Kim
Ilse describes her life as bound up in “The Wheel of Things” in a letter to Emily:
“Exactly one thousand times have I planned to write to you,” wrote Ilse, “but when one is revolving rapidly on the wheel of things there doesn’t seem to be an opportunity for anything one really wants to do. All these months I’ve been so rushed that I’ve felt precisely like a cat just one jump ahead of a dog. If I stopped for a breath it would catch me.
-Emily’s Quest ch.21
Kipling invented the phrase “The Wheel of Things” in his book Kim. Characters are bound up in it, and strive to attain freedom from the wheel. The Wheel of Things is said to have Budhist overtones:
Kipling’s invented phrase encapsulates Buddhism. The daily grind of day to day living. Humanity is sentenced to live and work in this life and in lives to come. Buddhism offers humanity a Way to escape this cycle by spiritual wisdom and renunciation of earthly illusons and attachments. The Wheel, as a symbol of Time, is in fact a Jain concept, but, as an emblem of the Buddha, it is “the Wheel of the Doctrine”
(from http://www.kipling.org.uk/rg_kim_notes1.htm)
Kim
By Rudyard Kipling
This book can be read online at Project Gutenberg
Source
Kipling, Rudyard. Online Internet: http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/2226 “Notes on Kipling’s Kim” Online Internet: http://www.kipling.org.uk/rg_kim_notes1.htm
