jmorateck's review against another edition
challenging
dark
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.0
The Iron Heel is a great book to read if you like a dystopian book. It shows the aspects of socialism in America and how the Iron Heel took advantage of the conflict between the capitalists and socialists. It is a slow paced book but does have some action. Overall the book was great the only problem I had with The Iron Heel was that it was slow to read.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death and War
luna545's review against another edition
adventurous
emotional
informative
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.75
schley's review against another edition
dark
sad
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.0
luizasam's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
informative
mysterious
tense
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.0
fastasashark's review against another edition
3.0
Possibly another 3.75/5
This is part "review", part political ramble lol. The Iron Heel was written in 1908 and was one of Jack London's dystopian novels written from a socialist perspective. I definitely agree with the description of this as part dystopian fiction, part socialist tract. I also think most of it (though not all) remains very relevant today.
The book itself is written from the perspective of Avis, who is the wife of the "great revolutionary" (heh) Ernest Everhard, and is mostly made up of political conversations/debates. From that latter perspective, I thought it was a really interesting and on-point read. I know some find the style dry because it is such a thinly veiled political treatise, but personally, I find the "conversation" format can be a good way of conveying certain ideas. I think it fit well in this case. There are certain aspects of socialist theory and perspective that London does a great job of explaining through those conversations, particularly the mentality/hypocrisy of small business owners, the farce that is capitalist "democracy", how labour leaders and certain unions allowing themselves to be bought off has played a significant role in collapsing the strength of socialist movements across the west, etc.
Before I get into the many things I did like about this book, I wanted to acknowledge its problems. Spoiler tags in case, not sure how spoilery
I think part of this stems from the fact that Ernest Everhard (lol) is basically a stand-in for London himself, and a lot of what's written about the "heroic" and apparently ever so sexy Ernest is a product of London's own wish fulfillment. He writes fairly obsessively about Ernest being the epitome of masculinity, how jacked he is (such bulging muscle, such bull-like neck, and always, always the "war-note" in his voice, apparently), how aggressive but also calm and wise he is. He's an expert debater who is forever running oratory circles around his opponents. That aspect of Ernest as the "strong, smart working class guy" is also accompanied by his so-called "working class pragmatism". The guy can say "it works" to just about anything, apparently as a flawless argument about why he's right about everything.
And to return to Avis, I think its telling that London decides to write her as a middle class, university student without much experience in the world. London seems to follow in the tradition of perceiving middle class white women as the epitome of "nurturing femininity", the appeal here being that Ernest gets to "open her eyes to a whole new world" (sup Aladdin) and convert her to socialism; be the "brooding working class boy" who takes her from willfully ignorant, liberal daddy's girl to woke socialist still-daddy's-girl. Avis' character has a ton of potential, and I would have loved to see more attention paid to her actions while Ernest was imprisoned. She eventually becomes an international spy and is important to the movement, but we really don't get to see much of that. But throughout the book, you get the impression she's just there to support the brilliance of Ernest Everhard, revolutionary extraordinaire.
Despite being described as working class himself, by the time we enter Ernest's life he's making his living off of his "revolutionary work". Working class people, and especially the poorest among them, are only used as conversion lessons for Avis, Avis' father, the Bishop and the readers (Ernest essentially sends Avis and the Bishop on a journey through the capitalist Inferno: "he is soul-sick from the journey through hell I have given him"). They are lessons for their "betters" to learn from, but never really people. In the end, they're even described as getting in the way of Ernest's revolutionaries by creating their own groups and carrying out their own activities. In the Chicago chapters, they're essentially a tool used both by Ernest's revolutionaries and the Oligarchy's mercenaries against each other. Honestly, certain aspects of this book are more about London's wish fulfillment, about London-as-Ernest than it is about working class people. A lot of it is about ego, about writing himself as the great revolutionary hero and saviour. He talks about capitalists believing they're the saviours of humanity, but honestly its also the way Ernest/London sees himself. He essentially creates a personality cult for himself.
