JACK LONDON]
_Jack London_
FOUR
Jack London’s stories were written largely out of his own life. If theywere not actual experiences cast in fiction form, they were narrativesspun out of the fiber of his own experiences. Life was never certainfor London. He was always on the go, and his life was an ever vigorous,vital _present_, with the future undetermined and unguessed. He wasborn in San Francisco on January 12, 1876. When he was eleven yearsold he left his ranch in the Livermore Valley and set out to satisfyhis longing for a knowledge of the world and an expression of himself.He first went to Oakland, where, in the public library, he came underthe romantic influence of such fiction writers as Washington Irving,Ouida and others. Out of Irving’s “Alhambra” he built castles inthe air for himself, and launched upon a great literary career witha strong under-current of romance and an irresistible longing foradventure. He left home and joined the oyster pirates in San FranciscoBay. Then, tiring of the excitement of piracy, he turned with equalenthusiasm to the prosecution of it by joining the Fish Patrol, andwas entrusted with the arrest of some who were his former comrades.Thrilling accounts of this life appeared under the title of “Talesof a Fish Patrol.” In them is a wild buccaneer spirit, and the savorof the sea. Those of us that read the “Sea Wolf” can find there apassionate expression of the author’s own experiences before the mastwhile seal hunting in Behring Sea or along the coast of Japan. It isfull of strong appealing character and strange sea lore. The same wildbreath of adventure is to be found in “The Mutiny of the Elsinore,” inwhich London describes thrilling experiences in a trip around the Horn.London was a worker, and labored hard among the rougher elements oflife--with longshoremen and shovellers in San Francisco; in factoriesand on the decks of coastwise vessels. He was as good a tramp, too,as he was a laboring man. He walked the Continent over from ocean toocean, gathering the materials for a “vast understanding of the commonman.” Out of these experiences came “The Road,” which is an appealingrecord of sympathy with the vagrant poor, and an absorbing narrative ofadventurous journeying.
London tried schooling at different times in his early life, workingbetween hours to pay for his education. After several months of stern,hard application, in which he covered about three years’ preparatorywork, he entered the University of California. The strain, however, ofwork and study combined was too much for him, and after three monthshe had to give up. Turning to things quite different, and with adesperate hope that he might find fresh inspiration in a new kind oflife, he set off for the widely advertised Klondike to seek for gold.In the Klondike “nobody talks; everybody thinks; you get your trueperspective; I got mine,” he says. After a year of hard toil in thenorth, London returned home and assumed the burden of supporting hisfamily, his father having died while he was away. He wrote story uponstory, and finally gained acceptance and success. As book after bookcame out, the public grew to know and recognize Jack London as one ofthe strongest figures in American fiction.
He passed away on November 22, 1916, in the full swing of hisintellectual vigor, and it will be long before his splendid achievementis forgotten, or the last of his books is consigned to the high shelvesthat spell oblivion. No matter how sparing one may be in the use ofthe word genius, for him it could be claimed. His name is one of thefew among those of the writing men of our time with which the magicword is, without hesitation, to be linked. There was genius in hisinvention, in his imagery, in his nervous style. To him was given toknow the moods of Arctic wastes and California valleys. The strugglesof his own soul and mind and body he dissected and portrayed in“Martin Eden” (1909) and “John Barleycorn” (1913). He was practicallythe only American writer to invade magnificently the prize-ring as afield for romantic narrative. Its seamy side, its sordid corruption,its driftage, as well as its brutal heroism, are reflected in suchtales as “The Game,” “The Abysmal Brute,” “The Shadow and the Flash,”and “The Mexican.” “The Call of the Wild” (1903) challenges the verybest dog-stories of all time. “The Sea Wolf” (1904) is an epic of saltbrine, and creaking rigging, and man’s inhumanity to man, and the“blond masters of the world.” There followed “Burning Daylight” (1910),and “The Valley of the Moon” (1913), and “The Mutiny of the Elsinore”(1914), which is “The Sea Wolf” “in a lower key,” and “The Strength ofthe Strong” (1914), and a dozen more. Whatever the field, there was asureness of touch, and a power of graphic description that made the manalways a figure and a force.
The Mentor: Makers of American Fiction, Vol. 6, Num. 14, Serial No. 162, September 1, 1918 Page 5
