Has anyone read "The Sea Wolf" by Jack London? What did you think of it?

Question

I thought it was an awesome book, I really couldn't put it down. Has anyone else read it? What did you think?

Answer 1

Years and years ago.

But one never forgets the character of Wolf Larsen.

I remember mainly that London sets him up as an embodiment of a Nietzschean superman who believes only in the self and the here and now.

I think London saw himself in both the superman (the strong, self-taught individualist called Wolf, for Jack was all of that) and the victim/cabin boy, whose name I cannot remember (the city softie who had to be subjected to suffering "the wild" in order to become hardened, like the dog in Call of the Wild).

The other thing I remember is that I didn't much think London created a very credible character in the woman poet. The book got sorta slow, even boring, when they escaped from the ship. But maybe I read it before I was old enough for a love story.

Jack London's own life is almost more interesting than his books. Certainly his love affairs are more interesting than the one with the poetess in Sea Wolf. Irving Stone (best-known for his biographical fiction like Lust for Life, on Vincent Van Gogh) did a very readable biography called Sailor on Horseback. Nowadays, however, I'm told that Stone may have done a little fictionalizing in that book, too.

Answer 2

I thought it was really boring actually...=/