There were a lot of things London got very right, though, despite the above problems. For example, he did a great job of describing the mentality and hypocrisy of small business owners/small capitalists. He demonstrates very well that the "plight" of the petit bourgeoisie is essentially that they want the right to profit from the exploitation of others. They get pissed off at corporations for having the money and resources to run them out of business. But to put it into today's context, here in Canada many of those same small business owners weep and cry when minimum wage is increased. They expect working class people to work for them for nothing. They justify paying them low wages by calling them "unskilled labour" and yet they couldn't operate without them. If you can't afford to pay your workers a fair and living wage, then your business model is shit and depends on underpaying and exploiting others. They're profits and "romantic views" of themselves should not be at the expense of working class people.
During Covid-19, here in Ontario farmers cry about the government not giving them enough support. They then turn around and cry about having to use the wage subsidies the government gave them to properly pay migrant workers, who two seconds ago they were claiming as "essential workers". Let's re-examine who's "essential" in this equation...To quote:
"You, sir, are a poor gamester. When you squeezed out the three small grocers here in Berkeley by virtue of your superior combination, you swelled out your chest, talked about efficiency and enterprise, and sent your wife to Europe on the profits you had gained by eating up the three small groceries. It is dog eat dog, and you ate them up. But on the other hand, you are being eaten up in turn by the bigger dogs, wherefore you squeal."
and...
“But when you squeal you don’t state the situation flatly, as I have stated it. You don’t say that you like to squeeze profits out of others, and that you are making all the row because others are squeezing your profits out of you. No, you are too cunning for that. You say something else. You make small-capitalist political speeches such as Mr. Calvin made…When he says ‘free opportunity for all,’ he means free opportunity to squeeze profits, which freedom of opportunity is now denied him by the great trusts. And the absurd thing about it is that you have repeated these phrases so often that you believe them. You want opportunity to plunder your fellow-men in your own small way, but you hypnotize yourselves into thinking you want freedom. You are piggish and acquisitive, but the magic of your phrases leads you to believe that you are patriotic. Your desire for profits, which is sheer selfishness, you metamorphose into altruistic solicitude for suffering humanity."
Another thing I liked about The Iron Heel was the way London so simply laid out the truth of capitalist "democracies"; namely that they aren't true democracies at all and that the capitalist class will never allow themselves to be voted out of power.
During one of these "debate nights" he always seems to be attending, Ernest mentions that there are now millions of socialists who will have one of their own voted into office in the next election. To which this particular capitalist responds: "What if you do get a majority, a sweeping majority, on election day?...Suppose we refuse to turn the government over to you after you have captured it at the ballot box”
Later, after Ernest becomes a Congressman, he gives a speech saying: "You have no souls to be influenced. You are spineless, flaccid things. You pompously call yourselves Republicans and Democrats. There is no Republican Party. There is no Democratic Party. There are no Republicans nor Democrats in this House. You are lick-spittlers and panderers, the creators of the Plutocracy. You talk verbosely in antiquated terminology of your love of liberty, and all the while you wear the scarlet livery of the Iron Heel."
When reading this, I couldn't help but look at the US election race happening now. The Democrats knew that Sanders was their best chance against Trump...they also knew that Sanders wasn't on their leash, that he represented a very real threat; that even if he won, their class interests (that is capitalist, neo-liberal interests) would still have lost. Trump represents the Democratic Party's interests more than Sanders does, and so they've gone about making sure that Bernie will never win. In Texas and in other states, the Democrats closed polling stations in poor neighbourhoods and especially Latino and Black neighbourhoods. They went out of their way to make it harder for Black and Latino people to vote, and for poor people in general to vote. They threw everything they had at Bernie and everything behind Biden (Biden vs Trump is essentially a contest of mirror images). And that's the reality in the US, in Canada, and everywhere in the western world. Even across political parties there is still one capitalist interest that obliterates party lines, and they will do whatever they can to prevent themselves from losing power.
In that same vein, London also talks about the connection between nationalism, militarism and capitalism. London predicts a war between the US and Germany, one that would be waged by the capitalists to quell the rumblings of potential revolution; that would frame conflict as "America vs Germany" rather than "Socialism vs Oligarchy/capitalism". Thinking of the way America's rural poor and working class have been slowly converted to the right or the far-right, London is exactly right in how nationalism and militarism have been used to sway working class Americans away from their own class interests. The fear-mongering and campaign against socialism was expertly done by American capitalists.
