I've been getting ready to review this novel for a long time. I'm trying to figure it out and still can't make up my mind. Well... In my opinion. This novel is about education. Father and son. About "finishing a puppy like a captain."
Unsuccessful.Have you noticed, no - Captain Larsen asks Hamp all the time? Show, tell, prove. Convince that what you believe in is the truth, and your deeds are correct. But Hamp can’t convince. It’s not that his actions don’t match his words. He doesn't even have his own words. All borrowed... “We knocked out the nonsense of brochures and newspapers, and books, and the absurd draft, And a lot of stolen souls, but we can’t find his soul! We rolled him, we shook him, we tortured him with fire, And, if necessary an inspection was made, the soul is not in it! What exactly does Captain Larsen like from his vast, disorderly reading? The Bible and Kipling. Not like that bad choice. Quite, I would say, tasteful. Omar Khayyam, whom he understands more deeply and better than the literary critic Hamp. Would Larsen fit into an intellectual company? Yes. He knows how to think, knows how to understand, knows how to express his thoughts... and even almost masters Socratic dialogue. You just need to add some “baggage”. Read a lot of texts and expand your vocabulary. What exactly does Hamp like about sea life? What is he, in fact, able to notice in her in order to properly evaluate? The skill of navigation, the virtuoso skill of Captain Larsen? Yeah, shazzz... Excellent seaworthiness of the ship... to enjoy it, man understanding ready to risk your life? Well... The calm courage of the sailors - “the sailor sleeps, fenced off from death with a half-inch board”? No... Everything is rough, everything is dirty, everything is tough, everything is animals, let me go, I want to go to my mother... Is Hamp able to fit into the society of “people of action”? And did this sea voyage change Hampa? In my opinion, no. Not a bit. Just as he had the “desperate courage of a coward” at the beginning, so it remained with him until the very end of the book. Just as he lived by someone else's mind and was moved by someone else's influence, so until the very end he needs someone else's will in order to perform some actions. First Charlie Faraseth, then Captain Larsen, then Maud Brewster. If it weren’t for her, he would obediently, like soft plasticine, accept what the captain sculpted from him. And if he is not pushed from the outside, he is ready to give up any business at any stage. Exchange civilization for the little world of a cat slayer, stay forever on desert island, abandon the masts in the ocean... And just as he stood at the beginning of the novel, in the words of Captain Larsen, “on the feet of dead men,” so he does it at the end. He navigates the ship using the invention of the late captain. Unless he “gained some baggage” - he became physically stronger and learned a trade. But this is still not enough for catharsis. And he doesn't understand, doesn't understand, doesn't understand Captain Larsen. ...And the captain sees right through him. He sees and... is disappointed. So he checks (by provocation, all the time he arranges “sea trials”, a test by action) - who he is in himself, this gentleman, for whom Captain Larsen risked the ship, stopping and turning it around in a difficult situation, in the fog, in the crowd of other ships, in the narrowness of the Golden Gate and against the ebb, which, as it was said, “breaks” in them? It’s not so easy to pick up this Hump from the water... And how inconsistent this action of Captain Larsen in relation to himself is with the constant Hamp refrain “monster”... For a minute, then there was a full complement of crew on board and as a “couple” replacement hands" Hamp was in no way required. On the contrary, it represented an “extra mouth” for the not particularly unlimited ship supplies. It is pure altruism that he was saved. Well, maybe it’s also the captain’s desire to oppose his will to the forces of nature and win this round against them... And who did he pick? A coward? A nervous rat? It seems so. But maybe at least a smart rat? With whom do you have something to talk about? Ah... not particularly smart. Hamp's interpretations do not change Captain Larsen's worldview. He doesn't hit him with anything. Unless he began to use it as a walking collection of quotes. A kind of textbook. Hamp is good to quote, but not to interpret. But maybe he is at least fit to feel - not only hunger and anger, but beauty? Guys, the combination of Kipling's poems and a ship on the ocean brought tears to my eyes... and Hamp was "surprised." That's all. And then - past...
