The Sea Wolf
By Jack London
4/5
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About this ebook
Chronicles the voyages of a ship run by the ruthless Wolf Larsen, among the greatest of London's characters, and spokesman for an extreme individualism London intended to critique.
Jack London
Jack London was born in San Francisco in 1876, and was a prolific and successful writer until his death in 1916. During his lifetime he wrote novels, short stories and essays, and is best known for ‘The Call of the Wild’ and ‘White Fang’.
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Reviews for The Sea Wolf
13 ratings13 reviews
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5I had forgotten how readable and thrilling Jack London could be--The Sea Wolf is a thrilling story of survival on multiple levels, with a sadistic (and yet sometimes sympathetic) title character, a "young man grows up" narrator, and full-on nautical descriptions based on London's own experiences. Highly recommended.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5I'll quickly forgive incredible plot-lines if something else redeems a novel -- interesting characters, good sentences, snappy dialog. Here, London moves solidly towards redemption, with excellent passages about the handling of sailing ships and insight into the lives of isolated men doing difficult, demanding work. But he doesn't get there.Humphrey Van Weyden, a "man of letters" is shipwrecked and picked up by the sealing schooner Ghost with the brutal (but smart and beautiful) Wolf Larson as master, headed off to the sealing grounds in the North Pacific. Van Weyden is made cabin-boy, then mate (with no sailing experience and without objection from the crew), from which position in a couple of months he learns everything he needs to know to later re-fit a beached and de-masted wrecked ship and sail it out of a small cove on a lee shore. Then Maude Brewster, a poet beloved (in her poetry) by Van Weyden is also picked up by the Ghost, also a victim of shipwreck. They escape the Ghost on one of the hunting boats and are shipwrecked on a small island deserted except for thousands of seals. Then the Ghost, with only Larson, now blind, on board, wrecks in the same small cove Brewster and Van Weyden have settled in. While Larson slowly dies, Van Weyden and Maude refit the ship and sail it off, declaring their love just before they are picked up by a mail boat.Uh huh.It's worth reading, for the yarn and for some of the dialog (not, though, the philosophical discussions) -- I'm sure that like me, everyone thrills to cries of "Boat Ho!" and "Stand by that jib with Johnson and Oofty! The rest of you tail aft to the mainsheet! Lively now! or I’ll sail you all into Kingdom Come! Understand?" And there's this appreciation of being at sea in a storm: "And oh, the marvel of it! the marvel of it! That tiny men should live and breathe and work, and drive so frail a contrivance of wood and cloth through so tremendous an elemental strife."London covered the intellectual matter better in Martin Eden, I think, but whereas that's a better story, this one is better told.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A gentlemen is taken aboard a schooner full of seal hunters captained by a much-feared and revered Wolf Larsen who kidnaps him who replace a fallen crew member. It is a wonderfully told tale although I must admit that, having only a minimal amount of nautical experience, I found some of the more detailed sailing terminology a bit confusing. Fans of Mr London's other notable works will certainly not be disappointed by this one.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5“Many consider The Sea-Wolf by Jack London to be among the best sea stories ever written. I found it a moving and epic tale. Not only did it achieve great popular and literary success, but it also was effectively realized in several cinematic versions (most recently as a TV mini-series). The story ranks in the great tradition of one of London's literary influences, Herman Melville, while I saw similarities to another story of a life changed by sea voyage, captured by Rudyard Kipling in Captains Courageous. Drawing upon his experiences seal hunting in the North Pacific, London created a story with a lot of realism. He put himself and his contradictory nature into the two opposing characters, the captain Wolf Larsen, a ruthless and rugged individualist, the superman, and Humphrey van Weyden, a weak, but highly cultivated and virtuous gentleman. It is in the clash of these two forces that London gives vent to his innermost struggles: idealism versus materialism, conscience versus instinct, desire versus soul. Humphrey joins Larsen's crew when a ferry he is on sinks. Later in the story he and the captain are joined by a young woman, Maude Brewster who, like Humphrey, is well-educated and literate. During one of their discussions Brewster and Larsen take opposite positions on the importance of desire versus soul. The argument is concluded when Humphrey says: The man's soul is his desires. . . There lies the temptation. It is the wind that fans the desire until it leaps up to mastery. That's temptation. It may not fan sufficiently to make the desire overmastering , but in so far as fans at all, that far is it temptation. And, as you say, it may tempt for good as well as for evil. (pp. 674-75) But the main philosophy demonstrated in the novel is a form of Social Darwinism. It is this that is the philosophy espoused by Wolf Larsen as justification for his tyrannical domination of others. Larsen's library is noted to contain works by Darwin, Malthus and Spencer - all seminal theorists of the concept. Darwin himself rejected the concepts of Social Darwinism even though his biological theories were generally used to support and inform the sociological concept that social inequality is the inexorable result of meritocratic division of available resources. Larsen summarizes the concepts of Social Darwinism in his extended analogy of a yeasty ferment of existence.The novel's drama proceeds to a resolution of this elemental conflict through van Weyden's struggle toward fulfillment and mastery of life's forces and Larsen's ultimate deterioration. Ironically, the majority of the critics and the public misunderstood the work, thinking it a glorification of the superhuman and individualism, and London later wrote, ". . . I attacked Nietzsche and his super-man idea ... no one discovered that it was an attack upon the super-man philosophy. " In the death of Wolf Larsen and the survival of Van Weyden and Maude Brewster we see the confirmation of London's claim.like”
