Jack London Books

Kids ages 13 and older will find this an excellent research and study guide to the short stories of Jack London. Almost 90 pages cover the plots and criticism of four selected London stories, providing a blend of cross-criticism of London's various works and insights on London's methods. Highly recommended.

The dog-sled dustjacket is from the 1980 Castle edition.
There is an introduction by Russ Kingman. The stories are printed in two columns per page. Many b&w illus.

I have always been a Jack London fan. However, every one of his stories has long since been read and reread by me and millions of others out there. Now, we have something new to hold onto, even if it is for just a short time. Thank you Gary and Tom for giving me Jack London once again. Perhaps one of you could sign the book for me sometime. What a pleasure. Thank you for intriguing mind-blowing stories. Jack grabs you once again and throws you, (not takes you,) into the very heart of the story.

Gold was found in Alaska, the rush to obtain it required a strong constitution and many dogs to do the work that horses usually did in the states. The environment bread harsh attitudes. Also in the testing of ones mettle one finds their true potential.

Buck (a dog that is half St Bernard and half Shepherd) goes through many lives, trials, and tribulations finally realizing his potential. On the way he learns many concepts from surprise, to deceit, and cunning; he also learns loyalty, devotion, and love. As he is growing he feels the call of the wild.

This book is well written. There is not a wasted word or thought and the story while building on its self has purpose and direction. The descriptions may be a tad graphic for the squeamish and a tad sentimental for the romantic. You see the world through Buck's eyes and understand it through his perspective until you also feel the call of the wild.

The fourteen essays that make up Doctorow's book range in concept from discussionsof the lifes of authors which were the stuff of myths to the lives of politicians who were trying to create myths in their own names, from Thoreau's WALDEN to Orwell's 1984. These and the others all fit into a theme that Doctorow calls "presumptive nationalism."

The essay that I find most interesting is entitled "Commencement," and is,in fact, the Commencement Address that Doctorow delivered to the Brandeis University graduating class of 1989. A theme in the address is taken from Sherwood Anderson and Doctorow refers to it as "the theory of grotesques." It goes something like this: The world is filled with many truths to live by, and they are all beautiful. Two that he first mentions are the truth of thrift and the truth of self reliance. There is a problem, however, when one of these truths is grabbed up and made into a cause to the exclusion of all other truths.

Take thrift for instance: It is a good thing to be thrifty, and work hard, and scrimp and save in order to get a college education. You've done well. But if, later in life, long after it's necessary, you continue to deny yourself and those close to you, until the act of hoarding becomes an end unto itself, your thrift has become a lie. You've become a miser. You've become a grotesque.

Or take the truth of self-reliance: Doctorow states that it is undeniably beautiful. Self-reliance was the truth that underlay the whole Reagan Administration. In the name of rugged individualism and self-reliance, the truths of community and moral responsibility towards those with lesser advantages were forgotten. In the name of self-reliance, school lunch programs were halted, legal services for the poor, psychologocal counseling for Viet Nam veterans and Social Security payments for the handicapped, among many social programs, were taken away. The philosophy that this engendered has caused hundreds of thousands to suffer. Doctorow believes that much of the homeless problem that we see on the streets of our cities, and the rapid increase of drug sales, among other ills, can be directly traced to the advocacy of the truth of self reliance to the exclusion of other truths. This has certainly become a political philosophy of the grotesque.

In a way, concentrating on just one aspect of one essay does this book a real disservice, but there is just so much food for the brain here that I felt I had no other option. To get even an inkling of the connections between poets and presidents, between literature and lyrics, and between aspects of 19th and 20th century American life as Doctorow means for us to do, the book must be read in its entirety. That's exactly what I recommend.

Hodson and Reesman have put together an exciting collection of new essays on London. I learned from every one of them. The introduction is great and I especially liked the group of essays on MARTIN EDEN. It's also a beautifully made book by the Huntington Library.

