Managed to overcome my laziness to get started again on the Kipling short story collection which was occupying me prior to the fasting month. Read two tales over the weekend: His Gift and The Wish House. The first of these seems best classified as one of the stories designed for children, originally appearing in Land and Sea Tales for Scouts and Guides. Slight but entertaining, with a wryly sarcastic humour regarding the derring-do of the Scouts movement. I'm not sure Baden Powell would have approved of the thoroughly lazy and unprepossessing protagonist, one William Glasse Sawyer. I was reminded of the toughness of the Stalky stories in some ways.
In contrast, The Wish House, once I managed to cope with the demands of the Sussex dialect in which the story is largely rendered, proved to be one of RK's finest. For a writer who's supposed to be limited in his portrayal of women, he trawls extraordinary depths here. The two old ladies whom we are privileged to overhear are stunning in their particularity. If this isn't great writing I don't know what is.
And what great range RK has. You never quite know what to expect from him - apart from an effortless mastery of style no matter what he turns his hand to.
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