There’s more to see the more you look at it: notice how Zam-Zammah is placed to make a drum sound, how the sentence slows and broadens out as Kim’s head turns, how the “rude remark” arrives in a flurry of plosives – how that gives way to gentle assonance as we gaze over the rows of shoes. Nevertheless, the craftsmanship is there. One of Kipling’s achievements in Kim is to make everything subordinate to the story – nothing gets in the way of the view of the world he is creating. That’s a sentence chosen almost at random, also from near the start of the book. As he drummed his heels against Zam-Zammah he turned now and again from his king-of-the-castle game with little Chota Lal and Abdullah the sweetmeat seller’s on to make a rude remark to a native policeman on guard over rows of shoes at the museum door.”
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