Kim cover art

Kim

Preview

Kim

By: Rudyard Kipling
Narrated by: Sam Dastor
Listen for free

Summary

Exclusively from Audible

Kipling's masterpiece Kim is his final and most famous work and one of the first and greatest espionage stories ever written. It explores the life of Kimball O'Hara, an Irish orphan who spends his childhood as a vagrant in Lahore. When he befriends an aged Tibetan lama his life is transformed as he is requested to accompany him on a mysterious quest to find the legendary River of the Arrow and achieve Enlightenment. The pilgrimage will take them across the vast continent, across rivers, and up the Himalayas.

While Kim wishes to take part in the imperialistic Great Game, learning espionage from the British secret service, he feels spiritually bound to the lama. Kim has a difficult choice to make: his companion or his country?

A rich and colourful depiction of India's exotic landscape and culture in the imperialistic world of the late 19th century, this audiobook celebrates their friendship and explores a young man's quest for identity.

Rudyard Kipling was an English journalist, short-story writer, poet, and novelist who was the first English language author to win the Nobel Prize in Literature. Some of his most memorable works include The Jungle Book and Just So Stories.

In 1998 Kim was ranked at Number 78 on the Modern Library's list of the 100 best English-language novels of the 20th century. In 2003 it was listed on the BBC's The Big Read poll of the UK's 'best-loved novel'.

Narrator Biography

A Cambridge graduate who trained at RADA under the direction of Sir Laurence Olivier, Sam Dastor has long featured on screen and stage. He is best known for The Life and Death of Peter Sellers (2004) and for twice portraying Gandhi in both Lord Mountbatten: The Last Viceroy (1986), and Jinnah (1998).Sam Dastor has starred in many West End productions with roles such as Ariel in The Tempest, and Orlando in As You Like It. His most recent work has included starring on stage at the Wolsey Theatre in A Midsummer Night’s Dream (2016). He has narrated a large catalogue of audiobooks including V.S. Naipaul’s A House for Mr Biswas.

Public Domain (P)2014 Audible, Inc.
Classics Heartfelt Thought-Provoking Espionage
adbl_web_anon_alc_button_suppression_c
All stars
Most relevant
Such a great pleasure, a classic novel of course but what is better than a reader you feel is thoroughly enjoying himself? The reader keeps his tone fairly flat in the narration, but this is only to prepare a canvas for his cast of characters, each of whom gets a vividly individual voice. I have no idea if they are accurate accents, they're rather music-hall versions maybe but they work extremely well with Kipling. You can anticipate his delight when he gets to do a conversation between a Frenchman and a Russian. A great version.

Splendid

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

The reading is a tour de force, with Hindi words glossed in passing, and sustained plausible voices. I read Kim over 50 years ago, and returned to it with an adult’s critical and cultural apparatus. I was not disappointed.

Classic read as a child and heard afresh

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

A gentle, spiritual and subtly funny love letter to India, performed with vast skill and restraint.

Mesmerising performance

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

Bought as a special offer, I was a bit wary that it would be imperialistic and racist by today’s values. It was not. At least not to my mind. The language & vernaculars & characters & the different religions were absolutely wonderful. The narrator’s different voices & accents excellent. Reminded me well of my own long ago travels in India. Thoroughly enjoyable.

I would give 6 stars if I could

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

Sympathetically told with excellent accents this well loved classic is brought to life by an knowledgeable, Kipling-savvy reader. I listened compulsively and with great delight.

Marvlous old tale

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

See more reviews