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Summary: This was a horrible Book. Jack London should be ashamed.
Review: The book is stupid.
Don't read it.The plot basically involves a character named Hump (suggestive of London's sexual frustration?) who is verbose and stupid. Eventually he meets a girl and becomes monosyballic and even more stupid. The book is rife with technical detail about sailing, both boring and factually wrong. The author has the people doing things that one would not do (for example, in a heavy storm, the people tighten the sheets, resulting in a firm sail, which would in real life result in the boat capsizing ~ what they should have done is released one of the sails or rigged it half-mast). The boat is tedious for all of its verbosity and technical detail, which, ironically enough, adds nothing to the story and is factually wrong. London is an idiot. If I was not sure of it before reading this book, I am now. Fortunately, he realizes he is an idiot, and so roughly two thirds of this book consists of quotations from more successful, better writers. London repeatedly has the main character talk about how he loves the body of the capitan, and how he wants a relationship...seriously throwing the masculinity of the protaganist into question. Overall, this book offended me. It was so poorly written that my eyes hurt. I feel like my IQ dropped 40 points as a direct result of reading this drivel. Don't let it happen to you.
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Summary: The metaphorical sea passage
Review: Jack London's novel The Sea Wolf is a compelling and thrilling adventure of Mr Humphry Van Weyden. A man who is sent adrift in the sea after the ferry he is riding to San Fransisco is in a fatal collision with another ship in the bay. Van Weyden is picked up by The Ghost a sealing schooner. The captain of The Ghost is Wolf Larsen a brutal and vicious seaman who cares for life as little as wealth and holds nothing dear including his crew, a vicious gang of outlaws and renegades. The only thing he even lays claim to is his ship. Although he is so heartless and evil he and Van Weyden seem to get a connection, mainly of Van Weyden's fear of Larsen. They would get into long metaphorical and philosiphal talks of life, possession, and power. There are a few very vivid scene of harsh brutality and violence. All around it is a very intersting story of life and power.
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Summary: Wolf Larsen: a memorable character
Review: Of all Jack London's novels, this, less popular, story is probably his most complex. His other novels, such as The Call of the Wild and White Fang, focus on the savagery of the wild. The Sea Wolf, a longer novel than both The Call of the Wild and White Fang, has long philosophical dialogs between the two main characters: Humphrey Van Weyden and Wolf Larsen. Wolf Larsen, (the sea wolf), is named appropriately. The character is build around the personality of a wolf. He can be wild, and his cruel and brutal treatments to his crew prove his savagery, (to the civilized and sophisticated Humphrey). But Wolf Larsen is cunning, so cunning that no one can destroy him, the monster, who captains The Ghost, the sealing vessel Humphrey is imprisoned upon. And to Humphrey's greater surprise, Wolf Larsen is literate, intelligent, and fully versed in civilization. Wolf Larsen takes advantage of Humphrey's intelligence, and they have long philosophical conversations concerning ethics and life; Wolf Larsen is no long merely a beast. Humphrey undergoes many changes upon The Ghost. He is forced to leave his life of sophistication, books, and servants tending to his needs, and he falls under the hands of Wolf Larsen and his savage crew. Exactly half way through the book love is introduced into Humphrey's life with Maud Brewster, stranded upon the hell ship as Humphrey is. Maud and Humphrey work together trying to outwit the beast who runs the ship, but it is something that no mortal man can provide which at last destroys the wolf. But Wolf Larsen's being is immortal. His cunning character ... the perfect evil ... never dies. His physical strength is unmatched, his literacy surprising, his brutal acts unthinkable, and his clever mind unbeatable. Wolf Larsen is a memorable character.
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Summary: But Dick Hill is no Wolf Larsen
Review: Dick Hill does a brilliant cockney English, a satisfactory Van Weyden and the narration is acceptable. As for who Wolf Larsen is, Hill doesn't have a clue. His reading of Larsen is flat, stuck in a monotone. From Larsen's first word to the last, with one exception that left me wanting, Hill is expressing Larsen's moments of anger, elation, sadness, passion, force, pessimism, reflection, (rare) mirth, depression, and in general every word of normal conversation- in variations of barking, snapping, shouting, bullying, threatening and spitting.
In depicting Larsen as nothing but a brute, Hill is depriving him of his extraordinary intellect, his magnetism, his social skills, the intelligence guiding his power and his beauty.
The five stars are for London's masterpiece since they apply to rating the book and not the CD. This recording is worthless to me.
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Summary: A philosophical discourse wrapped around a sea adventure.
