The Man Who Would Be King (Illustrated)

Very interesting read, especially in the context of todays relations with Afghanistan. Macintyre always keeps your interest. He makes it compellingly easy to turn the next page. I enjoyed it, maybe you will too.

Nota Bene: Once purchased, my Kindle download page contained this note near the download button: "This title has complex layouts and has been optimized for reading on Kindle DX's larger screen, but can still be viewed on other Kindle devices." This message disappeared after a few minutes.

Regardless, the formatting on my Kindle 2 looks a tad better than usual. I use the smallest font available. There is no Table of Contents and no jogability.

This book was required reading in my college lit course. I've always enjoyed books about far away places. It should have been required reading in some people's poli-sci grad courses but let's not go there.

This is a great story, I highly recommend it. However, this recording is a digital voice reading it, so it completely takes away from the story. I love audiobooks, but this one was unlistenable. It was like having bonzibuddy read hamlet.

The stories run together, For example, "The Man who would be king" starts half way down page 50. The paragraph structure is lacking. It is hard to tell who is the speaker. A character's conversation could be spread over two paragraphs.

Josiah Harlan's improbable life's journey--from Pennsylvania Quaker to Afghani military leader and prince to American Civil War colonel--makes for compelling reading as crafted by Ben Macintyre in The Man Who Would Be King: The First American in Afghanistan. Harlan was likely the model for Daniel Dravot and in Rudyard Kipling's short story of the same name, which was made into a marvelous film by John Huston in 1975, with Sean Connery as Dravot and Michael Caine as his sidekick Peachy Carnehan.

But it also serves as an indictment of British colonialism and a cautionary tale for Western nations trying to deal with Afghanistan and its tribal currents. However, Harlan's story is so fantastic it would never have worked as novel--not believable. Kipling's short story "The Man Who Would Be King" seems more of a tall tale than realistic fiction.

A merchant seaman jilted by his fiancé in 1822, he vows never to return to the United States. Harlan jumps ship in Calcutta and passes himself off as a doctor to British rulers there. Over the next decades he ingratiates himself with Indian and Afghani royalty, leads armies, invades distant lands, becomes fluent in various local dialects, is thoroughly seduced by Afghan culture, and ultimately reigns as a prince of an Afghan land in the Hindu Kush. Along the way he studies the flora and fauna with scholarly interest and thoroughly enjoys himself despite brushes with death, disease and duplicitous potentates.

The book as constituted was made possible by Macintyre's 2001 discovery, in a tiny museum in Chester County, Pennsylvania, of Harlan's missing handwritten autobiography, unread since his death in San Francisco in 1871. The result is a great, page-turning adventure by a renowned British journalist.

This anthology of short stories gives an excellent picture of the works of a Member of the British Empire. Rudyard Kipling had a partisan view on the British colonial enterprise which was based on a well-organized army machine. But, as George Orwell said: he didn't understand that `an empire is primarily a money-making concern'.

Army and war
Those who fight under the British flag are mightily admired and incensed for their courage and self-sacrifice, but woe for those who seek their own kingdom.
In `The Drums of Fore and Aft' two orphans of fourteen years of age (!), who serve as Regiment drummers, are highly praised for offering their lives in a skirmish with Afghan rebels.
In `Only a Subaltern', a new recruit is himself attacked by fever after having physically and morally supported a soldier friend.
But, in `The Man Who Would be King', two solitary fortune seekers fall shamelessly from their throne.

Religion
In the heartrending masterpiece of this collection, `Baa Baa Black Sheep', R. Kipling lambastes the ravages of religion: `the Fear of the Lord was so often the beginning of falsehood ... for when young lips have drunk deep of the bitter waters of Hate, Suspicion and Despair, all the Love in the world will not wholly take away that knowledge.'

Colonial life
In `The Education of Otis Yeere', two would-be prick teasers warm the heart of a bachelor, only to be mightily offended when he tries to give one of them a kiss.
`At the Pit's Month' and `A Wayward Comedy' are variations on the theme of `a Man and his Wife and a Tertium Quid'. Only, the friendship among men stays above the shame of cuckolding.
`Wee Willie Winkie' praises the courage of a young boy.
`A Second Rate Woman' attacks people's prejudice. An allegedly `tainted' lady saves the day when the foul speakers `collapse in an hour of need'.
In `His Majesty the King', a child King is too young to moralize on the deceitfulness of this world and the uncertainty of human things.

