Particularly for American readers, the tendency has been to dwell upon London's heroic physical exploits, love life, drinking, and death. London is still probably the most popular American writer in the world, having been translated into more than eighty languages. But his readers abroad do not seem to be as focused upon his biography as they are his writings, a considerable variety of which remain in print when they have been long out of print here in the United States. His foreign reputation as well as the ubiquitous appearance of certain works in any American bookstore suggests that an interesting and even conflicted life alone cannot sell so many books. London's life is attractive and important, but so are the works he spent that life writing. And whether in the United States or abroad, it seems that the more one reads of his work, the more complex a version of his life one is willing to entertain; the reverse, of course, is also true, so that the most exaggerated versions of London come from those who have read the fewest of his works. His use of themes such as the need for social values, and improvement in society helps to create his realistic stories.
On its simplest, most superficial and insensitive level, The Call of t
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Though the story focuses on the personal experiences of the Everhards, since they are at the eye of the storm, their fate serves as metaphor for the fate of socialism. The effect is a tale both immediate and personal, yet theoretical and general. he Wild is just another of Jack London’s dog stories. London's name is a household word, and an icon of American tradition throughout the world. The immediate pessimism of the novel is thus superseded by an ultimate optimism, dystopia giving way to utopia. A prevalent theme displayed throughout the story is the necessity of imposing a new moral system. While long stretches of the novel are devoted to Ernest’s preachments on socialism that grow tedious, still others are intensely dramatic; London’s imagination seems particularly energized by scenes of mass destruction and carnage, such as in the titanic battle for Chicago where the workers’ uprising is brutally crushed by the mercenaries of the Oligarchy. It projects a nightmare future when America falls under the domination of a rigid capitalist Oligarchy, The Iron Heel. Though many of his fellow socialists were dismayed by London’s scenario of the future and roundly condemned the book as defeatist, Trotsky, writing in 1936, hailed the book as the most perceptive analysis of the rise of fascism yet made. The Oligarchy’s initial triumph, London indicates, could not be sustained, despite the most repressive, totalitarian measures, against the inexorable evolution of socialism. A reader may be unable to accept the reality of London’s socialist utopia, which can only conceive of a reality in which the dystopian situation continues indefinitely. Nearly every reader has encountered The Call of the Wild or White Fang.
Which in turn, so compelled London’s detailing of the destruction of the socialists that some have concluded that his imaginative attraction to violence subverts his message of hope. He will continue to attract new generations of critics just as his works will remain a hardy staple on the bookshelves of the world.
Approximate Word count =
822
Approximate Pages =
3 (250 words per page double spaced)
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