Information AboutJack London |
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Jack London, probably born '''John Griffith Chaney''' ( January 12 , 1876 – November 22 , 1916 )Birth and death dates as given in Dictionary of American Biography Base Set. American Council of Learned Societies, 1928-1936. Reproduced in Biography Resource Center. Farmington Hills, Mich.: Thomson Gale. 2006. http://galenet.galegroup.com/servlet/BioRCJoan London (1939) p. 12, birth date"JACK LONDON DIES SUDDENLY ON RANCH; Novelist is Found Unconscious from Uremia, and Expires after Eleven Hours. WROTE HIS LIFE OF TOIL His Experience as Sailor Reflected In His Fiction—''Call of the Wild'' Gave Him His Fame." The New York Times, story datelined Santa Rosa, Cal., Nov. 22; appeared November 23, 1916, p. 13. States he died "at 7:45 o'clock tonight," and says he was "born in San Francisco on January 12, 1876." was an , Richard Harding Davis , Jack London, O. Henry , Booth Tarkington , John Fox, Jr. , Owen Wister , and Mrs. Burnett ." $1,000 in 1910 dollars is roughtly equivalent to $20,000 in 2005. PERSONAL BACKGROUND Clarice Stasz and other biographers believe it to be likely that Jack London's biological father was Astrologer William Chaney.Stasz (2001), p. 14: "What supports Flora's naming Chaney as the father of her son are, first, the indisputable fact of their cohabiting at the time of his conception;, and second, the absence of any suggestion on the part of her associates that another man could have been responsible... {Link without Title} unless DNA evidence is introduced, whether or not WIlliam Chaney was the biological father of Jack London cannot be decided.... Chaney would, however, be considered by her son and his children as their ancestor." Chaney was a professor in astrology; according to Stasz, "From the viewpoint of serious astrologers today, Chaney is a major figure who shifted the practice from quackery to a more rigorous method." Jack London did not learn of Chaney's putative paternity until adulthood. In 1897 he wrote to Chaney and received a letter in which Chaney stated flatly "I was never married to Flora Wellman", and that he was "impotent" during the period in which they lived together and "cannot be your father." Whether the marriage was, in fact, legalized is unknown. Most San Francisco civil records were destroyed in the 1906 Earthquake . (For the same reason, it is not known with certainty what name appeared on his birth certificate). Stasz notes that in his memoirs Chaney refers to Jack London's mother Flora Wellman, as having been his "wife". Stasz also notes an advertisement in which Flora calls herself "Florence Wellman Chaney". EARLY LIFE Jack London was born in San Francisco . He was essentially self-educated. In 1883 he found and read Ouida 's long Victorian novel ''Signa'', which describes an unschooled Italian peasant child who achieves fame as an opera composer. He credited this as the seed of his literary aspiration.London, Jack (1917) "Eight Factors of Literary Success," in Labor (1994), p. 512. "In answer to your question as to the greatest factors of my literary success, I will state that I consider them to be: Vast good luck. Good health; good brain; good mental and muscular correlation. Poverty. Reading Ouida's ''Signa'' at eight years of age. The influence of Herbert Spencer's ''Philosophy of Style.'' Because I got started twenty years before the fellows who are trying to start today." In 1893, he signed on to the sealing Schooner ''Sophia Sutherland'', bound for the coast of Japan. When he returned, the country was in the grip of the Panic Of '93 and Oakland was swept by labor unrest. After gruelling jobs in a Jute Mill and a street-railway power plant, he joined Kelly's Industrial Army and began his career as a Tramp . In 1894, he spent thirty days for Vagrancy in the Erie County Penitentiary at Buffalo . In ''The Road'', he wrote:
A pivotal event was his discovery in 1895 of the Oakland Public Library and a sympathetic librarian, Ina Coolbrith (who later became California's first poet laureate and an important figure in the San Francisco literary community). After many experiences as a hobo, sailor, and member of Kelly's Army he returned to Oakland and attended Oakland High School, where he contributed a number of articles to the high school's magazine, ''The Aegis''. His first published work was "Typhoon off the coast of Japan", an account of his sailing experiences. Jack London desperately wanted to attend the University Of California and, in 1896 after a summer of intense cramming, did so; but financial circumstances forced him to leave in 1897 and he never graduated. Kingman says that "there is no record that Jack ever wrote for student publications" there.Kingman (1979) p. 67. In 1889, London began working from twelve to eighteen hours a day at Hickmott's Cannery. Seeking