logo
Wrong email address or username
Wrong email address or username
Incorrect verification code
back to top
Search tags: jack-london
Load new posts () and activity
Like Reblog Comment
review 2020-05-20 19:31
The Call Of The Wild by Jack London
The Call of the Wild/White Fang - Jack London
Wow!
I went through so many emotions while listening to this audiobook.
I was outraged at the abuse that occurred throughout. I was excited by the perseverance of the animals. I was saddened with each death. I was elated when freedom reigned.
I now know why this is such an acclaimed classic story.
It's brilliant!
It really takes you through it all, on each step of this cold journey. You really feel a sense of what it could have been like at that time, in that place.
Now I look forward to seeing the film. I have heard mixed reviews but love drawing my own conclusions. I suggest you forget whatever you may or may not have heard and do the same for yourself.
 
 
Source: www.fredasvoice.com/2020/05/the-call-of-wild-by-jack-london-30.html
Like Reblog Comment
show activity (+)
review 2019-06-29 17:42
John Barleycorn, Jack London
John Barleycorn: Alcoholic Memoirs - Jack London,John Sutherland

This isn't an autobiography in the conventional sense. It's clearly and openly a Prohibitionist tract, published seven years before Prohibition came to pass. It just so happens that London chose his own drinking career to illustrate his argument. Hence, those looking for the story of Jack's life may be very frustrated as he ignores the details of his many adventures in favour of describing his many bouts of binge drinking and his slow descent into alcoholism (though he never admits to being an alcoholic - a mixture of macho pride and the era's poor understanding of addiction preventing).

 

Macho pride is a prominent, almost defining aspect of London's character, in fact. Despite writing of the evils of alcohol, he can't help repeatedly emphasising how his "superior constitution" allowed him to out drink nigh everybody he ever met and recover faster, too. Or do two men's work in the coal house of the electrical station, or carry more than the indigenous porters in the Yukon, or...the examples are numerous. Exactly how much exageration is going on here is hard to say, essentially unprovable. Nor did his pride limit itself to his physical prowess. He doesn't mind boasting about how he crammed two years' worth of high school in 6 months and passed the entry exams for the University of California, or how prodigiusly he read. Here the facts can be established because of the paper record: Not only did he make it to the Uni, his one semester there was an academic success, recording no grades below "B". His library was extant at his death and he used to scribble marginal notes, so it's easy to tell which books were used. Additionally, the references in his own books provide further evidence.

 

So whilst the reader won't learn more than the bare outline of London's life, there are character insights aplenty and if you want to see the social reasons for many a binge and many an insidious descent into addiction, from personal experience, here is as well-writed example as I can imagine.

 

It's a lively read, as compelling as any London fiction story or novel I've read (which is most of the major works, by now). Indeed, his second wife, Charmain, claimed it was fiction, alcoholism being extremely scandalous at the time - but the evidence doesn't back anything more than possible exageration of some of the binging episodes.

Clever as he was, though, London got the psychology of booze wrong in this regard: He thought Prohibition would work, that a generation would grow up without alcohol and never miss what they never had. Instead it was 13 years of the worst alcohol driven excesses in American history, driven by organised crime and the allure of the forbidden. He died before he saw himself proved wrong, though.

Like Reblog Comment
review 2019-02-26 16:20
The God of his Fathers, Jack London
God of His Fathers - Jack London

An amusing selection of London's Klondyke tales, surprisingly varied in terms of plot and character.

Like Reblog Comment
review 2018-12-05 17:35
The Scarlet Plague - Gordon Grant,Jack London

 

That was a depressing little story.

 

According to Jack London, the end of civilization comes in 2013 on the a wave of a plague no one catches in time.

 

The story is told by a survivor 60 years later, in California, where the survivors grouped up into tribes from Santa Rosa to San Francisco, with some scattered farther south if my geography is correct without looking at a map.  (my geography and spatial locations is horrible, so don't quote me on that LOL)  

 

I lived in the area for a time, so a lot of the place names were familiar.  Places I've been to, some I lived in or right next to.  I'm trying to picture Niles with no people, Hayward as farmland, and no Fremont.  Palo Alto as a small community, and the San Joaquin valley now full of horses.  Carmel as an after thought. 

 

None of the sprawl that connects most of the cities and towns in the area between Oakland San Jose.

Like Reblog Comment
review 2018-09-09 19:57
Review: The Call of the Wild
The Call of the Wild - Jack London

When I see a dog turn a phrase far better than I can and wax philosophical about matters I've barely pondered, I can't help but think that modern public schooling has failed me. Buck, protagonist of The Call of the Wild, is one smart dog. He's smarter than me. Just think of what a cat could create.

I remember that once upon a time I was fascinated by Jack London. I was that age—probably 9 or 10 or thereabout. I had a copy of The Call of the Wild, maybe White Fang. I'm pretty sure I saw a movie or two, but I don't recall now what London titles they may have been. I think I tried to give The Call of the Wild a read, but I honestly wasn't much of a classics reader at that time in my life. I enjoyed reading, but only simple books that pulled me in. Looking back, I can see why it's unlikely I made it past page ten—this book is full of dense exposition and vocabulary that even a dictionary wouldn't have helped illuminate when I was that age.

These days, my forays into reading are largely planned out far in advance. I have to-read lists and schedules, titles I plan on reading during certain times of the year. Books I must finish before I read others. I'm not obsessive with too many things in life, but I can be that way when it comes to books. Slowly, I'm trying to add a little spontaneity to my reading. That's exactly how my engagement with The Call of the Wild came about. I woke one morning without the slightest intention of getting around to this novel in this lifetime, and by evening I was halfway through it.

I don't know that I really have much to say about this novel. It's difficult to articulate my feelings about a story that's best quality is my own personal nostalgia. Would I have loved this story had I never encountered it before? Probably not. It's adventure-based, dense, and it holds some archaic thoughts that are off-putting regarding the treatment of animals, as well as various stereotypes humans held of one another at the time. Further, it certainly doesn't help that in my adulthood, I've realized I am much more of a cat person. Perhaps my greatest barrier to truly enjoying this story is the animal perspective. Chalk that one up to my own lack of imagination; it's a struggle for me to get behind a non-human narrator with a human-like perspective.

Even so, I enjoyed this novel. The transformation of Buck may be obvious from the first chapter, but seeing it play out is captivating. This is a classic adventure. It has enthralled many, particularly children, for over a hundred years. In the same way that the lamppost in the forest of Narnia pulls me completely into that novel, so does Buck bounding back to John Thornton. Its simple nostalgia, but its something I cannot ignore.

More posts
Your Dashboard view:
Need help?