"...let me enjoy the Hunt for my neighbors. Yes, spying on souls, persecuting people, the Hunt for my neighbors." Follow human soul and change human soul- more exciting than facing a hurricane almost alone (with such pitiful help as Hamp and Mugridge). Why is Captain Larsen so intensely “getting to the bottom” of Hamp? Maybe this is a kind of refraction of the need for fatherhood. Or maybe an attempt to “find our own.” Or maybe forge a suitable physical shell for the intellect... just as Larsen himself forged for years for his physical fitness mental content worthy of it. Or maybe all at once. This is not clear from the text, so I leave it as speculation - outside the brackets. But it’s obvious that the novel is about education? How do they change... how do they raise a man? Business. By power. And a woman. ...Hamp "plus or minus" has mastered the matter. At the instigation and under the prodding of Captain Larsen. He is endowed with power from the same master's shoulder... and he does not know how to power, does not know, does not want. And the woman... Maude Brewster turned up very well, and Captain Larsen uses her in his remake of Hamp. What, does he really need her as such? Where does he “love” her? Or at least “wants”? He teases her. For show. "I'll take it! I'll bite it! And eat it)))!" The object of his interest and the point of his application of forces is Hamp. ...In general, it is not clear where Hamp got the idea that the “love fire, burning and imperious” in the captain’s eyes “attracted and conquered women, forcing them to surrender enthusiastically, joyfully and selflessly”? What we see is a male brotherhood. Without women, without even talking about women. No wives, no children. Those love successes of Captain Larsen that we know about - the kidnapping of two Japanese women, committed against their will and for a short time... and the horror and disgust of Maud Brewster. The powerful love fire is good))). ...Yes, he doesn’t seem to need this... From the point of view of Captain Larsen, it seemed to me that to be a man means to be ready to fight for your place in the sun and to kill the one who is trying to kill you. ...Only the one who is trying to kill you. ...But such a thing - without hesitation. ...This same cabin boy Leach, whom I feel sorry for, was the first to start the hunt for the captain. He was simply beaten. And he began to kill. Persistently and more than once. Who noticed that this couple, Leach and Johnson, killed the assistant? All the same, he was a bastard, that’s the way to go, don’t you feel sorry for him, from Hamp’s point of view? I feel sorry for Leach, but not for Johansen... And he was also drowned... And why did Leach change his last name and age, which is why he fled to the sea - was it not from the gallows for a crime committed on the shore? The law of this pack is to kill the one who encroaches on you. Or he will kill you. They, these guys, are like that before Larsen and besides Larsen. ...But, from Hamp’s point of view, only Larsen is to blame for this... So, it seems to me, from the position of this worldview, Larsen is trying to make a man out of Hamp. The same man as himself. And he can't do it. Everyone stayed to their own. In this rock-solid clash of two worldviews, neither was able to convince the other. And at the same time, no one was able to clearly formulate why his point of view was correct. ...The writers and intellectuals Maud and Hamp successfully took their chance to explore the unknown side of existence and replenish their creative reserves with unique human types. All these are for creative people turned out to be able to approach a new phenomenon with the old standard. Is Captain Larsen similar to what they already know? And when they saw that they didn’t look like him, they got scared and ran away. Larsen in this sense - within the novel - is not only “one of these seeds”, but also “a stone rejected by the builders.” Luckily for us as readers, the novel is not autobiographical, and Jack London is not Hamp. ...Although sometimes it seemed to me that the 28-year-old author could not cope with the material... ...He was simply afraid of the intensity of the plot. Those dramatic turns in which he would have been drawn if he had allowed the characters to reveal themselves to their full potential. Without "Deus ex machina". Without the artificial “suppression” of Captain Larsen by an illness that appeared from nowhere and the artificial “pumping” of Hamp by a love that appeared from nowhere. ...The potential of the story would be, in my opinion - or Captain Larsen's attempt to break the existing public relations... or his final disappointment in what he “pushed” himself into with all his strength since adolescence... and books are decay, and intellectuals are nonentities... abandonment of his ideals - and of part of his personality.. . and truly Shakespearean passions could unfold there. Well, where, at 28 years old, should one begin to describe the mental turmoil of a character who is older than you, more experienced and in every sense stronger... ...The story "Northern Odyssey" - later " Sea wolf" - then "Martin Eden". Not twists on the same theme from different angles?..