The third main strength of this novel was the portrayal of labour unions, and the way buying off labour leaders and particular unions collapsed the socialist movement for decades.
“It’s a bribe…Behind it is the fine hand of Wickson and behind him the hands of greater men than he. It is an old trick, old as the class struggle is old – stealing the captains from the army of labour. Poor betrayed labour! If you but knew how many of its leaders have been bought out in similar ways in the past. It is cheaper, so much cheaper, to buy a general than to fight him and his whole army.”
This is a story we see played out across the 20th century and into the 21st century. Labour leaders taking deals that hurt the most vulnerable of their membership, that betray the most vulnerable unionised and non-unionsed workers. This is a massive reason the labour movement has lost its teeth over the last few decades. Like small business owners, these labour leaders also believe that they can share in the fortunes of capitalism forever, that they have some sort of power. Until the mask crumbles and the "big daddy" capitalists turn on them again. At the same time, London also acknowledges that most working class people cannot be "free agents", that their hands are tied, they need to eat, support their families, survive.
There are a few other things I found interesting in this book, but apparently I'm running out of characters. A couple of those things included the way political belief can take on religious zeal, and to what extent that kind of zeal is needed for unity (at the same time, how do you maintain healthy and necessary debate and progression in a movement, since zeal often shuts down conversation...sharing the same political belief doesn't mean agreeing on everything, nor should it) and how do you ride that line?
In other random thoughts, I found it interesting that London seemed to have some "Lovecraftian" moments of unspeakable horror (before Lovecraft started publishing) in his descriptions of capitalism and impending fascism. “I mean that there is a shadow of something colossal and menacing that even now is beginning to fall across the land. Call it the shadow of an oligarchy, if you will; it is the nearest I dare approximate it. What its nature may be I refuse to imagine." or “One can only dimly feel these things. But they are in the air, now, to-day. Once can feel the loom of them - things vast, vague and terrible...Behind what he said were the same nameless, formless things that I feel”
Anyways, I'll leave off there. I did enjoy this though, and I think its especially interesting if a) you're a socialist, b) interested in the historical aspect and London's predictions. I also think it explains certain concepts well for some who might be new to these political ideas.
This is part "review", part political ramble lol. The Iron Heel was written in 1908 and was one of Jack London's dystopian novels written from a socialist perspective. I definitely agree with the description of this as part dystopian fiction, part socialist tract. I also think most of it (though not all) remains very relevant today.
The book itself is written from the perspective of Avis, who is the wife of the "great revolutionary" (heh) Ernest Everhard, and is mostly made up of political conversations/debates. From that latter perspective, I thought it was a really interesting and on-point read. I know some find the style dry because it is such a thinly veiled political treatise, but personally, I find the "conversation" format can be a good way of conveying certain ideas. I think it fit well in this case. There are certain aspects of socialist theory and perspective that London does a great job of explaining through those conversations, particularly the mentality/hypocrisy of small business owners, the farce that is capitalist "democracy", how labour leaders and certain unions allowing themselves to be bought off has played a significant role in collapsing the strength of socialist movements across the west, etc.
