Rating: 
Summary: Starts off strong, but becomes lackluster by the end.
Review: Humphrey van Weyden is a gentleman. He has never had to work for his living, or do a single task for himself. All that changes when the ferry-steamer Martinez, running across the mouth of the San Francisco Bay, is wrecked after a collision with another boat in the fog. Van Weyden is tossed into the sea, and eventually picked up by another boat. But this is no ordinary boat. It is the Ghost, a seal-hunting schooner captained by Wolf Larsen, who is far from being an ordinary man. He snickers at Van Weyden's offers of money in exchange for taking him to shore, and instead conscripts the unfortunate man to replace a recently-deceased member of the Ghost's crew. Van Weyden's trials encompass far more than merely learning how to work on a ship. He must also find his place in the strange web of heirarchy among the men. More precarious yet is his relationship with the captain.
We soon find out that Wolf Larsen is a monster of a man, possessing superhuman strength and a complete lack of deference to any idea of morals. He is certainly one of the most fascinating characters I've come across in my reading. You fear him, you hate him, and yet there is still something to admire about him. He commands respect. He can kill a man with the strength of his hands alone, but he is also something of a self-educated philosopher. He has clearly studied Darwin, and continually likens life to a ferment of yeast, in which the natural way of things is for the stronger to consume the weaker. And yet, despite Larsen's superhuman image, London manages to keep him plausible for the reader by giving him his own Achilles's heel, which becomes more and more apparent as the story progresses. "The Sea-Wolf" is worth reading for a character study of this man alone. Unfortunately, however, the second half of the book shifts its focus, losing sight of the Van Weyden-Larsen relationship and simultaneously losing much of the driving force behind the story.
Almost as soon as Maud Brewster entered the story, I began to lose interest. Shipwrecked and adrift in a small boat, she is picked up by the Ghost much as Van Weyden was. She, too, is refused passage to land. And inevitably, a romance develops between Brewster and Van Weyden. The story makes an abrupt change in course from one of survival and complex relationships between the ship's men, to that of a love story. But what a silly and unconvincing love story it is! London just doesn't write women well, nor does he make the relationship between Van Weyden and Brewster in any way believable. Maud is a flat character, and just doesn't seem real. She is also full of ridiculous contradictions. She is alternately described as a frail lily and a cavewoman. She bestows the name of Lucifer on Wolf Larsen, but turns all to pity and mush the moment he is struck by one of his headaches. The story would have been much better with romance left out and the focus kept on Van Weyden's personal struggle with Larsen.
The strength of this book definitely lies in its first half. London's writing is strong and vivid, and he does a superb job of capturing the nuances of each relationship between crew members. I only wish he had stuck to that. Every writer has his niche, and London's is not in the romance genre. The second part of the book is contrived, predictable, and does little to hold one's interest. The ending is dissatisfying. It is, however, worth finishing in order to discover what end comes to the aforementioned Wolf Larsen. This is the only element of the latter part of the book that really intrigued me. So read "The Sea-Wolf" for its adventure component, found in the first half, and read it for the wonderfully crafted character of Captain Larsen. But don't expect too much out of the latter half and its conclusion.
Rating: 
Summary: school report
Review: The Sea Wolf by Jack London. This book is about Humphrey Van Weydon who is a gentleman that lives in San Francisco. He is a wealthy man through inheritance of his father. He is traveling across the bay to visit a friend when a collision occurs and he is sent overboard. Wolf Larsen and his crew rescue him and decide to keep him onboard for the seal-hunting ship bound for Japan. During these times Humphrey Van Weydon learns how to stand up on his own, because he has never had a real job before. I like the book because of the vivid descriptions and it keeps you interested because of the story being out at sea.
Rating: 
Summary: loved the lead character
Review: London details Jack Larson in such a way he allows the reader to really get to know this 'wolf'. London has a gift for development of characters like no other author I have read.
Great story!
Rating: 
Summary: My point of view
Review: i think that this book isn't what i thought it would be. being a 13 year old, i had to read this book for school. i bought this book thinking that it was great after reading the back of the book and the reviews here at amazon.com. when i read the book, my classmates and i talked about how boring the book was and that it had no climaxing plot or any interesting points. then again this is just a point of vie of a some teenagers. to me, i wouldn't suggest this book to any teenager i know.
Rating:
Summary: Good, but not Great
Review: The Sea Wolf by Jack London tells the story of Humphrey Van Weyden, a literary critic, who is lost overboard and picked up by a seal hunting ship. Instead of returning the shivering man to 'civilization' Wolf Larson, the captain of the ship, forces Van Weyden to work aboard the ship cleaning pots and pans. Although this book has a lot of action and moves fairly quickly, the best parts were the dialouges between the self-educated captain and Humphrey. The captain, as Jack London puts it, is not moral or immoral but is just unmoral, or doesn't have set morals. He doesn't believe in a soul and believes in fulfilling desires. He says that if a man does good it is simply because his desire to do good outweighs the desire to do bad. Van Weyden does believe in the soul and the two man continually philosophize. Overall one of the themes is about the working class being subject to the 'higher' society. My only complaint is that the captain's personality seems to change from the first half of the book to the second half. Also, I happened to appreciate the captain's viewpoint when he was supposed to be the antagonist and wicked man. I don't think that was the author's intention so I hold that against him. All ina all, the themes are so much more interesting and the first half of the book is written better than the second half.