Ghost stories
The nightmarish `The Strange Ride of Morrowbie Jukes' and `The Phantom `Rickshaw' are two excellent ghost stories.

A very worth-while read.

So a young American from Pennsylvania goes to sea then finds that his beloved jilts him and married another. His remedy for his broken heart? Go to sea and find some adventure!

The other reviewers have hit the high points of the book well enough, with the usual misreadings, especially when they try to spin some sort of contemporary political message from it. If I did that, I'm certain I'd be accused of the same critical misfeasance also.

One can read the book with profit at two or three levels. First, it is a great supplement to the dry history of Afghanistan as presented in Martin Ewans' "Afghanistan: a Short History" which I had read immediately before. Based on recorded impressions and actions of a true historical figure, MacIntyre captures the human side of politics and cultural clashes of the times.

Second, it captures ground level detail of the British Raj and its Great Game with the Russians.

Lastly, and my favorite, it is a red blooded adventure story of a real man living a full and exciting life. I intend to give a copy to my 14 year old grandson in hopes that it will inspire him to his own adventures. It shows what can be done by a man with gumption, brains, and courage. Unlike fiction, no "suspension of disbelief" required here - his adventures and experiences are creditable and realistic.

As a Californian, I especially like the little tidbits of Harlan's latter life in the US. I had recently visited Fort Tejon on I-5 at the north end of the Grapevine. The museum there had mentioned the camel experiment that Harlan was responsible for selling to then Secretary of War Jefferson Davis. Harlan was also one of the first transcontinental passengers on the new railroad. I also intend to visit his final home at 1091 Market Street, San Francisco, where he died.

I raced through this book and thoroughly enjoyed it all. Give a copy to a young person that you know.

"The Man Who Would Be King" has not unreasonably been used to title many a compendium of Kipling's short stories, since it not only ranks as one of his best, but is also so well known because of the John Huston movie marvellously interpreted by Michael Caine, Sean Connery and Christopher Plummer.

The short novel first appeared in the "Phantom Rickshaw" in 1888 but was again collected in "Wee Willie Winkie and other stories" in 1895. Kipling for this work was inspired by the travels of Josiah Harlan, an American adventurer who claimed the title of Prince of Ghor in 1840 thanks to the military force he lead into Afghanistan (Read the instructive "The Man Who Would Be King: The First American in Afghanistan" by Ben McIntyre).

The story is built with a technique often utilized by Kipling of the picture and frame and is in itself a parable with many possible interpretations, as parables often are. A journalist of a local Indian paper meats a loafer on a train. The man, an ex-military asks him to contact a friend of his in a later date to tell him that he can't meet him presently. After a short time the two friends visit the journalist and tell him they intend to conquer an empire for themselves. Again after two years only one gets back and narrates the adventures the two have been through, that have ended with the death of one of them.

The frame of the story is Kipling's present day India with an established administrative empire and the journalist is evidently Kipling, the picture is Dravot and Carnehan's adventure in Kafiristan, the remote Afghan province they conquer for a brief period. The picture represents the early ages of the making of the British Empire that had relied on adventurers, dreamers and military men possessing superior technologies (arms) compared to the natives. The most evident moral of the parable is that once the English neglect their moral duty towards the native populations there is no sense in the permanence of the Empire and it is destined to fail, but many others can be hypothesized. Many critics have identified this story as a form of disillusionment of Kipling with the society he was living in at that time, while instead in his later life he was known to sustain British Imperialism.

One aspect that often goes unnoticed in this short story is the importance Kipling (a mason himself) gives to the underground tentacles of the secret Masonic network that consented the British influence in India and in European politics. If you happen to watch the John Huston film this is made very clear.

The novella is full of allusions, recalls, citations of different realities and it would take to long to analyse it in depth even though this effort will surely reward the reader. The "Man Who Would Be King" remains one of the milestones of the collective imaginary of our modern world where colonisation is far from forgotten.