a way out of this gruelling labor, he borrowed money from his black foster mother Jennie Prentiss, bought the Sloop ''Razzle-Dazzle'' from an Oyster Pirate named French Frank, and became an oyster pirate himself. In '' John Barleycorn '' he claims to have stolen French Frank's mistress Mamie. Chapters VII, VIII describe his stealing of Mamie, the "Queen of the Oyster Pirates:" "the Queen asked me to row her ashore in my skiff...Nor did I understand Spider's grinning side-remark to me: "Gee! There's nothin' slow about YOU." How could it possibly enter my boy's head that a grizzled man of fifty should be jealous of me?" "And how was I to guess that the story of how the Queen had thrown him down on his own boat, the moment I hove in sight, was already the gleeful gossip of the water-front?Joan London (1939) appears to credit this story, op. cit. p. 41Kingman (1979) expresses skepticism; p. 37, "It was said on the waterfront that Jack had taken on a mistress... Evidently Jack believed the myth himself at times... Jack met Mamie aboard the Razzle-Dazzle when he first approached French Frank about its purchase. Mamie was aboard on a visit with her sister Tess and her chaperone, Miss Hadley. It hardly seems likely that someone who required a chaperone on Saturday would move aboard as mistress on Monday." After a few months his sloop became damaged beyond repair. He switched to the side of the law and became a member of the California Fish Patrol . While living at his rented villa on Lake Merritt in Oakland, London met poet George Sterling and in time they became best of friends. In 1902 Sterling helped London find a home closer to his own in nearby Piedmont . In his letters London addressed Sterling as "Greek" owing to his aquiline nose and classical profile, and signed them as "Wolf". London was later to depict Sterling as Russ Brissenden in his autobiographical novel '' Martin Eden '' (1909) and as Mark Hall in '' The Valley Of The Moon '' (1913). In later life Jack London was a Polymath with wide-ranging interests and a personal library of 15,000 volumes.Hamilton (1986) (as cited by other sources) On July 25,1897,London and his brother in law James Shepard sailed to join the Klondike Gold Rush where he would later set his first successful stories. London's time in the Klondike, however, was quite detrimental to his health. Like so many others malnourished while involved in the Klondike Gold Rush, he developed scurvy. His gums became swollen, eventually leading to the loss of his four front teeth. A constant gnawing pain affected his abdomen and leg muscles, and his face was stricken with sores. Fortunately for him and others who were suffering with a variety of medical ills, a Father William Judge, "The Saint of Dawson", had a facility in Dawson which provided shelter, food and any available medicine. London's health recovered, but it was a unique twist of fate that London's life was perhaps saved by a Jesuit priest, since London was an agnostic. London survived the hardships of the Klondike, Yukon Klondik, and these struggles inspired what is often called his best short story, "To Build a Fire". The famous version of this story was published in 1908; an early and radically different version was originally published in 1902. Labor, in an anthology, says that "To compare the two versions is itself an instructive lesson in what distinguished a great work of literary art from a good children's story. Labor (1994) 1902 version, famous 1908 version, The story concerned a Klondike prospector's stubborn futility in ignoring the dangers of nature, and in the end freezing to death when he is unable to build a simple fire that could save his life. London personally could probably closely identify himself with the man in the story, and must have seen this type of human folly many times in real life while in the Klondike. His landlords in Dawson were two Yale and Stanford educated mining engineers Marshall and Louis Bond. Their father Judge Hiram Bond was a wealthy mining investor. The Bonds, especially Hiram, were active Republicans. Marshall Bond's diary mentions friendly sparring on political issues as a camp pastime. Jack left Oakland a believer in the work ethic with a social conscience and socialist leanings and returned to become an active proponent of socialism. He also concluded that his only hope of escaping the work trap was to get an education and "sell his brains". Throughout his life he saw writing as a business, his ticket out of poverty, and, he hoped, a means of beating the wealthy at their own game. On returning to Oakland in 1898, he began struggling seriously to break into print, a struggle memorably described in his novel, ''Martin Eden''. His first published story was the fine and frequently anthologized "To the Man On Trail". When ''The Overland Monthly'' offered him only $5 for it—and