It took me a while to realize that Kipling was using an Olde Englishe structure to represent conversations in other languages. Once I caught on, and once the story got going, I found the whole book really fun. Though there were a number of times where I lost the thread of what was happening, I just passed over it, deciding that it was a 'period/culture' thing that I wasn't going to get, at least, not without researching it.

I loved how he represented all the different cultures, and appreciated the way he interwove the Great Game with the lama's spiritual quest. Almost as if the two were a purposeful contrast. It's amazing to think of how many of the ideas that he presented were new and strange to his readers, and we now (though the words are a little different) can find them around us in any community in the US.

I really appreciated that, in the end, it was a little story of regular people. Nothing epic. I went into the book knowing nothing about it, other than memories of reading "Riki Tiki Tavey" as a kid, and seeing "The Jungle Book" (the original animated movie). So I had some concerns when the Great Game wove its way into the story, that it would take a turn away from the lama into wars. I was glad it didn't. It actually left me feeling like I had meditated.

I kept finding myself 'watching' the book, now and then imagining it as a movie, with the characters speaking Urdu with subtitles. It's a movie that I'd love to see. But there's probably not enough action for Hollywood to do it without mucking with it.

One thing that I do wonder. The particular edition that I got had a forward by some scholar. Which had spoilers. So I stopped reading it, read the book, then went back and read the forward. Seems to me that, with classic books, it's much more helpful to put a forward at the back. I guess the publishers assume that these books are being reread, rather than read for the first time.