As for Captain Larsen's demonstrative "disbelief". Is it possible to assume that a person who quotes the Bible in relation to himself simultaneously denies God and religious postulates? How can you say about yourself “I am one of these seeds” if you do not take the Gospel seriously? And wouldn’t it be logical for an atheist, whose life is only “here”, and the value of life is only as a “leaven”, to end up committing suicide in this situation? Is it only a Christian who humbly endures what God sends him? Blindness, gradual paralysis, extinction without hope?.. But is such a “pathetic worm like Hamp” worthy of Larsen baring his soul to him... is he worthy of a serious conversation on such an intimate topic? If in debates about sociology and literature Hamp cannot evaluate his opponent’s train of thought and cannot find arguments, what good can be expected from him in discussing metaphysics? So it will remain before Hamp... and before us... in this sense, irony and a mask.
Something like this.
And a little more Kipling. "And make a place for Reuben Paine that knows the fight was fair, And leave the two that did the wrong to talk it over there!" ...But what do we have if one “fought honestly and was buried in the coastal sand”, and the second left alive and well?...
Review within the framework of the game "Man and Woman".
Very briefly: A hunting schooner led by a smart, cruel captain picks up a drowning writer after a shipwreck. The hero goes through a series of trials, strengthening his spirit, but without losing his humanity along the way.
Literary critic Humphrey van Weyden (the novel was written on his behalf) is shipwrecked on his way to San Francisco. A drowning man is picked up by the ship "Ghost", heading to Japan to hunt seals.
The navigator dies before Humphrey's eyes: before sailing, he went on a heavy binge, and they could not bring him to his senses. The ship's captain, Wolf Larsen, is left without an assistant. He orders the body of the deceased to be thrown overboard. He prefers to replace the words from the Bible necessary for burial with the phrase: “And the remains will be lowered into the water.”
The captain's face gives the impression of "terrible, crushing mental or spiritual power." He invites van Weyden, a pampered gentleman living off his family's fortune, to become a cabin boy. Watching the captain's reprisal against the young cabin boy George Leach, who refused to advance to the rank of sailor, Humphrey, not accustomed to brute force, submits to Larsen.
Van Weyden receives the nickname Hump and works in the galley with cook Thomas Mugridge. The cook, who had previously fawned over Humphrey, is now rude and cruel. For their mistakes or insubordination, the entire crew receives beatings from Larsen, and Humphrey also gets beaten.
Soon van Weyden reveals a different side to the captain: Larsen reads books - he educates himself. They often have conversations about law, ethics and the immortality of the soul, which Humphrey believes in, but which Larsen denies. The latter considers life a struggle, “the strong devour the weak in order to maintain their strength.”
For special attention Larsen's cook gets even angrier towards Humphrey. He constantly sharpens a knife on the cabin boy in the galley, trying to intimidate Van Weyden. He admits to Larsen that he is afraid, to which the captain remarks mockingly: “How can this be, ...after all, you will live forever? You are a god, and a god cannot be killed.” Then Humphrey borrows a knife from the sailor and also begins to sharpen it demonstratively. Mugridge offers peace and since then behaves with the critic even more obsequiously than with the captain.
In the presence of van Weyden, the captain and the new navigator beat the proud sailor Johnson for his straightforwardness and unwillingness to submit to Larsen's brutal whims. Leach bandages Johnson's wounds and calls Wolf a murderer and a coward in front of everyone. The crew is frightened by his courage, but Humphrey is admired by Leach.
Soon the navigator disappears at night. Humphrey sees Larsen climb onto the ship from overboard with a bloody face. He goes to the forecastle where the sailors sleep to find the culprit. Suddenly they attack Larsen. After numerous beatings, he manages to escape from the sailors.
