Rudyard Kipling's "Wireless"

Cafe Society
1

“Wireless” is a fairly obscure story of Rudyard Kipling’s, published in 1902 and reprinted in his 1904 collection Traffics and Discoveries.

In the story, a wireless buff is setting up his experimental equipment in the back of a chemist’s shop, hoping to make contact with a colleague. He fails, intercepting only what he calls “a couple of men-o’-war working Marconi signals off the Isle of Wight.” Meanwhile, the consumptive, love-lorn chemist (pharmacist) has been placed in a reverie or trance by a mixture of cardamom, ground ginger, chloric-ether, and dilute alcohol[!]. While in this reverie he starts writing love poetry to his darling, which proves to be the words of Keats, whose name and poetry he is entirely unfamiliar with.

The implication is that the wireless signals had really been channeling Keats’ words - or even his creative process - in the chemist.

This appears to be nothing more than a trifle, a satire on modern technology along with maybe some sardonic observations on class in England. And it may be just that, which would thoroughly explain its obscurity.

I was just wondering if any Kipling-lovers out there knew anything more or deeper about this story.

2

It has been over thirty years since I read it and it is a vague recolection at the very least. At the time I thought it kind of silly, but looking back, at the time, I was kind of silly - so I cannot vouch for the quality of my taste.

So I will take the volume off the shelf, dust it off and reread it and get back to you tomorrow.

TV

3

I just read that a little while ago (in Maugham’s Choice of Kipling’s Best, if that matters). I didn’t see any particularly deep significance in it, but still a good story. The channeling side effect of the technology was a bit of an eye-roller, but appropriate for the time, and he made it work.

4

tv time, Thanks. Looking forward to it.

rjk, It’s a pleasant read by an expert writer. It just seemed so slight that I kept thinking I was missing something.

5

Most of his stuff that I’ve read, except for the Indian stories, always struck me as capable but nothing really special. Somerset Maugham agrees, so I’m in good company there. :slight_smile:

The Man who Would be King depends on an even more implausible plot feature, but turns out as a far better story, IMHO just because of the Indian background.