This is one of Wallace's extraordinary thrillers with an over the top villain. The unctuous master criminal Colonel Boundary. The Colonel receives an envelope in the mail that contains a playing card, knave of clubs and wrote on it Jack o'Judgment. Stafford King had devoted his time to smashing the Colonel's gang. The Colonel was accused of robbing a merchant of sixty thousand pounds by means of card tricks. Cocaine, dope fiends, gambling, show girls, and stage-door Johnnies add tricky obstacles and frightening drama. The action is fast paced and justice is done.

Jack London is the author that I admire the most among the American authors and this memoir, like his other works I read, gave me great reading pleasure. His life started in poverty, he lived a life of struggle and adventure, alcohol was always present as he grew up, and he felt obliged to drink to fit in the macho social environment, eventually developing a heavy drinking habit. In John Barleycorn he tells his story honestly, he describes the surroundings and characters around him beautifully, and especially his psychological descriptions are superb. In one part, while he was drunk and going by himself on a sloop at night, he falls in the water and he describes how all of a sudden he found himself thinking about committing suicide:

"Thoughts of suicide had never entered my head. And now that they entered, I thought it fine, a splendid culmination, a perfect rounding off of my short but exciting career. I, who had never known a girl's love, nor woman's love, nor the love of children; who had never played in the wide joy-fields of art, nor climbed the star-cool heights of philosophy, nor seen with my eyes more than a pin-point's surface of the gorgeous world; I decided that this was all, that I had seen all, lived all, been all, that was worth while, and that now was the time to cease.....The water was delicious. It was a man's way to die. It was a hero's death, and by the hero's own hand and will."

Such is the depth of his character descriptions, such is the way he reflects the mood beautifully. A "must read".

Jack London is the author that I admire the most among the American authors and this memoir, like his other works I read, gave me great reading pleasure. His life started in poverty, he lived a life of struggle and adventure, alcohol was always present as he grew up, and he felt obliged to drink to fit in the macho social environment, eventually developing a heavy drinking habit. In John Barleycorn he tells his story honestly, he describes the surroundings and characters around him beautifully, and especially his psychological descriptions are superb. In one part, while he was drunk and going by himself on a sloop at night, he falls in the water and he describes how all of a sudden he found himself thinking about committing suicide:

"Thoughts of suicide had never entered my head. And now that they entered, I thought it fine, a splendid culmination, a perfect rounding off of my short but exciting career. I, who had never known a girl's love, nor woman's love, nor the love of children; who had never played in the wide joy-fields of art, nor climbed the star-cool heights of philosophy, nor seen with my eyes more than a pin-point's surface of the gorgeous world; I decided that this was all, that I had seen all, lived all, been all, that was worth while, and that now was the time to cease.....The water was delicious. It was a man's way to die. It was a hero's death, and by the hero's own hand and will."

Such is the depth of his character descriptions, such is the way he reflects the mood beautifully. A "must read".

Jack London is the author that I admire the most among the American authors and this memoir, like his other works I read, gave me great reading pleasure. His life started in poverty, he lived a life of struggle and adventure, alcohol was always present as he grew up, and he felt obliged to drink to fit in the macho social environment, eventually developing a heavy drinking habit. In John Barleycorn he tells his story honestly, he describes the surroundings and characters around him beautifully, and especially his psychological descriptions are superb. In one part, while he was drunk and going by himself on a sloop at night, he falls in the water and he describes how all of a sudden he found himself thinking about committing suicide:

"Thoughts of suicide had never entered my head. And now that they entered, I thought it fine, a splendid culmination, a perfect rounding off of my short but exciting career. I, who had never known a girl's love, nor woman's love, nor the love of children; who had never played in the wide joy-fields of art, nor climbed the star-cool heights of philosophy, nor seen with my eyes more than a pin-point's surface of the gorgeous world; I decided that this was all, that I had seen all, lived all, been all, that was worth while, and that now was the time to cease.....The water was delicious. It was a man's way to die. It was a hero's death, and by the hero's own hand and will."

Such is the depth of his character descriptions, such is the way he reflects the mood beautifully. A "must read".