The captain appoints Humphrey as navigator. Now everyone must call him "Mr. van Weyden." He successfully uses the advice of sailors.
The relationship between Leach and Larsen is becoming increasingly strained. The captain considers Humphrey a coward: his morals are on the side of the noble Johnson and Leach, but instead of helping them kill Larsen, he remains on the sidelines.
Boats from the “Ghost” go to sea. The weather changes suddenly and a storm breaks out. Thanks to Wolf Larsen's seamanship, almost all the boats are saved and returned to the ship.
Suddenly, Leach and Johnson disappear. Larsen wants to find them, but instead of the fugitives, the crew notices a boat with five passengers. There is a woman among them.
Suddenly, Johnson and Leach are spotted at sea. The amazed van Weyden promises Larsen to kill him if the captain starts torturing the sailors again. Wolf Larsen promises not to lay a finger on them. The weather gets worse, and the captain plays with them while Leach and Johnson desperately fight the elements. Finally they are overturned by a wave.
The rescued woman earns her own living, which delights Larsen. Humphrey recognizes her as the writer Maud Brewster, and she realizes that van Weyden is a critic who flatteringly reviewed her works.
Mugridge becomes Larsen's new victim. The cook is tied to a rope and plunged into the sea. The shark bites off his foot. Maude reproaches Humphrey for inaction: he did not even try to stop the bullying of the cook. But the navigator explains that in this floating world there is no right, in order to survive, there is no need to argue with the monster captain.
Maude is a "fragile, ethereal creature, slender, with flexible movements." She has the correct oval face brown hair and expressive brown eyes. Watching her conversation with the captain, Humphrey catches a warm glint in Larsen's eyes. Now Van Weyden understands how dear Miss Brewster is to him.
The "Ghost" meets at sea with the "Macedonia" - the ship of Wolf's brother, Death-Larsen. The brother carries out a maneuver and leaves the Ghost hunters without prey. Larsen implements a cunning plan of revenge and takes his brother’s sailors onto his ship. "Macedonia" gives chase, but "Ghost" disappears into the fog.
In the evening, Humphrey sees Captain Maud struggling in the arms. Suddenly he lets go: Larsen has a headache. Humphrey wants to kill the captain, but Miss Brewster stops him. At night, the two of them leave the ship.
A few days later, Humphrey and Maud reach the Island of Effort. There are no people there, only a seal rookery. The fugitives have huts on the island - they will have to spend the winter here; they cannot reach the shore by boat.
One morning, van Weyden discovers the “Ghost” near the shore. There is only the captain on it. Humphrey does not dare to kill Wolf: morality is stronger than him. His entire crew was lured away by Death-Larsen, offering a higher payment. Van Weyden soon realizes that Larsen is blind.
Humphrey and Maud decide to repair the broken masts in order to sail away from the island. But Larsen is against it: he will not allow them to rule his ship. Maud and Humphrey work all day, but during the night Wolf destroys everything. They continue restoration work. The captain attempts to kill Humphrey, but Maud saves him by hitting Larsen with a club. He has a seizure, first the right side is taken away, and then the left side.
The "Ghost" hits the road. Wolf Larsen dies. Van Weyden sends his body into the sea with the words: “And the remains will be lowered into the water.”
An American customs ship appears: Maud and Humphrey are rescued. At this moment they declare their love to each other.
CHAPTER ONE
I really don’t know where to start, although sometimes, as a joke, I blame the whole
the blame goes to Charlie Faraseth. He had a summer house in Mill Valley, under the shadow of Mt.
Tamalpais, but he lived there only in the winter, when he wanted to rest and
read Nietzsche or Schopenhauer in your spare time. With the onset of summer he preferred
languish from the heat and dust in the city and work tirelessly. Don't be with me
habit of visiting him every Saturday and staying until Monday, I don’t
would have had to cross San Francisco Bay on that memorable January morning.