was slow paying—Jack London came close to abandoning his writing career. In his words, "literally and literarily I was saved" when ''The Black Cat'' accepted his story "A Thousand Deaths", and paid him $40—the "first money I ever received for a story". Jack London was fortunate in the timing of his writing career. He started just as new printing technologies enabled lower-cost production of magazines. This resulted in a boom in popular magazines aimed at a wide public, and a strong market for short fiction. In 1900, he made $2,500 in writing, the equivalent of about $75,000 today. His career was well under way. Among the works he sold to magazines was a short story known as either "Batarde" or "Diable" in two editions of the same basic story. A cruel French Canadian brutalizes his dog. The dog out of revenge causes his death. London was criticized for depicting a dog as an embodiment of evil. He told some of his critics that man's actions are the main cause of the behavior of their animals and he would show this in another short story. This short story for the Saturday Evening Post "The Call of the Wild" ran away in length. The story begins on an estate in Santa Clara and features a St. Bernard/Shepard mix named Buck. In fact the opening scene is a description of the Bond family farm and Buck is based on a dog he was lent in Dawson by his landlords. London visited Marshall Bond in California having run into him again at a political lecture in San Francisco in 1901. FIRST MARRIAGE (1900-1904) Jack London married Bess Maddern on April 7 , 1900 , the same day ''The Son of the Wolf'' was published. Bess had been part of his circle of friends for a number of years. Stasz says "Both acknowledged publicly that they were not marrying out of love, but from friendship and a belief that they would produce sturdy children."Stasz (2001) p. 61, "Both acknowledged... that they were not marrying out of love" Kingman says "they were comfortable together …. Jack had made it clear to Bessie that he did not love her, but that he liked her enough to make a successful marriage."Kingman (1979), p. 98 During the marriage, Jack London continued his friendship with Anna Strunsky, co-authoring ''The Kempton-Wace Letters,'' an epistolary novel contrasting romantic {Link without Title} with scientific love. Anna, writing "Dane Kempton's" letters, arguing for a romantic view of marriage, while Jack, writing "Herbert Wace's" letters, argued for a scientific view, based on Darwinism and eugenics. In the novel, his fictional character contrasts two women he has known:
Wace declares:
Analyzing why he "was impelled toward the woman" he intends to marry, Wace says
In real life, Jack's pet name for Bess "Mother-Girl" and Bess's for Jack was "Daddy-Boy".Stasz (2001) p. 66: "Mommy Girl and Daddy Boy" Their first child, Joan, was born on January 15th, 1901, and their second, Bessie (later called Becky), on October 20, 1902. Captions to pictures in photo album, reproduced in part in Joan London's memoir, "Jack London and Her Daughters", published posthumously, show Jack London's unmistakable happiness and pride in his children. But the marriage itself was under continuous strain. Kingman (1979) says that by 1903 "the breakup … was imminent …. Bessie was a fine woman, but they were extremely incompatible. There was no love left. Even companionship and respect had gone out of the marriage." Nevertheless, "Jack was still so kind and gentle with Bessie that when Cloudsley Johns was a house guest in February of 1903 he didn't suspect a breakup of their marriage."Kingman (1979) p. 121 According to Joseph Noel (1940), "Bessie was the eternal mother. She lived at first for Jack, corrected his manuscripts, drilled him in grammar, but when the children came she lived for them. Herein was her greatest honor and her first blunder." Jack complained to Noel and George Sterling that "she's devoted to purity. When I tell her morality is only evidence of low blood pressure, she hates me. She'd sell me and the children out for her damned purity. It's terrible. Every time I come back after being away from home for a night she won't let me be in the same room with her if she can help it."Noel (1940) p. 150, "She's devoted to purity...". Stasz believes that these were "code words for fear that [Jack was consorting with prostitutes and might bring home venereal disease."Stasz (2001) p. 80 ("devoted to purity... code words...") On July 24th, 1903, Jack London told Bessie he was leaving and moved out; during 1904 Jack and Bess negotiated the terms of a divorce, and the decree was granted on November 11, 1904.Kingman (1979) p. 139 ACCUSATIONS OF PLAGIARISM Jack London was accused of plagiarism at numerous times during his career. He was vulnerable, not only because he was such a conspicuous and successful writer, but also because of his methods of working. In