Another re-read, but I had forgotten so much of the book, that at times it was barely recognizable and I enjoyed being surprised and reminded about events as they unfolded.
Part of the reason why the book was 'forgettable' wasn't because the book was terribly bad, but just because it is highly episodic. I remembered distinctly the visuality of the scenes (the descriptions are luxuriously complete), but I could not remember what order things happened, since all but a few are indistinguishable in their creation of the character of Kim. He grows up, but the events that are part of the bildungsroman aren't connected - rather, they accumulate so that the Kim at the end of the book is a wiser, but not radically different Kim than the one who began the book.
I kept finding myself comparing this book to Joseph Conrad's The Secret Agent, partly because both are about spies, but also because both are in some senses about what it means to be "not-English". Each author takes a radically different approach to the second question (and the first I suppose) - Kipling seems to admire imperialism and its possibilities, but recognizes the huge pitfalls. For him, Her Majesty's Secret Service is the epitome of what is good about being English (in part because it allows you to selectively 'go native'), but for Conrad, the spy game is all about misunderstanding, egos, and individual foibles. In Conrad, idealism has a specific role to play (and usually a different role for each participant), but in Kipling, the idealism inherent in spying is the same (mother England), but the methods employed by its practitioners simply vary.
All this talk of comparing the two books makes me think I should now go re-read Conrad. I'm curious how fruitful it might be to pair two books like these (or other pairings... like Slaughterhouse Five and The Wars).