Before I get into the many things I did like about this book, I wanted to acknowledge its problems. Spoiler tags in case, not sure how spoilery
Spoiler
As I said, this was written in 1908 and, well, his representations of women and PoC are not amazing. On the one hand, his representation of women is...maybe...slightly better than many male authors of his time, in that he gives a degree of agency and implies active roles in the movement/revolution. He also doesn't entirely relegate them to "passive" roles, many becoming involved in assassinations, fighting groups etc. But, again, they're characters mentioned in passing. He also seems to be cool with women having some kind of sexuality beyond being mothers and virgins, but only to the extent that it suits his purposes (of course). But then there's Anna Roylston. From everything said about her, I would have really liked to see more of her, she sounded pretty bad ass! Apparently she was also based on a friend of his. Anyway, Anna Roylston was apparently a superstar in the movement, expert spy and assassin, member of one of the Fighting Groups, etc. Then of course her nickname has to be "the Red Virgin"...Egads. Its "strange" in the sense that London writes a few of the women characters as, to some extent or other, "sexually liberated". Avis herself apparently had several sexual relationships before marrying Ernest, which isn't common for a main female pov in 1908, anyway (although, it seems to be used to tell us that even though she'd slept with football players and all sorts of bougie "heroes", Ernest was the bestest of the bestest of her lovers, you seeee). But Anna Roylston aka the Red Virgin, nope. She was so dedicated to the cause that she sacrificed a sex life, relationships, marriage and personal happiness for the good of the movement. Seriously, of all the bad ass names her comrades could have given her, London goes with the Red Virgin. Ugh. Anyway, so basically, its what you'd often expect from books written by a guy during that period, occasionally somewhat better but still rather cringey.I think part of this stems from the fact that Ernest Everhard (lol) is basically a stand-in for London himself, and a lot of what's written about the "heroic" and apparently ever so sexy Ernest is a product of London's own wish fulfillment. He writes fairly obsessively about Ernest being the epitome of masculinity, how jacked he is (such bulging muscle, such bull-like neck, and always, always the "war-note" in his voice, apparently), how aggressive but also calm and wise he is. He's an expert debater who is forever running oratory circles around his opponents. That aspect of Ernest as the "strong, smart working class guy" is also accompanied by his so-called "working class pragmatism". The guy can say "it works" to just about anything, apparently as a flawless argument about why he's right about everything.
And to return to Avis, I think its telling that London decides to write her as a middle class, university student without much experience in the world. London seems to follow in the tradition of perceiving middle class white women as the epitome of "nurturing femininity", the appeal here being that Ernest gets to "open her eyes to a whole new world" (sup Aladdin) and convert her to socialism; be the "brooding working class boy" who takes her from willfully ignorant, liberal daddy's girl to woke socialist still-daddy's-girl. Avis' character has a ton of potential, and I would have loved to see more attention paid to her actions while Ernest was imprisoned. She eventually becomes an international spy and is important to the movement, but we really don't get to see much of that. But throughout the book, you get the impression she's just there to support the brilliance of Ernest Everhard, revolutionary extraordinaire.
Despite being described as working class himself, by the time we enter Ernest's life he's making his living off of his "revolutionary work". Working class people, and especially the poorest among them, are only used as conversion lessons for Avis, Avis' father, the Bishop and the readers (Ernest essentially sends Avis and the Bishop on a journey through the capitalist Inferno: "he is soul-sick from the journey through hell I have given him"). They are lessons for their "betters" to learn from, but never really people. In the end, they're even described as getting in the way of Ernest's revolutionaries by creating their own groups and carrying out their own activities. In the Chicago chapters, they're essentially a tool used both by Ernest's revolutionaries and the Oligarchy's mercenaries against each other. Honestly, certain aspects of this book are more about London's wish fulfillment, about London-as-Ernest than it is about working class people. A lot of it is about ego, about writing himself as the great revolutionary hero and saviour. He talks about capitalists believing they're the saviours of humanity, but honestly its also the way Ernest/London sees himself. He essentially creates a personality cult for himself.
There were a lot of things London got very right, though, despite the above problems. For example, he did a great job of describing the mentality and hypocrisy of small business owners/small capitalists. He demonstrates very well that the "plight" of the petit bourgeoisie is essentially that they want the right to profit from the exploitation of others. They get pissed off at corporations for having the money and resources to run them out of business. But to put it into today's context, here in Canada many of those same small business owners weep and cry when minimum wage is increased. They expect working class people to work for them for nothing. They justify paying them low wages by calling them "unskilled labour" and yet they couldn't operate without them. If you can't afford to pay your workers a fair and living wage, then your business model is shit and depends on underpaying and exploiting others. They're profits and "romantic views" of themselves should not be at the expense of working class people.
During Covid-19, here in Ontario farmers cry about the government not giving them enough support. They then turn around and cry about having to use the wage subsidies the government gave them to properly pay migrant workers, who two seconds ago they were claiming as "essential workers". Let's re-examine who's "essential" in this equation...To quote:
"You, sir, are a poor gamester. When you squeezed out the three small grocers here in Berkeley by virtue of your superior combination, you swelled out your chest, talked about efficiency and enterprise, and sent your wife to Europe on the profits you had gained by eating up the three small groceries. It is dog eat dog, and you ate them up. But on the other hand, you are being eaten up in turn by the bigger dogs, wherefore you squeal."
and...