It cannot be said that the Martinez on which I sailed was unreliable
by ship; this new ship was already making its fourth or fifth voyage to
crossing between Sausalito and San Francisco. Danger lurked in the thick
fog that shrouded the bay, but I, not knowing anything about navigation, did not
I guessed this. I remember well how calmly and cheerfully I settled down on
the bow of the steamer, on the upper deck, right under the wheelhouse, and the mystery
of the misty veil hanging over the sea little by little took possession of my imagination.
A fresh breeze blew, and for some time I was alone in the damp darkness - however,
not entirely alone, since I vaguely felt the presence of the helmsman and someone else,
apparently the captain, in the glassed-in control room above my head.
I remember thinking how good it was that there was a division
labor and I am not obliged to study fogs, winds, tides and all marine science if
I want to visit a friend who lives on the other side of the bay. It's good that they exist
specialists - the helmsman and the captain, I thought, and their professional knowledge
serve thousands of people who know no more about the sea and navigation than I do.
But I don’t waste my energy on studying many subjects, but I can
focus it on some special issues, for example - for roles
Edgar Poe in history American literature, which, by the way, was
This is the subject of my article published in the latest issue of The Atlantic.
Having boarded the ship and looking into the salon, I noted, not without satisfaction,
that the issue of "Atlantic" in the hands of some portly gentleman was opened as
times on my article. This again reflected the benefits of the division of labor:
the special knowledge of the helmsman and captain was given to the portly gentleman
opportunity - while he was being safely transported by steamer from
Sausalito in San Francisco - see the fruits of my special knowledge
about Poe.
The salon door slammed behind me, and some red-faced man
stomped across the deck, interrupting my thoughts. And I just had time mentally
outline my topic future article, which I decided to call “Necessity
freedom. A word in defense of the artist." The red-faced man glanced at the helmsman
wheelhouse, looked at the fog that surrounded us, hobbled back and forth across the deck
- obviously he had dentures - and stopped next to me, wide
legs apart; Bliss was written on his face.
Novel "Sea Wolf"- one of the most famous “sea” works American writer Jack London. For external features adventure romance in the novel "Sea Wolf" conceals a critique of militant individualism " strong man", his contempt for people, based on blind faith in himself as an exceptional person - a faith that can sometimes cost his life.
Novel "The Sea Wolf" by Jack London was published in 1904. The action of the novel "Sea Wolf" happens in late XIX- early 20th century in the Pacific Ocean. Humphrey Van Weyden, a San Francisco resident and famous literary critic, goes to visit his friend on a ferry across Golden Gate Bay and ends up in a shipwreck. He is saved by the sailors of the "Ghost" boat, led by the captain, whom everyone on board calls Wolf Larsen.
Based on the plot of the novel "Sea Wolf" main character Wolf Larsen, on a small schooner with a crew of 22 people, goes to harvest fur seal skins in the North Pacific Ocean and takes Van Weyden with him, despite his desperate protests. Ship captain Wolf Larson is a tough, strong, uncompromising person. Having become a simple sailor on a ship, Van Weyden has to do all the grunt work, but he can cope with all the difficult trials, he is helped by love in the person of a girl who was also rescued during a shipwreck. Submit on board physical strength and authority Wolf Larsen, the captain immediately punishes him severely for any offense. However, the captain favors Van Weyden, starting with the assistant cook, “Hump” as he nicknamed him Wolf Larsen makes a career up to the position of chief mate, although at first he knows nothing about maritime affairs. Wolf Larsen and Van Weyden find common language in the field of literature and philosophy, which are not alien to them, and the captain has a small library on board, where Van Weyden discovered Browning and Swinburne. And in free time Wolf Lasren optimizes navigation calculations.
The crew of the "Ghost" pursues the Navy SEALs and picks up another company of victims, including a woman - the poet Maude Brewster. At first glance, the hero of the novel "Sea Wolf" Humphrey is attracted to Maud. They decide to escape from the Phantom. Having captured a boat with a small supply of food, they flee, and after several weeks of wandering across the ocean, they find land and land on a small island, which they called the Island of Efforts. Since they have no opportunity to leave the island, they are preparing for a long winter.
