1 - Kipling may have been racist, imperialist, sometimes just bloody-minded, often pretentious - but he's one of the best story-tellers I've ever come across. And I rate "Kim" as one of the best stories I've read (if you narrow the focus to "road novel", it's right up there).
2 - Tolkien's racism is compounded by classism. LOTR is, for looooong stretches, the sheerst bilge. But "The Hobbit" is superb. (Another "road novel". There's a pattern here.) 3 - I actually prefer "Puck of Pook's Hill" to "The Just So Stories", perhaps because I didn't read the latter when I should have. But I do recognise that the man knew how to hold a child's attention. Any person who can communicate with children can't be all bad. 4 - The Mandala was a nice take, good fan-fic, until that utterly horrendous puke-inducing last chapter. Haven't read anything else by the guy. Before we pass judgement, we'd do well to remember Tom Lehrer (in a slightly different context): "I could tell you things about Peter Pan / And the Wizard of Oz - there's a dirty old man!" -- *J. Alfred Prufrock* *"I am moved by fancies that are curled Around these images, and cling: The notion of some infinitely gentle, Infinitely suffering thing"*