“But when you squeal you don’t state the situation flatly, as I have stated it. You don’t say that you like to squeeze profits out of others, and that you are making all the row because others are squeezing your profits out of you. No, you are too cunning for that. You say something else. You make small-capitalist political speeches such as Mr. Calvin made…When he says ‘free opportunity for all,’ he means free opportunity to squeeze profits, which freedom of opportunity is now denied him by the great trusts. And the absurd thing about it is that you have repeated these phrases so often that you believe them. You want opportunity to plunder your fellow-men in your own small way, but you hypnotize yourselves into thinking you want freedom. You are piggish and acquisitive, but the magic of your phrases leads you to believe that you are patriotic. Your desire for profits, which is sheer selfishness, you metamorphose into altruistic solicitude for suffering humanity."
Another thing I liked about The Iron Heel was the way London so simply laid out the truth of capitalist "democracies"; namely that they aren't true democracies at all and that the capitalist class will never allow themselves to be voted out of power.
During one of these "debate nights" he always seems to be attending, Ernest mentions that there are now millions of socialists who will have one of their own voted into office in the next election. To which this particular capitalist responds: "What if you do get a majority, a sweeping majority, on election day?...Suppose we refuse to turn the government over to you after you have captured it at the ballot box”
Later, after Ernest becomes a Congressman, he gives a speech saying: "You have no souls to be influenced. You are spineless, flaccid things. You pompously call yourselves Republicans and Democrats. There is no Republican Party. There is no Democratic Party. There are no Republicans nor Democrats in this House. You are lick-spittlers and panderers, the creators of the Plutocracy. You talk verbosely in antiquated terminology of your love of liberty, and all the while you wear the scarlet livery of the Iron Heel."
When reading this, I couldn't help but look at the US election race happening now. The Democrats knew that Sanders was their best chance against Trump...they also knew that Sanders wasn't on their leash, that he represented a very real threat; that even if he won, their class interests (that is capitalist, neo-liberal interests) would still have lost. Trump represents the Democratic Party's interests more than Sanders does, and so they've gone about making sure that Bernie will never win. In Texas and in other states, the Democrats closed polling stations in poor neighbourhoods and especially Latino and Black neighbourhoods. They went out of their way to make it harder for Black and Latino people to vote, and for poor people in general to vote. They threw everything they had at Bernie and everything behind Biden (Biden vs Trump is essentially a contest of mirror images). And that's the reality in the US, in Canada, and everywhere in the western world. Even across political parties there is still one capitalist interest that obliterates party lines, and they will do whatever they can to prevent themselves from losing power.
In that same vein, London also talks about the connection between nationalism, militarism and capitalism. London predicts a war between the US and Germany, one that would be waged by the capitalists to quell the rumblings of potential revolution; that would frame conflict as "America vs Germany" rather than "Socialism vs Oligarchy/capitalism". Thinking of the way America's rural poor and working class have been slowly converted to the right or the far-right, London is exactly right in how nationalism and militarism have been used to sway working class Americans away from their own class interests. The fear-mongering and campaign against socialism was expertly done by American capitalists.
The third main strength of this novel was the portrayal of labour unions, and the way buying off labour leaders and particular unions collapsed the socialist movement for decades.
“It’s a bribe…Behind it is the fine hand of Wickson and behind him the hands of greater men than he. It is an old trick, old as the class struggle is old – stealing the captains from the army of labour. Poor betrayed labour! If you but knew how many of its leaders have been bought out in similar ways in the past. It is cheaper, so much cheaper, to buy a general than to fight him and his whole army.”
This is a story we see played out across the 20th century and into the 21st century. Labour leaders taking deals that hurt the most vulnerable of their membership, that betray the most vulnerable unionised and non-unionsed workers. This is a massive reason the labour movement has lost its teeth over the last few decades. Like small business owners, these labour leaders also believe that they can share in the fortunes of capitalism forever, that they have some sort of power. Until the mask crumbles and the "big daddy" capitalists turn on them again. At the same time, London also acknowledges that most working class people cannot be "free agents", that their hands are tied, they need to eat, support their families, survive.
