Jack London is one of those authors you were “forced” to read as a kid in school, and then later in life, realized how great his books really are. This new collection – JACK LONDON’S TALES OF CANNIBALS AND HEADHUNTERS, edited by Gary Riedl and Thomas R. Tietzefurther – only further expands his greatness, showcasing stories not as well-known as his other output.
This anthology gathers nine of his SOUTH SEA TALES, with a detailed introduction for each story and endnotes that follow. A must-have for the adventure fan in all of us, the collection is printed chronologically. The stories’ age doesn’t show, as all of them click into a groove right away. You don’t feel as though London is getting his feet wet with the first stories and then improving as he goes.
Now, a word of warning for the PC police out there: Yes, there are racist terms used for the natives throughout the stories. If you can’t deal with that fact, it’s your own loss. The stories here range from colonialism-gone-bad themes in “Yah! Yah! Yah!” and “The Inevitable White Man” to a mistaken-identity-like story called “The Chinago,” where the single spelling of a name proves to be one character’s downfall.
There is also a bit of bridging the gaps between races in “The Heathen,” which is a bit like the forerunner to THE DEFIANT ONES, in which two shipmates are the only survivors of an accident and bond while drifting at sea. There is also a great character study called “Mauki,” which is based on a real-life person London and his wife met in their travels.
Actually, from most of the introductions, it appears London used a lot of people from his travels as the basis for his tales. The book closes with one of the better-known stories: “The Red One,” which no one soon will forget. To be really blunt, if I was given these stories as a child instead of the two I was made to read, I might have devoured more London earlier on. Complete with supplementary maps, this University of New Mexico collection is a top-notch effort and wish there were more in the pipeline. –Bruce Grossman
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- Jack the Ripper
- The Triumph of the Thriller: How Cops, Crooks, and Cannibals Captured Popular Fiction
- Lester Dent’s Zeppelin Tales
- American Gothic Tales
- The Best Horror from Fantasy Tales
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
Way to review, Bruce! No one talks much about London these days, but he was an amazing writer who churned out everything from pulp fiction to SF and reportage and social commentary and considerable literary fiction.
His autobiographical novels like MARTIN EDEN and JOHN BARLEYCORN are unfortunately all but forgotten (his socialist politics made him posthumously unpopular and much of his 100+ books were allowed to go out of print in America for a lot of the 20th century, although his work remained popular in the USSR) but at least kids still read his Yukon and dog stories. And, of course, SEA WOLF, which is so much more than a high seas adventure story that it ain’t funny.
Can you tell I’m a fan?
Paul
I love Jack London, too. I especially like his city based stories about boxers and prostitutes. I think my favorite story of his is “A Piece Of Steak” about 2 boxers – one young and one old. When they tought about London in school I thought his work was all about dogs and outdoor survival, but that doesn’t even scratch the surface. JOHN BARLEYCORN and MARTIN EDEN have been on my list for awhile now, but I’m sad to say I haven’t read them yet.