Rating:
Summary: Cherchez la Femme
Review: I first read THE SEA WOLF at age 12, 40 years ago, and thought it was terrific, for all the reasons mentioned in other reviews: the exciting sea story, the juxtaposition of the values of western civilization with those of the refined thug Wolf Larson, the growth of Hump Van Weyden into a strong and self-reliant man who can hold his own with both Larson and brute nature.When I reread it recently, I still found the basic situation on the Ghost compelling and primal. However, my reservations became stronger and stronger from the time Maud Brewster appeared until the end of the book. Jack London, the great recorder of basic conflicts between man and man, and man and nature, writes VERY unconvincingly about the relationships between men and women. Maud seems a completely artificial character constructed more as a literary symbol of refinement and whimsicality than as a human being. Some of it is ludicrous. In their escape from the Ghost, for instance, Maud and Van Weyden spend several weeks in an open boat, fighting for survival and never once performing an excretory function. They're too delicate for that. When they finally make it to a North Pacific desert island, Hump builds Maud a stone hut as shelter then, exhausted and facing the possibility of dying of exposure, sleeps outside himself. In sum, Jack London, one of the all-time greatest naturalistic writers, perpetrates a great deal of Victorian self-censorship. The symbolic scheme plays out when Larson shows up too, wrecked on the very same island somewhere in the wide, wide, wide reaches of the world's largest ocean, so Maud and Hump can witness his physical disintegration at first hand. I'm a great fan of London's shorter works, the stories of both the far north and the south seas. He is a terrific storyteller, and it's borne out in the first half or two-thirds of THE SEA WOLF. But the concluding portion of this book is a disappointment.
Rating:
Summary: The 35 yearl-old wussy boy becomes a man
Review: This same edition of Jack London's "The Sea Wolf" was given to me by a friend after she learned that I thoroughly enjoyed Melville's novel about the great whale "Moby Dick." I was hooked on the story within the first chapter thanks to chapter's build-up of events moments before the ferry boat Martinez collided with another boat on a dark and foggy San Francisco bay. London's action-packed description of the frenzy and commotion that eventually found Van Weyden dumped into the bay and floating alone in the open sea played in my mind like a thrilling modern-day Summer blockbuster movie sequence. Watching Hump's character develop from a soft-handed, wussy-boy, puny human into a self-reliant, determined and courageous man was very satisfying to see. I personally think all guys need to go through some kind of hellish (or at least very uncomfortable and challenging) induction into 'manhood'. I also think all guys need to know the essentials of things like basic auto mechanics, home electrical and plumbing, carpentry, wilderness survival basics, and emergency first aid. It cracks me up seeing guys sitting on the side of the road in their BMW with the flat tire waiting for AAA (for at least 30 to 40 minutes) to replace the flat tire with the spare tire in their car's trunk (which takes at most 10 minutes). Dude, replace the tire yourself!! But hey, that's just me, and I digress.. I liked the introduction of Maud Brewster midway into the story because of how she helped to indirectly 'manlify' Van Weyden. Her transformation from a dainty and fragile lady to a woman capable of surviving days on the roughest seas and even finding interest in clubbing young male seals for food was great. She's the kind of woman I'm looking for. A well-read and educated woman who can talk about Shakespeare one minute and turn-around a build a comfy emergency mattress out of moss the next. Her never-quit and optimistic attitude was great. And from London's description of Maud's physical and facial features she was also nice to look at, a big plus in my book. The loving feelings Van Weyden eventually developed for Maud and his struggle to keep those feelings to himself until the appropriate time was well crafted. Several times throughout the story I was thinking to myself about Van Weyden, "dude, kiss her or do something already." The wait helped maintain the sexual tension between them and even made them stronger to make it to their eventual happy ending. Early during Maud's introduction I was expecting her to experience sexual assault by Wolf Larsen. I was glad Wolf Larsen had other things occupying his mind. I actually liked Wolf Larsen's winner-take-all kickbutt attitude. Although he wasn't a physically big guy (compared to the nearly six-foot seven inch dude from his brother Death Larsen's crew that he tackled and shackeled), his mere presence screamed "don't f_ck with me." Wolf's attitude of living life to its fullest is an attitude I think the majority of the people today (myself included) have failed at. Yes, Wolf was a mean and ruthless sunofabitch, but I actually enjoyed and found it funny watching in my mind the images of Mugridge sreaming for dear life as he got hoisted out of the ocean only to have one foot bitten off by a shark; and the image of Wolf gripping Van Weyden's throat while casually explaining to him the stages and feelings Van Weyden would feel leading to death, only to take it to the point of making Van Weyden pass out. What I found to be the most interesting side of Wolf Larsen was his interest in classic literature, his library of books, and his seeming desire to improve his mental wits. His combination of brute strength and above-ordinary intelligence (at least compared to his crew) was what I thought made him an almost unstoppable force among his crew and the sailing circles. It would have been interesting to see Wolf interact with his older, bigger and more brutal brother Death Larsen. Had I been Wolf Larsen looking and the puny and stuck-up Van Weyden for the first time, I too would have kept him on my ship and slapped him around until he could stand on his own two feet for his own sake. I'm glad Van Weyden eventually acknowledged the "favor" Wolf Larsen did for him by keeping Van Weyden on the schooner. As much of an a_shole that Wolf Larsen was to everyone, I did feel a bit sorry for him towards the end of the novel. I'd tell you more but don't want to spoil it for you. What I can say is that the last rite statement Wolf gives to his dead first-mate at the beginning of the story has some significance. A great novel that is highly recommended.
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