There are a few other things I found interesting in this book, but apparently I'm running out of characters. A couple of those things included the way political belief can take on religious zeal, and to what extent that kind of zeal is needed for unity (at the same time, how do you maintain healthy and necessary debate and progression in a movement, since zeal often shuts down conversation...sharing the same political belief doesn't mean agreeing on everything, nor should it) and how do you ride that line?
In other random thoughts, I found it interesting that London seemed to have some "Lovecraftian" moments of unspeakable horror (before Lovecraft started publishing) in his descriptions of capitalism and impending fascism. “I mean that there is a shadow of something colossal and menacing that even now is beginning to fall across the land. Call it the shadow of an oligarchy, if you will; it is the nearest I dare approximate it. What its nature may be I refuse to imagine." or “One can only dimly feel these things. But they are in the air, now, to-day. Once can feel the loom of them - things vast, vague and terrible...Behind what he said were the same nameless, formless things that I feel”
Anyways, I'll leave off there. I did enjoy this though, and I think its especially interesting if a) you're a socialist, b) interested in the historical aspect and London's predictions. I also think it explains certain concepts well for some who might be new to these political ideas.
shri_ace13's review against another edition
challenging
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.75
lexiefolkerts's review against another edition
5.0
So good. Pro-socialism. I love how he was able to convert so many of the wealthy and ruling class to see that they were part of the problem. Earnest explains how people are being exploited so well. He appeals to the masses. In ways I wish this novel were true, I wish we’d gotten that close to socialism. The end of the book sounded like America even today. Highly recommend.
kardi's review against another edition
challenging
inspiring
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
4.75
swarley's review against another edition
challenging
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.75
steelcitygator's review against another edition
3.0
They don't just make em like they used to. A cliche but when it comes to the political novel I think it's true.
An early 1900's socialist novel (though at times feels more like a pamphlet) that has just enough dystopian elements to influence some much more famous literature of the middle 20th century. For the most part London is an excellent writer. The story moves well and this is where I most say I was impressed by the format with the "footnotes" from a far distant historian. This is made even the more interesting when he gets some basic facts on the 20th century incorrect that make both narrators somewhat unreliable. It creates not only an interesting dynamic but an interesting read between the lines of the story helped along by an extremely satisfying prose.
This is where I must come in and say it can get kinda preachy at times. Especially feeling that way about 1/3 of the way through compared to the ending. This isn't helped along by a lot of the characters we follow being caricatures of ideas. Not an easy concept to pull off without it feeling like the author has never heard of nuance and this is no exception. I think a lot of this stems from London not being a political figure. He was a novelist. He knew of the socialist thought of the time well and that's what's represented here but just regurgitating that onto the page and characters falls flat at times, occasionally to an eye rolling degree.
That said, it's still fun enough that I recommend it as a read. A modern version of this would be rightfully derided but the charm of being in the pre-WW2 cultural element gives it that special something.
An early 1900's socialist novel (though at times feels more like a pamphlet) that has just enough dystopian elements to influence some much more famous literature of the middle 20th century. For the most part London is an excellent writer. The story moves well and this is where I most say I was impressed by the format with the "footnotes" from a far distant historian. This is made even the more interesting when he gets some basic facts on the 20th century incorrect that make both narrators somewhat unreliable. It creates not only an interesting dynamic but an interesting read between the lines of the story helped along by an extremely satisfying prose.
This is where I must come in and say it can get kinda preachy at times. Especially feeling that way about 1/3 of the way through compared to the ending. This isn't helped along by a lot of the characters we follow being caricatures of ideas. Not an easy concept to pull off without it feeling like the author has never heard of nuance and this is no exception. I think a lot of this stems from London not being a political figure. He was a novelist. He knew of the socialist thought of the time well and that's what's represented here but just regurgitating that onto the page and characters falls flat at times, occasionally to an eye rolling degree.
That said, it's still fun enough that I recommend it as a read. A modern version of this would be rightfully derided but the charm of being in the pre-WW2 cultural element gives it that special something.