a letter to Elwyn Hoffman he wrote "expression, you see—with me—is far easier than invention." He purchased plots for stories and novels from the young Sinclair Lewis . And he used incidents from newspaper clippings as material on which to base stories. Egerton R. Young claimed that '' The Call Of The Wild '' was taken from his book '' My Dogs In The Northland .'' Jack London's response was to acknowledge having used it as a source; he claimed to have written a letter to Young thanking him. In July, 1902, two pieces of fiction appeared within the same month: Jack London's " Moon-Face ", in the ''San Francisco Argonaut,'' and Frank Norris 's "The Passing of Cock-eye Blacklock", in ''Century.'' Newspapers paralleled the stories, which London characterizes as "quite different in manner of treatment, {Link without Title} patently the same in foundation and motive." Jack London explained that both writers had based their stories on the same newspaper account. Subsequently it was discovered that a year earlier, one Charles Forrest McLean had published another fictional story based on the same incident. In 1906 the New York World published "deadly parallel" columns showing eighteen passages from Jack London's short story "Love of Life" side by side with similar passages from a nonfiction article by Augustus Biddle and J. K Macdonald entitled "Lost in the Land of the Midnight Sun". According to London's daughter Joan , the parallels " {Link without Title} beyond question that Jack had merely rewritten the Biddle account." (Jack London would surely have objected to that word "merely".) Responding, London noted the World did not accuse him of "plagiarism", but only of "identity of time and situation", to which he defiantly "pled guilty". London acknowledged his use of Biddle, cited several other sources he had used, and stated, "I, in the course of making my living by turning journalism into literature, used material from various sources which had been collected and narrated by men who made their living by turning the facts of life into journalism." The most serious incident involved Chapter 7 of '' The Iron Heel ,'' entitled "The Bishop's Vision." This chapter was almost identical with an ironic essay Frank Harris had published in 1901, entitled "The Bishop of London and Public Morality". Harris was incensed and suggested that he should receive 1/60th of the royalties from ''The Iron Heel,'' the disputed material constituting about that fraction of the whole novel. Jack London insisted that he had clipped a reprint of the article which had appeared in an American newspaper, and believed it to be a genuine speech delivered by the genuine Bishop of London. Joan London characterized this defense as "lame indeed".Joan London (1939), p. 326: "This time Jack attempted to defend himself rather than defy his accusers, but defiance would have served him better and been more effect, for his excuse was very lame indeed. He claimed that he had read the article in an American newspaper and that he had mistaken it for a genuine speech..." SECOND MARRIAGE After divorcing Maddern in 1904, London married Charmian Kittredge. They attempted to have children, however one died at birth, and the other was a miscarriage. BEAUTY RANCH (1910-1917) In 1910 Jack London purchased a 1,000 acre (4 km²) ranch in Glen Ellen , Sonoma County, California for $26,000. He wrote that "Next to my wife, the ranch is the dearest thing in the world to me." He desperately wanted the ranch to become a successful business enterprise. Writing, always a commercial enterprise with London, now became even more a means to an end: "I write for no other purpose than to add to the beauty that now belongs to me. I write a book for no other reason than to add three or four hundred acres to my magnificent estate." In May 1910 he met Ambrose Bierce for a legendary drinking bout at the Bohemian Club's summer camp on the Russian River. After 1910, his literary works were mostly potboilers, written out of the need to provide operating income for the ranch. Joan London writes "Few reviewers bothered any more to criticize his work seriously, for it was obvious that Jack was no longer exerting himself." Clarice Stasz writes that London "had taken fully to heart the vision, expressed in his agrarian fiction, of the land as the closest earthly version of Eden … he educated himself through study of agricultural manuals and scientific tomes. He conceived of a system of ranching that today would be praised for its ecological wisdom." He was proud of the first concrete silo in California, of a circular piggery he designed himself. He hoped to adapt the wisdom of Asian Sustainable Agriculture to the United States. The ranch was, by most measures, a colossal failure. Sympathetic observers such as Stasz treat his projects as potentially feasible, and ascribe their failure to