A Matter of Fact
"A Matter of Fact" | |
---|---|
Short story by Rudyard Kipling | |
Country | United Kingdom |
Language | English |
Genre(s) | Short story |
Publication |
"A Matter of Fact" is a short story by Rudyard Kipling, first appearing in January 1892 in the magazine People. It was published the next year in the collection Many Inventions.[1]
Plot
The narrator, presumably Kipling, is a journalist sailing home from South Africa to England. Aboard the steamer are two other passengers he meets, fellow journalists with whom he spends his time. During a thick fog, the pilot experienced an unusual difficulty in steering, owing to strong unnatural currents, which have apparently been caused by a volcanic eruption in the seabed. A resultant colossal wave nearly upsets their vessel, sinking another nearby, and also spews up a great sea monster from the deeps, mortally wounded. It first manifests as an eerie white face, blind and framed in the fog, and the three journalists look on bemused as the monster’s mate surfaces, watches him die, and sinks down again to the seabed.
When the sea is quiet again, the three journalists discuss how they can present this astonishing fact to the public. The Dutch journalist, Zuyland, determines to treat the matter in cool scientific fashion, “giving approximate lengths and breadths, and the whole list of the crew whom he had sworn on oath to testify to his facts”.[1]: 137 However, both he and Kipling soon discard their accounts, realising that their story will never be credited as a simple fact. The American journalist, Keller, also realises the futility of presenting such a story to the cynical public, and in the end Kipling tells them he will print the story as a piece of fiction, where it will get a better reception. Truth, he says, “is a naked lady, and if by accident she is drawn up from the bottom of the sea, it behoves a gentleman either to give her a print petticoat or to turn his back and vow that he did not see”.[1]: 141
Recording by Kipling
A small fragment of the story, read by Kipling himself, was recorded by French researcher Jean Poirot in 1921.[2]
Critical reception
The reaction to the story was mixed. Some complained that the ending wanted polish and was unrealistic.[3] Other contemporary critics lauded the work as a forerunner of English scientifiction.[4]
References
- ^ a b c Kipling, Rudyard (1893). Many Inventions.
- ^ Poirot, Jean. "[Archives de la parole]. , A matter of fact : [fragment] / Rudyard Kipling, aut. ; Jean Poirot, éd. ; Rudyard Kipling, voix". Gallica BNF. Retrieved 17 June 2022.
- ^ J. M. S. Tompkins, 1959. The Art of Rudyard Kipling. London
- ^ Scholl, 2002. Victorian Concepts in Kipling’s A Matter of Fact
- v
- t
- e
- The Light That Failed (1891)
- The Naulahka: A Story of West and East (co-author, Wolcott Balestier, 1892)
- Captains Courageous (1896)
- Kim (1901)
- Plain Tales from the Hills (1888)
- Soldiers Three (1888)
- The Story of the Gadsbys (1888)
- In Black and White (1888)
- The Phantom 'Rickshaw and Other Tales (1888)
- Under the Deodars (1888)
- Wee Willie Winkie and Other Child Stories (1888)
- From Sea to Sea and Other Sketches, Letters of Travel (1889)
- Barrack-Room Ballads (1892, poetry)
- Many Inventions (1893)
- The Jungle Book (1894)
- "Mowgli's Brothers"
- "Kaa's Hunting"
- "Tiger! Tiger!"
- "Rikki-Tikki-Tavi"
- The Second Jungle Book (1895)
- "Letting in the Jungle"
- "Red Dog"
- All the Mowgli Stories (c. 1895)
- The Seven Seas (1896, poetry)
- The Day's Work (1898)
- Stalky & Co. (1899)
- Just So Stories (1902)
- The Five Nations (1903, poetry)
- Puck of Pook's Hill (1906)
- Rewards and Fairies (1910)
- The Fringes of the Fleet (1915, non-fiction)
- Debits and Credits (1926)
- Limits and Renewals (1932)
- Rudyard Kipling's Verse: Definitive Edition (1940)
- A Choice of Kipling's Verse (by T. S. Eliot, 1941)
- "The Absent-Minded Beggar"
- "The Ballad of the 'Clampherdown'"
- "The Ballad of East and West"
- "The Beginnings"
- "The Bell Buoy"
- "The Betrothed"
- "Big Steamers"
- "Boots"
- "Cold Iron"
- "Dane-geld"
- "Danny Deever"
- "A Death-Bed"
- "The Female of the Species"
- "Fuzzy-Wuzzy"
- "Gentleman ranker"
- "The Gods of the Copybook Headings"
- "Gunga Din"
- "Hymn Before Action"
- "If—"
- "In the Neolithic Age"
- "The King's Pilgrimage"
- "The Last of the Light Brigade"
- "The Lowestoft Boat"
- "Mandalay"
- "The Mary Gloster"
- "McAndrew's Hymn"
- "My Boy Jack"
- "Recessional"
- "A Song in Storm"
- "The Sons of Martha"
- "Submarines"
- "The Sweepers"
- "Tommy"
- "Ubique"
- "The White Man's Burden"
- ".007"
- "The Arrest of Lieutenant Golightly"
- "Baa Baa, Black Sheep"
- "Bread upon the Waters"
- "The Broken-Link Handicap"
- "The Butterfly that Stamped"
- "Consequences"
- "The Conversion of Aurelian McGoggin"
- "Cupid's Arrows"
- "The Devil and the Deep Sea"
- "The Drums of the Fore and Aft"
- "Fairy-Kist"
- "False Dawn"
- "A Germ-Destroyer"
- "His Chance in Life"
- "His Wedded Wife"
- "In the House of Suddhoo"
- "Kidnapped"
- "Learoyd, Mulvaney and Ortheris"
- "Lispeth"
- "The Man Who Would Be King"
- "A Matter of Fact"
- "Miss Youghal's Sais"
- "The Mother Hive"
- "The Other Man"
- "The Rescue of Pluffles"
- "The Ship that Found Herself"
- "The Sing-Song of Old Man Kangaroo"
- "The Taking of Lungtungpen"
- "Three and – an Extra"
- "The Three Musketeers"
- "Thrown Away"
- "Toomai of the Elephants"
- "Watches of the Night"
- "Wireless"
- "Yoked with an Unbeliever"
- Bibliography
- Bateman's (house)
- Indian Railway Library
- Ritual of the Calling of an Engineer
- Law of the jungle
- Aerial Board of Control
- My Boy Jack (1997 play)
- Rudyard Kipling: A Remembrance Tale (2006 documentary)
- My Boy Jack (2007 film)
- Caroline Starr Balestier Kipling (wife)
- Elsie Bambridge (daughter)
- John Kipling (son)
- John Lockwood Kipling (father)
- MacDonald sisters (mother's family)
- Stanley Baldwin (cousin)
- Georgiana Burne-Jones (aunt)
- Edward Burne-Jones (uncle)
- Philip Burne-Jones (cousin)
- Edward Poynter (uncle)
- Alfred Baldwin (uncle)