Review: When I first dipped into THE SEA WOLF, I was struck by its similarity to CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS. Humphrey van Weydon's ferry-steamer, The Martinez, is rammed by another ship in San Francisco Bay in a heavy fog. Van Weydon is rescued by Wolf Larsen, captain of the seal-hunter, The Ghost. Larsen refuses to take Van Weydon ashore, laughing at his offer of money. Once again, I am reminded of another famous book, MOBY DICK, and Larsen is Captain Ahab. Ruthless and single-minded, Larsen decides to make Van Weydon his cabin boy on this four month trip to provide seal pelts for fashionable American women. Van Weydon resists until Larsen catches hold of his arm and squeezes. A man of letters who freely admits never working a day in his life, Van Weydon does everything he's told from that point on, including aiding and abetting the Captain as he mistreats his crew.
Early on we learn some of Larsen's motivation when he and Van Weydon have a literary discussion. We discover that Larsen is a literary bully. He's never spent a day in school, but he reads Shakespeare, Robert Browning and John Milton. London's theme becomes clear and Larsen and van Weydon argue about immortality, van Weydon declaring that man has a soul; Larsen retorting with a Scrooge-like "Bah!" And suddenly we have the first gleanings of an existentialist novel. If there were no God, how should man behave? Larsen, seeing evil everywhere he looks, decides he will do whatever is best for him personally.
The conflict is not precisely good versus evil. Van Weydon is a weakling, a pampered rich man, a coward. There is also much to admire about Wolf Larsen. He outduels seven men during a mutiny. He's constantly reading, constantly trying to understand. When Van Weydon's story arc begins to ascend--he learns seamanship, rebuilds the ship when its masts are destroyed--we can't help but give Larsen a bit of credit. Larsen never took no for an answer, no task was too difficult.
Another interesting element in the book is London's fledgling steps toward women's liberation. Van Weydon falls in love with another castaway, Maud Brewster, and together they overcome storms, isolation on a small seal rookery, and sabotage.
I guess I knew London was a better writer than the man who wrote CALL OF THE WILD (His short story "To Build a Fire" is one of my favorites), but I wasn't expecting a philosophical discourse wrapped around a sea adventure.
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Summary: The demise of a sea god
Review: Jack London relates a probing analysis of the captain of the sealing ship Ghost, Wolf Larsen, through the eyes of shipmate Humphrey Van Weyden. Van Weyden had been plucked from the freezing waters of San Francisco bay by Larsen after the ferry boat he was a passenger on, capsized after a collision in the fog. Larsen, ever the opportunist, forces Van Weyden to work on the ship. Van Weyden a book critic and "gentleman" has never done a days work in his life. Through the insights of Van Weyden we see the cruel, combative, physically imposing and yet highly intelligent Larsen act as if a god over his domain, the Ghost. He holds the fate of his crew in his hands and murders those who he deems unfit. Under the tutelage of Larsen, Van Weyden becomes a capable sailor. After 5 more castaways are rescued at sea including a woman, Maud Brewster, Van Weyden and the woman make their escape by stealing a sealing boat. Van Weyden and Brewster are to fall in love and are stranded on a deserted island. Through a quirk of fate they are again confronted by Larsen, who is marooned and shipwrecked on the same island. There they observe his ultimate and deserved demise. The book was tied up into too neat a little package for my taste. London spends an awful lot of time, and boringly so, on his philosophies of life. I was hoping for another Moby Dick and was disappointed.
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Summary: Action, Adventure, and Philosophy in The Sea Wolf.
Review: The Sea Wolf, by Jack London is a very interesting and unique book. The story starts with a gentleman, a Mr. Humphrey Van Weyden taking a nice cruise on San Francisco Bay. All of but a moment, a simple twist of fate changes his life forever. The large ferry-boat he was on, the Martinez was suddenly struck by a steamboat in the dense and sometimes deadly San Francisco fog. As he was floating through the water he is picked up by the schooner Ghost whose captain is known infamously for his cruelty, Wolf Larsen. Soon he is thrust into a world of hard labor and death waiting around the corner always.
The book is a coming of age story, although it is unique because the one coming of age is already 35 years old. His whole life Humphrey Van Weyden never had to work for anything. He was a scholar; his job was a literature critic because his father had made all of his money for him. Once employed on the Ghost he must learn to fend for himself or be killed. But he finds that his incredibly muscled brute of a captain with no regard for human life or suffering actually has an incredible intellect. They end up discussing the philosophy of life multiple times. Soon, a pretty scholaress from the east of which Humphrey enjoyed reading very much appears on the Ghost setting a gap between Humphrey and Wolf Larsen. From then on the story takes an interesting turn and keeps you on the edge of the railing if not your seat.