bad luck or to being ahead of their time. Unsympathetic observers such as Kevin Starr suggest that he was a bad manager, distracted by other concerns and impaired by his alcoholism. Starr notes that London was absent from his ranch about six months a year between 1910 and 1916, and says "He liked the show of managerial power, but not grinding attention to detail …. London's workers laughed at his efforts to play big-time rancher considered the operation a rich man's hobby." The ranch is now a National Historic Landmark . POLITICAL VIEWS Jack London became a socialist at the age of 20. Previously, he had possessed an optimism stemming from his health and strength, a rugged individualist who worked hard and saw the world as good. But as he details in his essay, "How I Became a Socialist", his socialist views began as his eyes were opened to the members of the bottom of the social pit. His optimism and individualism faded, and he vowed never to do more hard work than he had to. He writes that his individualism was hammered out of him, and he was reborn a socialist. London first joined the Socialist Labor Party in April 1896. In 1901 he left the Socialist Labor Party and joined the new Socialist Party Of America . In 1896 the ''San Francisco Chronicle'' published a story about the 20-year-old London who was out nightly in Oakland's City Hall Park, giving speeches on socialism to the crowds—an activity for which he was arrested in 1897. He ran unsuccessfully as the high-profile Socialist nominee for mayor of Oakland in 1901 (receiving 245 votes) and 1905 (improving to 981 votes), toured the country lecturing on socialism in 1906, and published collections of essays on socialism (''The War of the Classes'', 1905; ''Revolution, and other Essays'', 1910). He often closed his letters "Yours for the Revolution."See Labor (1994) p. 546 for one example, a letter from London to William E. Walling dated Nov. 30, 1909. Stasz notes that "London regarded the Wobblies as a welcome addition to the Socialist cause, although he never jointed them in going so far as to recommend sabotage."Stasz (2001) p. 100 She mentions a personal meeting between London and Big Bill Haywood in 1912Stasz (2001) p. 156 A socialist viewpoint is evident throughout his writing, most notably in his novel '' The Iron Heel ''. No theorist or intellectual socialist, Jack London's socialism came from the heart and his life experience. In his Glen Ellen ranch years, London felt some ambivalence toward socialism. He was an extraordinary financial success as a writer, and wanted desperately to make a financial success of his Glen Ellen ranch. He complained about the "inefficient Italian workers" in his employ. In 1916 he resigned from the Glen Ellen chapter of the Socialist Party, but stated emphatically that he did so "because of its lack of fire and fight, and its loss of emphasis on the class struggle". In an unflattering portrait of Jack London's ranch days, Kevin Starr (1973) refers to this period as "post-socialist" and says that "… by 1911 … London was more bored by the class struggle than he cared to admit." Starr maintains that London's socialism :always had a streak of elitism in it, and a good deal of pose. He liked to play working class intellectual when it suited his purpose. Invited to a prominent Piedmont house, he featured a flannel shirt, but, as someone there remarked, London's badge of solidarity with the working class "looked as if it had been specially laundered for the occasion." Twain said "It would serve this man London right to have the working class get control of things. He would have to call out the militia to collect his royalties." ALLEGED RACIALIST VIEWS Jack London's views regarding race are an extremely contentious subject which cannot be summed up neatly. Academics sometimes draw a distinction between the words " Racialist ", to mean a belief in intrinsic difference in the capabilities of different races, as opposed to "racist", implying prejudice or hatred. By this definition, Jack London can be said to have shared the racialism common in America in his times. Many of Jack London's short stories are notable for their empathetic portrayal of Mexicans (''The Mexican''), Asian (''The Chinago,'') and Hawai'ian (''Koolau the Leper'') characters. But, unlike, say, Mark Twain , Jack London did not depart from the racialist views that were the norm in American society in his time, and he shared the typical California concerns about Asian immigration and " The Yellow Peril " (which he actually used as the title of an essay he wrote in 1904 {Link without Title} ); on the other hand, his war correspondence from the Russo-Japanese War, as well as his unfinished novel "Cherry", show that he greatly admired much about Japanese' customs and capabilities. It is important to understand that he frequently departed from the racist views of the time, as in the stories mentioned above, as well as in "Chun Ah Chun", and others. To compare London with the contemporary norms, consider this statement by H. G. Wells , writing in 1901, in ''Anticipations,"
