Kipling

Summary

Dominique Pagani returns mainly to The Jungle Book, from which he retains one scene: Bagheera, and in one account Baloo, look away when Mowgli looks at them. He sees in it the idea that the animal cannot bear the gaze of man and flees human disquiet1, a theme he takes up again in connection with birth and the massacre of the Innocents2. He nonetheless marks a limit: real feral children do not resemble Kipling's Mowgli3. In the Just So Stories, he singles out the tale of the butterfly that stamped, from which he draws the idea that the weaker one is, the more one ascribes magical power to oneself. He also mentions him humorously in connection with his own interest in animals4. He calls him an "old colonialist" while holding that his books, Kim among them, show the importance of nature5. Later, he presents him as an immense English writer, but a colonialist, who does not carry the same connotation as Hugo6.

1. 1#9 Return to the logics of the subject30 May 2020 · 53:53
2. 2Birth and carnage: the Massacre of the Innocents22 Dec 2023 · 1:35:23
3. 3#1.6 Between crisis and war: philosophising?10 Dec 2015 · 1:20:42
4. 4Pagani without detours21 Sept 2019 · 15:53
5. 5Clouscard by you: answers to your questions28 Feb 2024 · 1:31:12
6. 6Mali: a response to Emmanuel Macron's remarks at the Africa Forward summit16 May 2026 · 40:22

Summary produced automatically from 7 of the passages below, to be reviewed; the numbers link to the moment in the session.