If you like swashbuckling adventure, great philosophical arguments and outlooks on life unique to the brain of Jack London, even a love story here and there, then I would recommend this book against all others. I have never read anything like it at all.
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Summary: Testing Human Values
Review: Caution: The Sea Wolf is full of examples of man's inhumanity to man. If you are easily upset by callous disregard of the health and safety of others, you will not enjoy this book. Further, the book describes many of the worst abuses of the ways that seals were hunted for their fur. On the surface, The Sea Wolf is a story about seal hunting expeditions to the Bering Sea. Beneath the surface, this book is an allegory about the nature of a human's life. The Sea Wolf is one of those novels that explores philosophy as its primary purpose. The idea is to take abstract philosophical ideas, and make the philosophies come to life by putting them into interesting circumstances. So while there's an adventure tale on the surface of The Sea Wolf, that story is there merely to provide examples of the philosophical points. So don't be surprised if the adventure falters from time to time in favor of developing the philosophical examples. In the Sea Wolf, action is included primarily for character development rather than the reader's visceral entertainment. In this book, Jack London was obviously fascinated by the new theories of Social Darwinism that grew out of Darwin's Origin of Species, indicating that the most capable people survived and prospered while the least capable fell by the wayside. Another influence was Nietzsche's concept of the amoral superman. A third influence was Milton's poem, Paradise Lost, and the role that Lucifer played in that story. To explore these points, Mr. London developed Captain Wolf Larsen, owner of the seal hunting schooner, Ghost. Captain Larsen is as amoral and strong in body and mind as you can imagine. Think of him as 100 percent traditional masculinity. For a counterpoint, Mr. London looked to the traditional concepts of the Christian gentleman. Such a man is concerned with matters of the soul, helping others, ideas, and pursuing perfection. Taken to its extreme, such a man becomes almost like a woman. To develop this contrast, Mr. London uses the character of Humphrey van Weydon (known as "sissy" van Weydon to his friends while growing up) who is a literary critic. The story evolves through putting Humphrey van Weydon into Larsen's world. The book's key theme is that a true man combines the virtues of a Christian gentleman with the masculine strength and independence of his sex's superior qualities over many women (like a successful jousting knight), but this true man can only be completed by the company and spiritual connection to a good woman (much like the medieval knight had to have his lady as a source of platonic love). As you can imagine, this theme will not inspire those looking for a nonstop, heart-pounding adventure tale. The power of the story comes in the book's first half, when you will not know what to expect next from Wolf Larsen. If you are like me, you will feel a little involuntary discomfort every time Larsen comes near van Weydon . . . or anyone else, for that matter. The book's second half will be less appealing to most male readers, but will be the more appealing part for many female readers. Many readers will find the coincidences that bring the characters together when they do to be more than a stretch, and draw away from the story. I suggest that you look upon these circumstances as being intended to portray the hand of Providence, in Mr. London's way of thinking. The book's strength is the way that the van Weydon character develops. You will come to appreciate his trials and the ways he handles them. If you find that you don't like that character after 75 pages, I suggest that you read no further unless you are otherwise enjoying the book. May all your endeavors be worthy of your highest ideals and potential!
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Summary: One dimensional archetypes, but with some flair
Review: This is a kind of character study of extremes. The viewpoint of the story is the nice guy's, Humphrey, a literary critic who is propelled into a strange new world dominated by an extremely unnice guy, Wolf Larsen, captain of the sailing ship Ghost near the end of the sailing days. Via a shipwreck, 'Hump' becomes the cabin boy on the Ghost.
The Wolf is an archtype of pure amoral power, but 'tainted' with the intellect to observe and describe his own situation. From that perspective Wolf finds it amusing to command and torment the crew of his vessel, and to play intellectual games with the "Hump". Wolf uses and kills his crew members quickly enough, and promotes the cabin boy to mate after a failed mutiny. In the end the good guys prevail... Actually, there's lots of interesting detail in the story, and London is skilled enough at his writing craft, but I felt that overall it sort of fails. As a morality play, the favorable outcome is basically an accident. Actually, the most interesting character is only mentioned in passing--Wolf Larsen's brother, Death Larsen, captain of the steamship that attacks the Ghost. He's only vaguely portrayed as much nastier than Wolf, but apparently more successful, but we never get to meet him. Made me feel London was something of a tease, to make such efforts to portray an evil character while only hinting of one that was even more evil. (This review is actually of an older paperback edition from 1965.)
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Summary: This book is boring............
Review: I have to read this book for summer vacation. I didn't think that this book is long but this book, at the start out, is extremely boring. I have absolutely no idea what the people or characters in the books were saying. I hardly went through the first page before my brain started to ask in confusion with the question, "what"? I seriously would not recommend this book for students under 16.
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