Book #9: The Jungle Law

Title: The Jungle Law
Author: Victoria Vinton

Maybe I read this too soon after reading The Falls, and was already fed up with emotionally constipated characters. Maybe I was too distracted with the birthday party and Eddie gone all weekend and my mom visiting to really immerse myself in the story. Whatever the reason, I just couldn't get in to this story. Theoretically, I should have liked it. The writing was really beautiful (at times almost self-consciously elegant) and I usually like the kind of stories where a figure from history gets involved in some kind of fictional situation. The Jungle Law chronicles the year that Rudyard Kipling wrote The Jungle Book. The Englishman and his pregnant American bride build a house in Vermont, and he gets involved in the lives of a local family whose son finds himself identifying with and inspiring the character of Mowgli.

For me, the story of Kipling and his wife and daughter didn't really seem to gel with the story of the Connolly family. It seemed like Vinton was trying too hard to make connections between Mowgli and Joe Connolly. Kipling annoyed me. Jack Connolly just made me mad. Both of the women drove me a little bit crazy (one because she was too bossy, the other because she wasn't bossy enough). Maybe I'm just in a funk, but this one gets an A for effort but a thumbs-down for results.

--originally published 2/13/06