Among Kiplingiana available for the 21th Century Kipling fan,. Hopkirk's "Quest for Kim" holds a well conquered place. Written in 1996 after many excellent books on British exploration, adventure and espionage in Asia, this small gem that stands between travelogue, literary commentary and pure act of loving memory toward one's own childhood dreams and expectations has become a classic.
Rudyard Kipling's "formation" novel "Kim" is one of the most loved books of English literature (I personally read it over 10 times) and many of its readers have asked themselves if the plot and characters are true or imaginary. Well, Peter Hopkirk went further and actually explored the possibility that every single aspect of the novel was inspired by real people and happenings.
After a brief introduction that updates on early and modern critical appraisal of RK's novel (colonialism? Racism? Orientalism?) we are introduced to the principal characters and a plot synopsis of the book. Kim would be half RK himself and half a mysterious Anglo-Tibetan "Doola" (from Doolan) a half-caste born from a British soldier that had eloped with a Sikkim girl and had gained some newspaper fame during the period RK was working in Lahore. Teshoo Lama really existed and had visited Kipling's father Lockwood, the Curator of the Lahore Museum, when Kipling was a child. Mahbub Ali as well was a real person, a horse dealer in the Sultan Sarai that used to visit Kipling when in Lahore. The Te-rain still runs today even if interrupted at the Pakistanian-Indian frontier, and the whole line has witnessed atrocious bloodshed during the Separation in 1947. The Colonel's Bungalow in Umballa is almost impossible to trace but some similar still stand in memory of colonial England. Colonel Creighton was definitely inspired by Colonel Thomas Montgomerie of the Survey of India a great spy master whose few selected pundits made the story of the Great Game. Huree Chunder Mookerjee Babu among these was probably a Bengali graduate from the University of Calcutta named Babu Sarot Chandra Das towards whom Kipling had an ambiguous feeling describing him as physically repulsive but extremely intelligent. The real Babu was one of the major experts on Tibet and wrote a Tibetan-English Dictionary. St. Xavier, Kim's school, was modelled on La Martiniere as recognized by many of those that had attended this prestigious institution. Lurgan Sahib, and here comes the surprise, was the mysterious A.M.Jacob, a jewel dealer, occultist and hypnotist of Madame Blavatsky stature and owner of the famous Victoria diamond later known as Jacob's diamond. Jacobs appears also in other Nineteenth Century novels such as "Mr. Isaacs" by F.Marion Crawford and in Newnham Davies' "Jadoo".
Of the Russian and French spies Hopkirk surely identifies the Frenchman as a certain Bovalot that penetrated into India from the North and maybe the Russian as the famous Captain Gromchevsky who went out to meet Younghusband on the Himalaya.
The Great Game was in full progress in the years 1865-1875, when the novel is set and greater information is present in the book. But what captures the reader most is the feeling of living anew Kim's adventure for the second (or the hundredth if you prefer) time in an exponential form.
Truly a great companion book to RY's chef d'oeuvre "Kim".

Peter Hopkirk has written an enthralling, easy to read account of his trip following Kim's travels from Lahore to Delhi, Simla and beyond. Hopkirk displays boundless energy and resourcefulness following leads in his determination to locate residences, shops and schools mentioned in the original book and the reader gets carried along in his efforts. I've purchased another copy of Kim to read again and I'm planning a visit to India to check out some of the locations myself! Nice map and pen and ink sketches.

In this study of Kipling's novel Kim, Peter Hopkirk attempts to follow the story as he travels approximately the same route as Kim does in his adventures. On the way he discusses many of the characters and places, attempting to put them in their real world historical context. So the book is part travel narrative, part literary study and part historical research. This interesting melange is mixed very well.
Hopkirk is writing from an imperialist perspective; that is: the agents of the British empire are the good guys. But as long as you understand where he is coming from, there is nothing to detract the value of this book as a historical study.
It is very readable, and an interesting approach to a great book. But don't read it before reading Kim itself, because this book gives away too much of they story.

That Mr. Hopkirk comes to the study of "Kim" as an historian, and not as an author of literature is immediately apparent to the reader of "Quest for Kim". The prose could hardly be called beautiful, and phrases and large passages are repeated throughout the work. With that fact recognized, Hopkirk's pedestrian prose is certainly sufficient to convey the information he has put together, and even the most ill-formed of his writing cannot cover his deep and passionate love for his subject. And this is what makes "Quest for Kim" such a joy to read, even for one who knows much of what Hopkirk says: his love of the work is contagious and inspiring; it brings pleasure to see how much pleasure he gets from it. Many readers may, as this one was, be uninterested in whether the characters in "Kim" were modelled after real-life contemporaries of Kipling, let alone where these real-life men lived, and yet the sections -- and there are many of them -- seeking out the homes of Colonel Creighton and Lurgan Sahib never fall into dullness because they are buoyed up with their historically interesting descriptions of late 18th-century India and the fun that Hopkirk clearly had looking into the matter.
On finishing "Quest for Kim", one may be left with the feeling that the historical information contained therein could have been greater in both quantity and detail. One will certainly not feel greatly informed on the literary qualities of "Kim", beyond that Hopkirk is extremely impressed by them. "Quest for Kim" is not a great scholarly tome, but it is an enjoyable read, encompassing a light, welcoming introduction to a study of British India and "Kim" itself wrapped in a pleasant narrative of one man's brief travels through Pakistan and India.

While not as scholarly or well written as FOREIGN DEVILS ON THE SILK ROAD, this was an enjoyable book to read. Hopkirk combined a bit of travelogue, detective story and literary criticism in writing this volume.

The essence of this volume is Hopkirk's search in the Northwest Frontier of Pakistan and northern India for Kipling's Kim. While few of the characters in Kim have direct historical parallels, there were models Kipling drew on for many of them. Kim himself was probably based an orphan of mixed parentage; his father was probably a British army soldier and his mother a Tibetan. Colonel Creighton was probably modeled off of Colonel Montgomerie of the Survey of India, while Lurgan
is believed to be modeled off of A. M. Jacob, a notorious jeweler in Simla. St. Xavier's in Lucknow was probably the source for La Martiniére.

Hopkirk does an excellent job in setting Kim into the Great
Game-the Russo-English rivalry over Afghanistan and the Anglo-French rivalry over the India trade. Throughout the book he also discusses whether Kipling was a racist or not. Unlike many critics who would judge Kipling by today's standards, Hopkirk tries to judge him the mores and values of Victorian England.

The title sounds strange and vague but that is what I feel about this novel. It is a slow but an interesting novel if an individual might just have the patience to let the story/plot build up. Its considered to be Kipling's masterpiece and I will vouch for the same opinion. The range of emotions, the characterisation, the development of plot are all technically perfect, but the novel wants genuine feeling. True, that Kipling presents a very correct picture of 'colonial' India, but the picture is presented through a glass tainted with colonialism. Though Kim's love for India is very real and genuine, its imperialistic under tones are difficult to ignore.
All and all I would say it is a masterpiece albeit flawed

If you've ever wished that you could actually visit Kipling's India, this book is for you. You will not be able to put it down...The author's detective work is intriguing and quite a feat. I loved this book!