Macintyre's telling of Josiah Harlan's adventures in Pakistan and Afganistan makes for a wonderful read. Harlan's exotic and quixotic life are facinating and by relying on the subject's own colorful descriptions of his journey's (the only real record available) and by providing only necessary commentary, the reader gets a much better sense of what Harlan was like.
Harlan is not a particularly honorable character - he switched allegiences as suited his personal ambitions - but, he had a real sense of morality as regards the treatment of women, slavery etc. Harlan did not have a "white man's burden" view of the Afgan people; he respected their culture and many of their individual leaders as great intellects and rulers. His great ambition to establish himself as a ruler in Afganistan led to fantastic adventures that have no modern equivalent. A combination of guile, energy, and bravado helped him raise armies, engage with kings and princes, and affect the political landscape of part of the world previously untrammelled by Western Nations.
The history of the British intrusion into the area as well as the long standing local regional, tribal and family factions should not be forgotten by modern leaders looking to affect politics there. Harlan excortiates the British for trying to impose their will on Afganistan instead of building a form of government that includes the many competing factions. The British lost their hold on Kabul in a tragically bloody manner because they did not bother to understand the political and cultural dynamics of the region.
Mcintyre thankfully limits his views on the lessons of history in a reasonable and brief postscript to the biography. The story of Harlan is instructive without senseless commentary, and through restraint, the messages become clear.

I loved the Michael Caine and Sean Connery movie, The Man Who Would Be King, which came out when I was in high school. The John Huston film was nominated for four Academy Awards. Christopher Plummer played the role of a young journalist by the name of Rudyard Kipling - and the film was based on the Kipling's short story by the same name.

But who knew that Kipling's literary bon mot was inspired by a true story - and that truth truly is stranger than fiction?

In 1989, Ben Macintyre was sent to Afghanistan to cover the final stages of the 10 year war between the Soviets and the CIA-backed Mujahideen guerrillas. While there he read Kipling's tale of Daniel Dravot (written in 1888 but looking back to the middle of the Victorian Age, the 1820s and 30s), who made it to the heart of Afghanistan disguised as a Muslim holy man to become king of a fierce tribal empire. It was several years later, while combing through stacks of books in the British Library that Macintyre first discovered the name of a man who "reputedly inspired Rudyard Kipling's story, 'The Man Who Would Be King.'"

So began Macintyre's search for an elusive footnote in history - all his papers were assumed to have been destroyed in a house fire in 1929 - that culminated in The Man Who Would Be King, a fascinating slice of history that is relevant to today's most pressing geopolitical hotspot. Following clues that led him from Britain's war archives to the Punjab, San Francisco, and Pennsylvania, Macintyre was finally able to find a box hidden away in the basement of the archives in a tiny U.S. museum of this mysterious man's birthplace. At the bottom of the box was a "document, written in Persian and stamped with an intricately beautiful oval seal: a treaty, 170 years old, forged between an Afghan prince and the man who would be king."

The first American in Afghanistan had many titles: Prince of Ghor, Paramount Chief of the Hazarajat, Lord of Kurram, personal surgeon to Maharaja Ranjit Singh of the Five Rivers, King of Afghanistan ... and many others. His highness Halan Sahib - who in 1839, enthroned on a bull elephant, raised his standard and made claim to the Hindu Kush - was known back home in Chester County, Pennsylvania, as Josiah Harlan. The man who followed Alexander the Great's winding mountain path 21 centuries later and led an army made up of Afghan Pathans, Persian Qizilibash, Hindus, Uzbeks, Tajiks, and Hazaras who were descendents of the Mongolian Hordes, a pacifist Quaker of Chester County, Pennsylvania.

If you like history, biographies, and tales that seem too fanciful to be true, you'll love The Man Would Be King.

(The Audible Edition) The audio version is 25 minutes long. The MUSIC in the first half of the audio drowns out Kipling's story. It's as if the narrator was standing directly in front of an orchestra. Fortunately, the music's absent entirely in the second half. [ A relatively rare example of someone somewhere not giving a d%mn about the audio edition at all.]

Kipling's story, however, what you can hear of it, is excellent. The two British adventurers in Afghanistan have a tale worth listening to.

If you can hear it.

