They

Written by Rudyard Kipling

Narrated by Cathy Dobson

"I found hidden villages where bees, the only things awake, boomed in eighty-foot lindens that overhung grey Norman churches; miraculous brooks diving under stone bridges built for heavier traffic than would ever vex them again; tithe-barns larger than their churches, and an old smithy that cried out aloud how it had once been a hall of the Knights of the Temple. Gypsies I found on a common where ...the gorse, bracken, and heath fought it out together up a mile of Roman road; and a little further on I disturbed a red fox rolling dog-fashion in the naked sunlight." "They" is one of the spookiest and most moving short stories ever written.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Red Door Consulting
• Release date: Jan 8, 2013
• ISBN: 9781467668606

Rudyard Kipling

Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936) was an English author and poet who began writing in India and shortly found his work celebrated in England. An extravagantly popular, but critically polarizing, figure even in his own lifetime, the author wrote several books for adults and children that have become classics, Kim, The Jungle Book, Just So Stories, Captains Courageous and others. Although taken to task by some critics for his frequently imperialistic stance, the author’s best work rises above his era’s politics. Kipling refused offers of both knighthood and the position of Poet Laureate, but was the first English author to receive the Nobel prize.

Reviews for They

[altheaann · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Of course I had 'The Jungle Book' and 'Rikki Tikki Tavi' as a child, but I'd never read this Kipling tale before. It unfolds as a man, driving aimlessly in his motorcar, comes across an estate tenanted by a lonely blind woman... and, it seems, several children, who are strangely elusive. The setting is vivid and lush, the language evocative - it's more of a musing of life and loss than the ghost story it might seem to be. However, the ending is peculiar and rather unsatisfying - I'm not sure what to make of it.

What I didn't understand, in the context of the text, is why the narrator feels, suddenly, that he must never return. One analyst explained it so: "Even if the dead is very young and much beloved, one must turn one’s back on that road and return to the living world to which one belongs." Having learned that Kipling wrote this after the death of his young daughter, it makes sense in that he's trying to convince himself to move on - I guess it also makes sense that as a reader, I didn't find the effort fully compelling.

(re-read 11/9/15)