Now, consider the lines spoken by the character Frona Welse in London's 1902 novel, ''Daughter of the Snows.'' (Scholar Andrew Furer says there is no doubt that Frona Welse is here acting as a mouthpiece for London):
Furer's comment, however, comes in an essay whose primary purpose is to illustrate the complex ways in which London was as frequently anti-racist as he was racist, citing "The Mexican", "Koolau the Leper", etc. Jack London's 1904 essay, '' The Yellow Peril '', is replete with the casual stereotyping that was common at the time: "The Korean is the perfect type of inefficiency — of utter worthlessness. The Chinese is the perfect type of industry;" "The Chinese is no coward;" Japanese "would not of himself constitute a Brown Peril …. The menace to the Western world lies, not in the little brown man; but in the four hundred millions of yellow men should the little brown man undertake their management." He insists that:
Yet even within this essay Jack London's inconsistency on the issue makes itself clear. After insisting that "our own great race adventure" has an ethical dimension, he closes by saying
In "Koolau the Leper", London has one of his characters remark: :Because we are sick whites take away our liberty. We have obeyed the law. We have done no wrong. And yet they would put us in prison. Molokai is a prison. . . . It is the will of the white men who rule the land. . . . They came like lambs, speaking softly. . . . To-day all the islands are theirs. London describes Koolau, who is a Hawaiian leper—and thus a very different sort of "superman" than Martin Eden—and who fights off an entire cavalry troop to elude capture, as "indomitable spiritually—a . . . magnificent rebel". An avid boxer and amateur boxing fan, London was a sort of celebrity reporter on the 1910 Johnson - Jeffries fight, in which a black boxer vanquished James Jeffries , the "Great White Hope". Earlier, he had written:
It is possible to cherry-pick statements by some of Jack London's fictional characters that would today be characterized as "racist" (the word did not exist in London's time). Such statements occur increasingly in the potboilers he wrote to finance his ranch in his declining years. The reader must decide whether or not London places any ironic distance between himself and these characters. The word ''nigger'' is used casually throughout the novels ''Adventure,'' ''Jerry of the Islands,'' and ''Michael, Brother of Jerry.'' A passage from ''Jerry of the Islands'' depicts a dog as perceiving white man's superiority: He was that inferior man-creature, a nigger, and Jerry had been thoroughly trained all his brief days to the law that the white men were the superior two-legged gods. ''Micahel, Brother of Jerry'' features a comic Jewish character who is avaricious, stingy, and has a "greasy-seaming grossness of flesh". Those who defend Jack London against charges of racism like to cite the letter he wrote to the Japanese-American Commercial Weekly in 1913:
DEATH Jack London's death is controversial. Many older sources describe it as a suicide, and some still do. , also known as uremic poisoning. He died November 22, 1916. It is known he was in extreme pain and taking Morphine , and it is possible that a morphine overdose, accidental or deliberate, may have contributed. Clarice Stasz, in a capsule biography, writes "Following London's death, for a number of reasons a biographical myth developed in which he has been portrayed as an alcoholic womanizer who committed suicide. Recent scholarship based upon firsthand documents challenges this caricature."Stasz, Clarice (2001). "Jack (John Griffith) London." {Link without Title} Suicide does figure in London's writing. In his autobiographical novel '' Martin Eden '', the protagonist commits suicide by drowning. In his autobiographical memoir '' John Barleycorn '', he claims, as a youth, having drunkenly stumbled overboard into the San Francisco Bay, "some maundering fancy of going out with the tide suddenly obsessed me", and drifted for hours intending to drown himself, nearly succeeding before sobering up and being rescued by fishermen. An even closer parallel occurs in the denouement of '' The Little Lady Of The Big House ,'' in which the heroine, confronted by the pain of a mortal and untreatable gunshot wound, undergoes a physician-assisted suicide by means of morphine. These accounts in his writings probably contributed to the "biographical myth". Jack London's ashes are buried, together with those of his wife Charmian, in Jack London State Historic Park , in Glen Ellen, California . The simple grave is marked only by a mossy boulder. WORKS