A lovelorn Quaker from Pennsylvania would seem an improbable player in the treacherous game of Afghan politics. Yet for more than a decade, beginning in 1826, Josiah Harlan would figure large in the intrigue swirling in and about that remote country. As he has done in several previous biographies, Macintyre has retrieved an all-but-forgotten character from the past, placing his biography in its fascinating historical context
If Harlan's decision to seek his fortune in Asia was prompted in part by his American fiancee's decision to marry another, his obsession with Alexander the Great's record of conquest was the positive impulse. As he traveled the Asian landscape, Harlan was continuously reminded of the Macedonian ruler's impact upon civilization there. Indeed, Macintyre contends that he imagined his role to be that of a latter day Alexander.
At the same time, Harlan remained a product of his American Quaker upbring. As the author puts it: "Harlan had always had two sides to his thinking: the Jeffersonian republican and the would-be monarch, the crusader for Western civilization who yet admired and adopted the native ways." (257) This explains why he was often at odds with the British colonialists of India, who constantly sought to extend their influence and control into Afghanistan by harsh means. At the same time, he himself was a stern taskmaster, eager to impose his own brand of Western practices.
His greatest achievement was, after several periods of service under native rulers, to persuade a northern Afghan chieftain, Mohammed Reffee Beg, to cede the powers of government to him in perpetuity, in return for which Harlan was to guarantee the recruitment and maintenance of the kingdom's military. A remarkable testament to his demonstrated organizational skills, his new status never translated into actual rule. Within a year the British would install their own choice on the throne in Kabul, and Harlan strongly encouraged to quit the country as a possible threat to their plans.
It is remarkable that in the maelstrom of duplicity and regicide that passed for politics in Afghanistan, this young American outside was able to gain the temporary confidence of so many. His manner could be dangerously imperious in situations where obsequiousness was the norm yet Harlan succeeded as did few other foreigners. Macintyre does not offer any direct explanation for that success but it seems clear that Harlan's ability to assimilate and his language fluency were important attributes of his character.
In an epilogue dated Kabul, September 2002, Macintyre visits the capital and describes the ruins of the palace where Harlan had resided for two years. He admits that "kings and would-be kings, foreign and home-produced, had never lasted long." (287) The dismal record of Afghan rule might appear at an end with the defeat of the Taliban. Yet despite that ray of optimism, the body of this biography, describing the capricious rule by local warlords which has long plagued Afghanistan, would seem to suggest otherwise.

Whatever else we must blame them for, Al Queda and the Taliban can be thanked for bringing back to our memories a forgotten American, the first American who was ever in Afghanistan. Josiah Harlan, born in 1799, was barely remembered as a footnote from the First Afghan War, and understandably was snubbed by the British historians of that conflict. Reporter Ben Macintyre, researching the history of the area in order to cover its current events, found references to Harlan and became intrigued. He hunted for Harlan clues in Afghanistan itself, and was led to a tiny local museum in Chester County, Pennsylvania. He came upon what other biographers can only dream of getting: a previously unknown autobiography handwritten by the subject. There was also an ancient proclamation making Harlan absolute ruler of a principality in Afghanistan. Indeed, Harlan inspired a Kipling story, which in turn brought the wonderful John Huston film, and which has now given Macintyre's book its title: _The Man Who Would Be King: The First American in Afghanistan_ (Farrar, Straus, and Giroux). His life is as surprising and exciting as the fictions it inspired.
Harlan first sailed to Calcutta and Canton in a commercial venture in 1820. On a subsequent voyage, while he was in Calcutta, he learned that his fiancée back home in Philadelphia had married another. Emotionally adrift, hearing that the British were about to go to war against Burma, he signed on as a surgeon to the East India Company. Macintyre writes, "That he had never actually studied medicine was not, at least in his own mind, an impediment." His service over, he signed on with an exiled king to lead an army to reclaim Afghanistan, but he had plenty of intrigues and shifts of alliances before that could happen. Eventually he would meet up with the Hazara tribe, which in turn wanted him to create their own invincible military. Of course, he had a price; the prince "transferred his principality to me in feudal service, binding himself and his tribe to pay tribute forever." Harlan had indeed become a king. He also imagined himself a sort of reincarnated Alexander the Conqueror, following Alexander's trails. He even took on his conquests an elephant, the symbol and mascot of the Macedonian conqueror, but it could eventually take no more of the mountain cold. Harlan took comfort in that having to send back the elephant, he was once again emulating Alexander, who had had to leave his own elephant troops behind for the same reason.
Harlan's enterprising assumption of command and kingdom was only put to an end by the Great Game between Britain and Russia in their struggle over the area. He tried to play along, with the plots and shifting alliances that he used for all his fifteen years in the region, but eventually the British booted him out, or in his version, he was disgusted by how the British treated the Afghan natives and sent himself home. He remained active, and was on hand to advise the American government in 1854 about the feasibility of the introduction of camels into the west. Harlan admired the beasts, and it is safe to say that no American knew more about them, but he did not take into account that American horses, not raised with camels, would be unmanageable around them and that cattle would stampede when they saw them. He also tried to become the government advisor on the introduction of Afghan grapes into America; he adored the produce of the region, but any plans of return to the area for agricultural efforts were cut short by the Civil War. Always horrified by slavery, he raised a Union regiment, but he was used to dealing with military underlings in the way an oriental prince would. This led to a messy court-martial, but the aging Harlan ended his service due to medical problems. He wound up in San Francisco, working as a doctor, dying of tuberculosis in 1871. He was essentially forgotten. His rediscovery, in this fast-moving and entertaining biography, is now especially welcome as a timely illumination into the beginnings of dealings between the mysterious Afghanistan and the U.S.