The broken schooner "Ghost" is washed up on the island of Efforts, on board of which it turns out Wolf Larsen, blind due to progressive brain disease. According to the story Wolf his crew rebelled against the captain's arbitrariness and fled to another ship to their mortal enemy Wolf Larsen to his brother named Death Larsen, so the “Ghost” with broken masts drifted in the ocean until it washed up on the Island of Effort. By the will of fate, it was on this island that the captain became blind Wolf Larsen discovers the seal rookery he has been looking for all his life. Maud and Humphrey, at the cost of incredible efforts, restore the Phantom in order and take it out to the open sea. Wolf Larsen, who successively loses all his senses after his vision, is paralyzed and dies. At the moment when Maud and Humphrey finally discover a rescue ship in the ocean, they confess their love to each other.
In the novel "Sea Wolf" Jack London demonstrates a perfect knowledge of seamanship, navigation and sailing rigging, which he gleaned from the days when he worked as a sailor on a fishing vessel in his youth. into a novel "Sea Wolf" Jack London invested all his love for the sea element. His landscapes in the novel "Sea Wolf" amaze the reader with the skill of their description, as well as with their truthfulness and magnificence.
Jack London Sea wolf. Stories from the Fishing Patrol
© DepositРhotos.com / Maugli, Antartis, cover, 2015
© Book Club "Club" Family Leisure", edition in Russian, 2015
© Book Club “Family Leisure Club”, translation and artwork, 2015
Wields a sextant and becomes a captain
I managed to save enough money from my earnings to last three years in higher school.
Jack London. Stories from the Fishing Patrol
This book, compiled from the “sea” works of Jack London “The Sea Wolf” and “Tales of the Fishing Patrol”, opens the “Sea Adventures” series. And it is difficult to find a more suitable author for this, who is undoubtedly one of the “three pillars” of world marine studies.
It is necessary to say a few words about the appropriateness of highlighting marine studies in separate genre. I have a suspicion that this is a purely continental habit. It never occurs to the Greeks to call Homer a seascape painter. "Odyssey" - heroic epic. It is difficult to find a work in English literature that does not mention the sea in one way or another. Alistair MacLean is a mystery writer, although almost all of them take place among the waves. The French do not call Jules Verne a marine painter, although a significant part of his books are dedicated to sailors. The public read with equal pleasure not only “The Fifteen-Year-Old Captain,” but also “From the Gun to the Moon.”
And only Russian literary criticism, it seems, just as at one time she put Konstantin Stanyukovich’s books on a shelf with the inscription “marine painting” (by analogy with the artist Aivazovsky), she still refuses to notice other, “land” works of authors who, following the pioneer, fell into this genre. And among the recognized masters of Russian marine painting - Alexey Novikov-Priboi or Viktor Konetsky - you can find wonderful stories, say, about a man and a dog (Konetsky’s works are generally written from the perspective of a boxer dog). Stanyukovich began with plays exposing the sharks of capitalism. But it was his “Sea Stories” that remained in the history of Russian literature.
It was so new, fresh and unlike anything else in XIX literature century, that the public refused to perceive the author in other roles. Thus, the existence of the marine genre in Russian literature is justified by the exotic life experience of sailor writers, of course, in comparison with other wordsmiths from a very continental country. However, this approach to foreign authors fundamentally wrong.
To call the same Jack London a marine painter would mean to ignore the fact that his literary star rose thanks to his northern, gold-mining stories and tales. And in general, what did he not write in his life? And social dystopias, and mystical novels, and dynamic adventure scenarios for newborn cinema, and novels designed to illustrate some fashionable philosophical or even economic theories, and “novels-novels” - great literature that covers any genre. And yet his first essay, written for a competition for a San Francisco newspaper, was called “Typhoon off the Coast of Japan.” Returning from a long voyage fishing for seals off the coast of Kamchatka, at his sister’s suggestion, he tried his hand at writing and unexpectedly won the first prize.