Short stories Western writer and historian Dale L. Walker writes {Link without Title} : :London's true métier was the short story …. London's true genius lay in the short form, 7,500 words and under, where the flood of images in his teeming brain and the innate power of his narrative gift were at once constrained and freed. His stories that run longer than the magic 7,500 generally—but certainly not always—could have benefited from self-editing. London's "strength of utterance" is at its height in his stories, and they are painstakingly well-constructed. (In contrast, many of his novels, including ''The Call of the Wild'', are weakly constructed, episodic, and resemble linked sequences of short stories). "To Build a Fire" is the best known of all his stories, probably deservedly so. It tells the story of a new arrival to the Yukon who falls through the ice into a creek and must build a fire to warm himself and dry his clothes. Other fine stories from his Klondike period include: "All Gold Canyon", about a battle between a Gold Prospector and a Claim Jumper ; "The Law of Life", about an aging man abandoned by his tribe and left to die; and "Love of Life", about a desperate trek by a prospector across the Canadian taiga. "Moon Face" invites comparison with Edgar Allan Poe 's " The Tell-Tale Heart ". Jack London was a Boxing fan and an avid amateur boxer himself. "A Piece of Steak" is an evocative tale about a match between an older boxer and a younger one. "The Mexican" combines boxing with a social theme, as a young Mexican endures an unfair fight and ethnic prejudice in order to earn money with which to aid the Mexican revolution. A surprising number of Jack London's stories would today be classified as Science Fiction . "The Unparalleled Invasion" describes Germ Warfare against China, "Goliah" revolves around an irresistible energy weapon, "The Shadow and the Flash" is a highly original tale about two competitive brothers who take two different routes to achieving invisibility, "A Relic of the Pliocene" is a tall tale about an encounter of a modern-day man with a mammoth, "The Red One" tells of an island tribe held in thrall by an extraterrestrial object, and even "To Build a Fire" uses a similar expository style to describe its bitterly cold environment (unfamiliar to most readers) to that used by many classic science fiction stories in describing space. Furthermore, his Dystopia n novel, The Iron Heel , meets the contemporary definition of "Soft" Science Fiction . Novels Jack London's most famous work is '' The Call Of The Wild ''. Critic Maxwell Geismar called it "a beautiful prose poem", editor Franklin Walker said that it "belongs on a shelf with Walden and Huckleberry Finn", and novelist E. L. Doctorow called it "a mordant parable … his masterpiece". Nevertheless, as Dale L. Walker {Link without Title} commented: :Jack London was an uncomfortable novelist, that form too long for his natural impatience and the quickness of his mind. His novels, even the best of them, are hugely flawed. It is often observed his novels are episodic and resemble a linked series of short stories. Walker writes: : The Star Rover , that magnificent experiment, is actually a series of short stories connected by a unifying device … Smoke Bellew is a series of stories bound together in a novel-like form by their reappearing protagonist, Kit Bellew; and '' John Barleycorn '' … is a synoptic series of short episodes. Even '' The Call Of The Wild '', which Walker calls a "long short story", is picaresque or episodic. In addition to '' The Call Of The Wild '', '' The Sea-Wolf '', '' The Iron Heel '' and '' Martin Eden '' are widely admired. Ambrose Bierce said of '' The Sea-Wolf '' that "the great thing—and it is among the greatest of things—is that tremendous creation, Wolf Larsen … the hewing out and setting up of such a figure is enough for a man to do in one lifetime." However, many agree with Bierce that "The love element, with its absurd suppressions, and impossible proprieties, is awful." The Iron Heel is interesting as an example of a Dystopian novel which anticipates and influenced George Orwell 's '' Nineteen Eighty-Four ''. Jack London's socialist politics are explicitly on display here. Its description of the capitalist class forming an organised, Totalitarian , violent Oligarchy to crush the working-class forewarned in some detail the Fascist dictatorships of Europe. Given it was written in 1908, this prediction was somewhat uncanny, as Trotsky noted while commenting on the book in the 30s. '' Martin Eden '' is a novel about a struggling young writer with a very strong resemblance to Jack London. Nonfiction and autobiographical memoirs He was a commissioned to write '' The People Of The Abyss '' (1903), an investigation into the slum conditions in which the poor lived in the capital of the British