This is an excellent, well-written book that revives the history of Josiah Harlan, the first American to visit Afghanistan. He's been overlooked by most writers covering that area and that period, so this book is long overdue. I have read several books that retells the history of the British invasion of Afghanistan, and its bloody aftermath, but not one of them mentioned Harlan. This is a great hole in that area's history, and I am very happy that Mr. Harlan has now gotten the recognition he so richly deserves, for he accomplished many things which were not done by other Westerners with greater historical reputations. This is a book well worth buying and reading!

A fascinating read in every respect. Macintyre is a fluid writer and the book is a real page turner. Apart from vivid details of the remarkable adventures of the first American in Afghanistan; the intrigues, machinations and sheer depravity of virtually all the players in the great game are in plain sight. The book also provides rare insights - via Josiah Harlan's prism - of British mendacity, misrule and astounding arrogance. Harlan's account of British shenanigans may have a tinge of exaggeration owing to his eventual deep hatred of the Empire and many of its emissaries but the substance of Harlan's writings can be corroborrated in other accounts such as the Great Hedge of India by Roy Moxham (another British author) and in more substantive form with relevant data in Angus Maddison's The World Economy. Macintyre deserves considerable praise for presenting the unvarnished truth, albeit through Harlan's pen, about the largely negative legacy of the British Empire. It is a shame that Harlan's story, despite this wonderful book, remains largely unknown both in the US and the East.

The adventure of Josiah Harlan is an incredible story of "The Man Who Would Be King." Unfortunately, Harlan's story never made it into American history books. Yes, there is merit in some of the negative comments made in the reviews. However, for me, this was a fabulous read and I was captivated by the story. I read the book entirely on my lunch hours; one, two or three chapters at a time. It is too bad that his journals had not been preserved; we might have had a better view on his adventures in Europe and Russia.

Most people who pick up this book will already have read some of the travelogues of the "mad dogs and Englishmen" who wandered through Central Asia in the 19th and early 20th century: Burnaby and Nazaroff's memoirs, as well as any of Peter Hopkirk's books on the era.

But here we have a real fish out of water story, and a fascinating one at that: an American Quaker leading, or joining, armies through Afghanistan and elsewhere in the name of, variously: the sitting ruler of Afghanistan, the deposed predecessor, his Sikh neighbor, the British Empire, and arguably himself as "Prince of Ghor."

The tale is fascinating because it's so poorly-known, despite the fact that Kipling's fiction, which I understand to be inspired by Harlan and other adventurers of the time, is so well-known.

Undoubtedly, Harlan's own financial misfortune and quiet death contributed to the obscurity of the narrative, but Macintyre does a great job of weaving the scraps together, and keeping the story's pace. An interesting read, and a bit of history which has earned its place in Central Asian lore.

Grizzled and laconic, two British army deserters pause in their amble through the Khyber Pass. With Afghanistan at their feet, they swear off liquor and women until they have conquered its abundant tribes, bandits, and holy men. For many Americans, this scene from John Huston's epic adventure sprang to mind as US Special Forces rode horse-back into battle against al-Qaeda and the Taliban after 9.11.