The size of the remuneration surprised him so pleasantly that he immediately calculated that it was more profitable to be a writer than a sailor, a fireman, a tramp, a dray driver, a farmer, a newspaper seller, a student, a socialist, a fish inspector, a war correspondent, a homeowner, a Hollywood screenwriter, a yachtsman, and even - gold digger. Yes, there were such wonderful times for literature: pirates were still oyster pirates, not Internet pirates; magazines are still thick, literary, not glossy. Which, however, didn’t stop American publishers flood all the English colonies of the Pacific Ocean with pirated editions of British authors and (sic!) cheap sheet music by European composers. Technology has changed, people not so much.
In modern Jack London Victorian Britain Moral songs with morals were fashionable. Even among sailors. I remember one about a lax and brave sailor. The first, as usual, slept on watch, was insolent to the boatswain, drank away his salary, fought in the port taverns and ended up, as expected, in hard labor. The boatswain could not get enough of the brave sailor, who religiously observed the Charter of service on ships of the navy, and even the captain, for some very exceptional merits, gave his master’s daughter in marriage to him. For some reason, superstitions regarding women on ships are alien to the British. But the brave sailor does not rest on his laurels, but enters navigation classes. “Operates a sextant and will be a captain!” - promised a chorus of sailors performing shanti on the deck, nursing the anchor on the spire.
Anyone who reads this book to the end can be convinced that Jack London also knew this moralizing sailor’s song. The ending of “Tales of the Fishing Patrol,” by the way, makes us think about the relationship between autobiography and sailor folklore in this cycle. Critics do not go to sea and, as a rule, cannot distinguish “an incident from the author’s life” from sailor’s tales, port legends and other folklore of oyster, shrimp, sturgeon and salmon fishermen of the San Francisco Bay. They do not realize that there is no more reason to believe the fish inspector than to believe a fisherman who has returned from fishing, whose “truthfulness” has long become the talk of the town. However, it’s simply breathtaking when, a century later, you see how the young, impatient author “writes out” from story to story in this collection, tries out plot moves, builds a composition more and more confidently to the detriment of the literalism of the real situation, and brings the reader to the climax. And we can already guess some of the intonations and motives of the upcoming “Smoke and the Kid” and other top stories of the northern cycle. And you understand that after Jack London recorded these real and fictional stories fisheries patrol, they, like the Greeks after Homer, became the epic of the Golden Horn Bay.
But I don’t understand why none of the critics have yet let it slip that Jack himself, in fact, turned out to be the slack sailor from that song, who was enough for one ocean voyage. Fortunately for readers all over the world. If he had become a captain, he would hardly have become a writer. The fact that he also turned out to be an unsuccessful prospector (and further along the impressive list of professions given above) also played into the hands of the readers. I am more than sure that if he had gotten rich in the gold-bearing Klondike, he would have had no need to write novels. Because all his life he considered his writing primarily as a way of making money with his mind, and not with his muscles, and he always scrupulously counted the thousands of words in his manuscripts and multiplied in his mind the royalties per word by cents. I was offended when editors cut a lot.
As for The Sea Wolf, I am not a supporter of critical analyzes classical works. The reader has the right to savor such texts at his own discretion. I will only say that in our once most reading country, every cadet at a naval school could be suspected of having run away from home to become a sailor after reading Jack London. At least, I heard this from several gray-haired combat captains and the Ukrainian writer and marine painter Leonid Tendyuk.
The latter admitted that when his research vessel Vityaz entered San Francisco, he unscrupulously took advantage of his official position as the “senior group” (and Soviet sailors were allowed ashore only in “Russian troikas”) and dragged him along the streets of Frisco for half a day two disgruntled sailors in search of the famous port tavern, where, according to legend, the skipper of the “Ghost” Wolf Larsen loved to sit. And this was a hundred times more important to him at that moment than the legitimate intentions of his comrades to look for chewing gum, jeans, women’s wigs and lurex headscarves - the legal prey of Soviet sailors in colonial trade. They found the zucchini. The bartender showed them Wolf Larsen's place at the massive table. Unoccupied. It seemed that the skipper of the Phantom, immortalized by Jack London, had just gone away.