word (and my boredom at having endured the previous "story"), I did not realize this was another Mowgli tale, and a pretty interesting one. Of all the pairings Kipling could have gone with, I did not expect Kaa to be Mowgli's mentor here, but it works. Like Baloo in previous stories (and the comics) where he is Mowgli's mentor, Kaa is an imposing, physically superior jungle beast who holds back his strength and speed (a tenth of his full power, as Kaa himself states, like he's a Dragon Ball deity or something) to train the boy. Like Mowgli himself, Kaa is capable of feats that get existentially terrifying and make you question your own morality if you think into the abyss for too long. And speaking of feats, we get another strength feat for Mowgli when he lifts Kaa by his midsection (which Kipling equates to a grown man lifting a two-foot section of water main, so, probably in the triple digits? I'm not a math scaler...) and carries him an unspecified distance. In their training fight, we also learn that Mowgli is not fast enough to react to or counter Kaa's strikes, even in this casual state (though Mowgli suggests he can at least see Kaa's movements).
Soon, talk turns to Mowgli and the superficial needs of Man (he knows of the purpose of money in human society, but doesn't understand greed, and his only regret as a stronger, older Manling—the other characters mostly stop calling him "Man-cub" in the last two stories because he has outgrown it—is missing out on hunts worthy of his new strength. Even when Kaa invites him to explore the temple from "Kaa's Hunting," where a senile, time-bleached cobra guards a massive treasure trove for his long-deceased royal master, Mowgli does so with only curiosity, wishing to see the titular object (an ornate, bejeweled polearm for stabbing elephants and hooking cattle that he is warned of as Death to Man) in the sunlight and show it to Bagheera. But with that done, he discards it and later learns the truth of the white cobra's warning when he and Bagheera follow human tracks and find six men who have killed each other out of greed. Mowgli then returns the ankus to the temple and moves on, unaware of why Death was not for him and grateful to be alive. Cool little character piece.
"Quiquern" and
"Angutivun Tina"
(Song Of the Returning Hunter)
I kind of like this one despite the dense, long-winded narration. It's a standard, "boy and girl find love after miraculously surviving deadly hardships" crossed with "loyal animal companions reunite with their master and save the day" and a smattering of Inuit mysticism. Rote as it sounds (and with ample opportunity for culturally insensitive execution and conservative whining about forced diversity if it were made today because some people are horrible), it's something that would have made an incredible 80s or 90s movie; sort of a wintry Blue Lagoon-meets-Homeward Bound. The tone is at once fatalistic and optimistic, and the description, long-winded as it can be, creates powerful mental imagery. The accompanying poem is a "hey, ladies; the hunt was successful and we're back" sort of thing with a triumphant tone, but Kipling seems kind of cynical about his own rhyme scheme even though it isn't that bad. More Mowgli, please.
"Red Dog," "Chil's Song,"
"The Spring Running," and "The Outsong"
The Second Jungle Book concludes on several sad notes in these final tales and poems, with Mowgli a Manling in his prime and those who raised, educated, and trained him beginning to age out or follow their own paths in life. As of "Red Dog," Mowgli seems to have made peace with his wants and needs (neither as emotionally dangerous and selfish as he was in "Letting In the Jungle," nor as susceptible to wonder and vice as Kaa worried he might be in "The King's Ankus"), and acts as a protector of the Jungle he calls home. Here, that involves saving an exiled and widowed wolf and the Seeone wolves from an invading pack of dholes (red, bushy-tailed, hyena-looking canines), once again with the aid of Kaa (and several hives of bees—real bees that actually exist in India—that are so large that I now have exactly one reason to be proud I'm an American). It's a battle that eclipses the Shere Kahn fight in terms of strategy, scale, and emotional weight (Mowgli previously speculated that he could have probably now defeated Shere Kahn fairly and without aid—where before, he had the buffalo at his mercy and he won as a child with no collateral losses, even with his plan failing—and yet here, he and his pack and other allies face multiple dholes and employ underhanded strategies, winning the day but suffering tragic losses that push Mowgli to an internal conflict between feeling he is still needed in the Jungle and honoring his pack-father's dying wish), and the poem of Chil the kite is both a fitting aftermath to the battle and a healthy interpretation of death as something cold, inevitable, and impersonal, yet intimate and darkly friendly.
Speaking of Dragon Ball deities and dying wishes, though, after destruction comes creation, because it's spring! And in "The Spring Running," as the surviving wolves find mates and Mowgli's longtime companions begin to feel the pains of old age, Mowgli himself is struck by feelings and instincts he never had before his recent coming of age, and seeks to outrun what is in him and what he fears to face alone at a time when solitude is unavoidable for one with nowhere to belong. His titular run once more reunites him with his birth mother (and now, a two-year-old brother), and yet, the poisoned feeling in him remains, and all comes flooding out when his wolf-brother, Kaa, Baloo, and Bagheera tell him it is okay (it's Jungle Law, actually) to let his burdens go and set his own path into the future, so long as he remains focused and ignores temptation (this last is elaborated on in "The Outsong").
The only duty we have to the past is to remember it and give thanks that it shaped us into what we are and gave us the power to choose what we will become. The real poison lies in clinging to twisted, idealized visions of "better times," because as terrifying as potential and possibility can be, steadfastness, growth, and positive change are what make us better as people. Damn. I know it's the energy drink I had so I could re-read these last few stories and get this done on time, but I'm going to cry now.
And I'm going to ask in this new month that you please Stay Tuned and remember to Become A Ticketholder if you haven't already, leave your Song in comments at the bottom of this post and any others you have opinions about, help out my ad revenue as you read (it's the Law Of the Internet), and follow my trail on BlueSky, Tumblr, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, YouTube, and LinkedIn to like what you see and receive the latest news on my content, like tomorrow's compilation of all things Jungle Book.
92
Pagemaster,
Out.
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