What wouldn't have sprung so easily to mind, except for a few Central Asia experts and historians of the Great Game, was the realization that our Afghan campaign is not the first time Americans have intervened in local intrigues there. British journalist, Ben Macintyre, reminds his readers that Josiah Harlan Harlan, a Pennsylvania Quaker, was the first American to make his way to Kabul in 1838. Disguised as a Sufi mystic, Harlan styled himself as a 19th Century Alexander the Great. Within a year, he was commanding the armies of Dost Muhammad Khan, the mighty emir of Kabul.

For his successful campaign against northern slave-traders, the grateful emir proclaimed Harlan, Prince of Ghor, Lord of the Hazarahs. His fame, however, was short-lived. The British invaded Afghanistan in 1839 and greatly annoyed with the free-booting American expelled Harlan. Two years later, the emir's guerrilla forces massacred 15,000 British troops forcing the British to quit Afghanistan.

Returning to America, Harlan published a scathing critique British hubris. Although never widely read outside America, Macintyre suspects that Rudyard Kipling was familiar with the general outline of Harlan's Afghan adventures. In 1897, he published the short story that would later inspire John Huston. Unlike his later works, his tale of Daniel Dravot and Peachy Carnehan does not celebrate Britain's civilizing mission in Central Asia. Rather, it frankly warns that the White Man's Burden in Afghanistan would prove too heavy for the over-reaching British.

Today, the US bears the burden of nation-building in Afghanistan. As it stumbles along, with the added weight of Iraq, US policy-makers would do well to consider both the illusions of Josiah Harlan and the sober warning of Rudyard Kipling.

Story? or motion picture? Kipling's novella has always been a favorite; background, character, plot...the whole "schmear". When the movie was made, whether at the instigation of Connery and Caine or from some other source, wheels were set in motion to do a really good job of transposing the book to the screen. The casting alone was about perfect and Messrs Connery and Caine truly entered into the spirit of the thing.
Very enjoyable, very well-crafted...Kudos to Kipling, Connery, Caine and whoever else (including Said Jaffrey) who was involved.
Book or movie: great.

This is a review for the Melville House edition which is a part of a series of Novellas. Don't be influenced by the movie, which is great, for the book is different on many points. The story reads quickly (around 70 pages) and is fun in and of itself. You get a feel for what it may have been like should you have travelled over the Hindu Kush into remote parts of Afghanistan back in the day of the Engllish Empir

This is an excellent story!

RECEIVED FREE COPY FROM LIBRARY

Truth is stranger than fiction. The author retells the life of the first known American in Afghanistan in the 1830s. His exploits were so unbelievable and audacious that Kipling split him into two characters for his fictional treatment.

Two cheeky Victorian cockneys - Peachy Carnahan and Dan Dravot - head into the mountains of Afghanistan in the late nineteenth century to carve out a kingdom for themselves. Had me gripped. An unforgettable adventure story, with a great twist.

If you enjoy history, especially military history, then you will enjoy this book. Written in much the same style as Byron Falwell's "Armies of the Raj," this amazingly true yarn about a Quaker who becomes, if not a king, the Prince of Ghor will keep you wondering just what is going to happen next. I absolutely enjoyed the book. My only negative comment is that the later years of his life are glossed over rather quickly, but, that is understandable since the last years were no where near as exciting as the first 40. I would recommend this book to anyone who enjoys history or biographies. Enjoy.

Kipling's critics have long been regarded him as the "bard of imperialism," but the title is telling of his work. In many of his stories he has promoted the virtues of the Queen's empire and created marvelous tales about the adventures of explorers. However, in The Man Who Would be King, Kipling complicates his popular themes by implying a distinction between the cavalier, enterprising upstarts of early empire and the more entrenched, administrative empire that he personally knew.

The Man Who Would be King intersects the lives of the narrator (a stand-in for Kipling himself), the responsible and respectable journalist, with Daniel Dravot and Peachey Carnehan, two adventurous misfits. Through the narrator, Kipling expresses nostalgia toward the earlier days of the empire, represented by Dravot and Carnehan. However, this fondness is tempered by the view that the attitude of the early entrepreneur-imperialists was naïve to the realities and responsibilities of administering an empire, embodied in the narrator. This distinction is seen in the cautionary attitude that Kipling takes toward Dravot and Carnehan during their first encounters, the rapt attention that the narrator pays to Carnehan's recounting of his adventure, and the ultimately tragic ends which both Dravot and Carnehan meet.