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5My second book by the author. I have to agree with many of the other reviewers, in that the first part of the book is a cracking sea adventure, although a little too philosophical at times. However, when Brewster is introduced my interest in the plot wained and just found myself reading to get to the end of the book instead of for enjoyment. I normally stay clear of books with love themes and am more of an adventure fan. Just a pity London decided to introduce a woman into the seafaring plot.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I listened to this on audio, having enjoyed another audiobook by Jack London, hoping for it to be half as good. I was not disappointed. What a raw and exciting book it was! Humphrey Van Weyden, a young gentleman, is rescued from the San Francisco sea after the ferry he is aboard collides with another vessel and sinks. He expects the captain of the seal hunting schooner to take him directly to shore and offers him compensation to do so. However, he soon learns that Wolf Larsen, captain of the Ghost, has no intention of returning to shore until hunting season is over. Van Weyden is forced to become the ship's cabin boy and assist the cook. He is fascinated by the captain, even as he is repulsed by him and fears him. Wolf Larsen reads poetry and speaks of philosophy in one breath and terrorizes his crew in the next. He is sheer brutality, unfettered by any human emotions like kindness or empathy. He has no respect for human life as he has no belief in the immortality of the soul. His only belief is "Eat or Be Eaten." He is cruel and fearsome. The book is beautiful in the characters' will to survive. Hump, as Larsen calls him, learns humility, self sufficiency and self reliance and soon commands the respect of the entire crew. While Wolf is pleased with his growth and enjoys their philosopical discussions, it is obvious that the captain respects Hump no more than his crew respects Larsen. The struggle for survival is what this story is all about. It is probably one of the best sea adventure novels ever written. Recommended.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5"The first two-thirds of this book is great fun... a battle of mind versus muscle, altruism versus hedonism, fought between Humphrey van Weyden and Wolf Larson. Van Weyden is the pansiest pansy who’d ever got an inheritance and a manicure and Larson is all that is Man. Had I been reading tawdry slash fan fiction instead of a well-respected classic of literature, the homo-eroticism between van Weyden and Larson would have ended in syrupy confessions of love and much making out.And then Maude Brewster entered the scene. She has to be one of the most insipid, unlikable characters I’ve ever read and she ruined what was a perfectly good gay sea adventure. Van Weyden forgets to ogle Larson entirely, spending most of the last 80 pages ruminating on how “fragile,” “delicate,” and “womanly” Brewster was. Ugh." Bryce--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------I am sorry to say that this is not my work of genus above but this review fits my assessment to a T. For the first two thirds of the book its all great fun and then "Ms. Maude" shows up and spoils it all, it goes from a great swashbuckling sea adventure interspersed with some of the most fascinating philosophical dialogue to a horrid sappy love story for the last third. All storyline issues aside though, Wolf Larson is one of the single most wonderful antagonists I have ever read or probably ever will read, he's like the evil Count in "The Women in White" he is horrible but you can't help but love him. Humphrey van Weyden is almost a complete opposite except in intellectual where-withal and the conversation between them is always fun and the not-so-sub text is even more fun.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5I didn't like it as much as I did when read many years ago; still, Wolf Larsen is a character not soon forgotten.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Just as Wolf Larsen at times wished to trade in his individualism, hedonism and materialism for Van Weyden's idealism and belief in an eternal soul, Van Weyden overtly admired and envied Wolf.I only wish that all people such as Van Weyden might have their eyes opened by the Wolf. By way of Wolf and Van Weyden's mutual experiences together, each man was able to grow intellectually and philosophically. It is obvious that for all of Wolf's physical and mental power, he was internally weak. Van Weyden was internally strong and externally weak. Both men were isolated.I enjoyed the story very much until Maud Brewster came aboard. I cannot relate to you how annoying I found her and especially Van Weyden's ridiculous coddling of her. I was sickened. It would have been much more interesting if rather than act as each others nanny, Maud and Van Weyden continued philosophical conversations, perhaps digressing on their own similar perceptions or theorizing upon Wolf Larsen and his capacity for cruelty and poetry.The story began embracing raw masculinity, ice cold intellect, and the making of one's own legs. It ended in a pile of mush with the most interesting character stroked-out and the newly-made man so giddy that surely the first thing he did when reaching land was not to go about analyzing and restructuring himself as a man, but to give his life over to nursing Maud. I'm sure the only books either of them wrote henceforth were on putrid subjects such as child care and marriage. Never again did either walk upon their own legs. They gave themselves over to procreation and progeny—sustenance unto Wolves.“. . . there was about him a suggestion of lurking ferocity, as though the Wild still lingered in him and the wolf in him merely slept.” -Jack London
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5This story is an allegory of the human condition. The story is filled with philosophical ideals that are played out throughout the story. Jack London does an incredible job of telling a story while causing the reader to question his own values in contrast with the primitive instinct of survival.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Fabulous! This is the story of prmal, existential survival. The battle for survival occurs at sea, aboard a ship called "Ghost", captained by Wolf Larsen, better known as "The Sea Wolf". He is indeed a wolf of a man and takes all comers in his battle to remain supreme. He faces off with "Hump", a man of letters found shipwrecked off San Francisco. Given no alternative to staying aboard and becoming a seaman, he does so, and thereby begins the battle of wits, intellect, morality, and courage fought to the end between the two men. As he has in other books, London has an amazing ability to whittle away all that is superfluous about living life and in story form is able to throw into question the very core values of "civilized" folk by forcing their hearts and minds back to the primitive. I could hardly put this book down!
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5I was expecting a stark, "call of the wild" and "red tooth in claw" story, but the main character (in contrast to the ship's captain, Wolf Larson), turned out to be a warm and genuinely likeable man. Don't be deceived by the title, this is an enjoyable novel.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A long time ago I read a Complete Works edition of Jack London and it was excellent. There wasn't a bad one in the bunch. This sea story was exceptional and a bit different if you've only read London's dog stories.