“The Sea Wolf” – Bookcast #46

The Sea Wolf (1904) by Jack London

Read and listen to “The Sea Wolf” on Amazon!

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Overview of “The Sea Wolf”

• A very brief description of “The Sea Wolf”
  • Gentleman narrator, Humphrey Van Weyden is pitted against amoral sea captain, Wolf Larsen. The novel begins when Van Weyden is swept overboard into San Francisco Bay, and plucked from the sea by Larsen’s seal-hunting vessel, the Ghost. Pressed into service as a cabin boy by the ruthless captain, Van Weyden becomes an unwilling participant in a brutal shipboard drama. Larsen’s increasingly violent abuse of the crew fuels a mounting tension that ends in a battle to the death between two opposing philosophies: romantic idealism and cold, brutal materialism
• What London sets out to do / Purpose of the book
  • Hailed by critics as one of the greatest sea stories ever written, this rousing adventure offers a fascinating combination of gritty realism and brilliant and beautiful writing. Jack London began his career at sea, and his shipboard experiences give The Sea-Wolf a powerful and magnetic authenticity.
• The intended audience of the book / Who will benefit most
  • People who love adventure stories (esp old-time adventure)
  • People who love philosophy and intellectual challenge
  • People who enjoy the ocean and sailing
  • People who want beautiful writing
  • People – esp men – who have been raised as weak men and want to become stronger
• Who probably WON’T like this book?
  • Anyone who needs a constant, driving plot (there’s lots of plot breaks for philosophical discussion and argumentation)
  • Anyone who doesn’t like the dictionary (seriously, you’re going to need to look up a LOT of words, esp maritime language like halyards, poop deck, mainstays, sheets, flying jib, etc, etc)
  • Anyone who has ADD (going to take some work to read this)
  • Matt
• How does this book specifically benefit Men? 
  • The Sea Wolf is about how Humphrey Van Weyden, a rich gentleman who lived a life of ease, comfort and luxury, is thrust into the harsh reality of life at sea. Hump quickly learns that for the first time in his life he must develop his strength, skill and wits – or he will not survive.
• Is this book Easy, Average or Difficult to read? / How long is it?
  • The story itself is easy enough to follow but the language is over 100 years old and reads like it. As we mentioned earlier, having a dictionary (and wikipedia) available nearby will be useful.
  • 256 pages, Audiobook: 11 hrs, 21mins
• What are the overall book reviews? Is the book well-known? Popular? Significant?
  • Amazon Books: Unknown ratings (Multiple versions over 100yrs), 4.5 stars avg
    • Ranking: N/A
  • Audible: 764, 4.6 stars
    • Ranking: N/A
• Book-To-Movie Translation 
  • At least a dozen movie or TV versions of “The Sea Wolf” have been produced over the last 100 years.

Bio of Jack London

• John Griffith London (1/12/1876 – 11/22/1916)
• American novelist, journalist and social activist. 
• A pioneer of commercial fiction and American magazines, he was one of the first American authors to become an international celebrity and earn a large fortune from writing.
• At 13 years old he worked 12-18 hour days at a cannery. Soon after he left and became on oyster pirate and ended up earning his own boat. After his ship was disabled he signed on a Japanese sealing schooner for the next two years. Then he rode the rails as a hobo for a year and traveled back and forth across the US….All this before he was 20 years old!!
• Sailed up to Alaska and worked in the Klondike as a miner where he got inspiration for his novels The Call of the Wild and White Fang
• He was a war correspondent for the US in both the Russo-Japanese war and was arrested twice by the Japanese army – once in Japan and in Korea – but was so charming that he was eventually allowed to travel with the Imperial Japanese Army and make reports on the war.
• From the beginning Jack London was a gifted writer and thinker and one of the first American writers to become rich from his own writing. He wrote over twenty successful novels and over a hundred short stories for major newspapers and magazines.

Breakdown of Themes

• Self-Reliance and Maturation
• Materialism vs. Idealism
• Upwards Evolution vs De-Evolution
• Accepting Fate vs Challenging Fate
• Survival of the Fittest: Violence, Murder and the Brutal Nature of Life