empire. London did not write favorably about London. ''The Road'' (1907) is a series of tales and reminiscences of Jack London's hobo days. It relates the tricks that hoboes used to evade train crews, and reminisces about his travels with Kelly's Army. He credits his story-telling skill to the hobo's necessity of concocting tales to coax meals from sympathetic strangers. Jack London's autobiographical book of "alcoholic memoirs", '' John Barleycorn '', was published in 1913. Recommended by Alcoholics Anonymous , it depicts the outward and inward life of an alcoholic. The passages depicting his interior mental state, which he called the "White Logic", are among his strongest and most evocative writing. The question must, however, be raised: is it truly against alcohol, or a love hymn to alcohol? He makes alcohol sound exciting, dangerous, comradely, glamorous, manly. In the end, when he sums it up, this is the total he comes up with:
''The Cruise of the Snark'' (1913) is a memoir of Jack and Charmian London 's 1907-1909 voyage across the Pacific. His descriptions of " Surf-riding ", which he dubbed a "royal sport", helped introduce it to and popularize it with the mainland. London writes:
Apocrypha Jack London Credo Jack London's Literary Executor , Irving Shepard , quoted a "Jack London Credo" in an introduction to a 1956 collection of Jack London stories: :I would rather be ashes than dust! :I would rather that my spark should burn out in a brilliant blaze than it should be stifled by dry-rot. :I would rather be a superb meteor, every atom of me in magnificent glow, than a sleepy and permanent planet. :The function of man is to live, not to exist. :I shall not waste my days trying to prolong them. :I shall use my time. Clarice Stasz notes that the passage "has many marks of London's style". Shepard did not cite a source. The words he quotes appeared in a story in the San Francisco Bulletin, December 2, 1916 by Journalist Ernest J. Hopkins, who visited the ranch just weeks before London's death. Stasz notes "Even moreso than today journalists' quotes were unreliable or even sheer inventions" and says no direct source in London's writings has been found. The phrase "I would rather be ashes than dust" appears in an inscription he wrote in an autograph book. In the short story “By The Turtles of Tasman,” a character, defending her ne’er-do-well grasshopperish father to her antlike uncle, says: “ … my father has been a king. He has lived …. Have you lived merely to live? Are you afraid to die? I’d rather sing one wild song and burst my heart with it, than live a thousand years watching my digestion and being afraid of the wet. When you are dust, my father will be ashes." The Scab A short diatribe on "The Scab" is often quoted within the labor movement and frequently attributed to Jack London. It opens:
This does not seem to appear in his published work. He once gave a speech entitled "The Scab" "The Scab" , speech given to the Oakland Socialist Party Local on April 5 , 1903 ; also in Pizer (1982) p. 1121which he published in his book ''The War of the Classes,'' but this speech contains nothing similar to the "rattlesnake, toad, and vampire" quotation and is completely different from it in content, style, and tone. Generally Jack London did ''not'' use demotic language in his writing except in dialogue spoken by his characters. One online source, no longer accessible, gave a chain of citations which credits the diatribe as having been published in The Bridgeman, official organ of the Structural Iron Workers, which in turned credited the Elevator Constructor, official journal of the International Union of Elevator Constructors, which credited the Oregon Labor Press as publishing it in 1926. Might is Right Anton LaVey 's Church of Satan claims that " Ragnar Redbeard ", pseudonymous author of the 1896 book Might Is Right , was Jack London. No London biographers mention any such possibility. B. Traven During the 1930s, the enigmatic novelist B. Traven , best known in the U. S. as the author of The Treasure Of The Sierra Madre , was hailed as "the German Jack London". His politics, themes, writing style, and settings really do bear a recognizable resemblance to Jack London's. Traven kept his identity secret during his life. Almost every commentator on Traven mentions in passing a fanciful speculation Traven actually was Jack London, who presumably would have had to have faked his own death. It is not clear whether this suggestion was ever made seriously. No London biographer has even bothered to mention it. The identification of Traven with London is one of many such speculations—another unlikely one being Ambrose Bierce—which were laid to rest by a 1990 interview in which Traven's widow identified Traven as Ret Marut, a left-wing revolutionary in Germany during World War I. REFERENCES AND OTHER SOURCES Sources |