Dravot and Carnehan are caricatures, to be sure, of the enterprising spirit that so many British in India came armed with, each in search of their personal fortune and adventure. In his first meeting with the narrator, Carnehan declares, "If India was filled with men like you and me, not knowing more than the crows where they'd get their next day's rations, it isn't seventy millions of revenue the land would be paying-it's seven hundred millions." Of course, this is a persuasive technique that Carnehan uses to build camaraderie with the narrator, and it appears to be somewhat successful. The narrator seems enchanted with the attitude of his companion, prefacing their encounter with "he was a wanderer and a vagabond like myself." Of course, we know that the narrator is a newspaperman who spends long nights laying type for the morning paper, not vagabonding around, however he inserts this to demonstrate a connection with this wanderer.

Following this encounter, the narrator is approached at his office by the two who hope to gain basic information to allow them to go "away to be Kings." However, the narrator is instantly concerned that they are hatching a foolish plan and exclaims, "You'll be cut to pieces before you're fifty miles across the border," and "You two are fools...You'll be turned back at the Frontier or cut up the minute you set foot in Afghanistan." He is unable to dissuade them from their journey and the next day sees them off at the local bazaar, still expressing concern: "`Have you got everything you want,' I asked, overcome with astonishment." He hears little else of the duo for the next three years, and assumes them to be lost causes in their journey.

Unexpectedly, though, the unrecognizably disfigured Carnehan interrupts and recounts his story for the rapt narrator at his desk one night three years later. Perhaps partly because of his disbelief and partly due to his fascination with adventure, the narrator listens, attentive to the final detail, to the tragic tale of Peachey and Dravot. At the end, Carnehan produced from his bag "the dried, withered head of Daniel Dravot!" and then "shambled out of the office." The narrator finds the tattered figure on the street, and shows his loyalty to his fallen brother by driving "him to the nearest missionary for eventual transfer to the Asylum."

The ending of the story is particularly filled with allusions to Kipling's feelings on the matter of the British Empire. The adventurous Dravot and Carnehan represented an anachronistic attitude of the Empire that, fortunately or unfortunately, did not belong in the Empire of Kipling's day. They attempted their adventure, and though they were successful for a short time, they ultimately failed in their endeavors. The narrator, as the modernized colonizer, knew that tragedy was their fate and saw it as his duty to warn his brothers, and in the end care for them. This interpretation does allow for the sympathy that the narrator demonstrates when meeting with Carnehan on the train and when absorbing the details of their journey.

A slightly different analysis of Kipling's attitude suggests that Kipling has become disillusioned with the Empire as a whole. This puts Dravot and Carnehan as the embodiment of all colonizers, not simply earlier ones, and the narrator as a wizened British subject who has learned from the mistakes of his past. He cautions and cares for his misguided brethren, and knows that they will meet tragic fates, but he is still captured by the nostalgia of past days of enterprise and adventure. He longs for those days, but has the benefit of hindsight to know the sad outcome of adventurous hubris. In this interpretation, the crowned head of Dravot represents the caution to the current crown of the fate they may face if they do not reverse their imperial ambitions.

In either analysis, Kipling's adventure tale appears to be a sober warning to any "would-be" kings, be they British or otherwise. Ironically, this tale may be rather timely to Americans in light of the current military involvements in Afghanistan and Iraq. Kipling would likely, though sadly, be vindicated in the fact that history does repeat itself.

While they are quite enjoyable, most of the stories in this collection pale when compared to the author's later works, such as the Jungle Books and Just So Stories. There are definite traces of his trademark wit, but only "The Man Who Would Be King" stands comparison to his more well known pieces. It's an excellent story, and as I was reading it, I couldn't help but think it was the spiritual cousin to Twain's A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court. If you enjoyed one, you'll enjoy the other, as both share the theme of regular men reaping the consequences of forcing civilization on people. A good black comedy.

What a great short story. Greed, guts and struggles for glory. If you haven't read this story but have only seen the movie, you are missing out. True, you can't see Sean Connery but you easily get the flavor of the period. And it is free! This is a great short story to read on your Kindle Iphone app.

Buy a short story book. Very silly to publish such a short story in a single book. My son got it to qualify it as a book for school reading. It is of course a fabulous story but I bet one can find a similar priced Kipling book with many stories for the same price.