A review by icameheretoread
The Son of the Wolf: Tales of the Far North by Jack London
4.0
I've been meaning to read a biography about Jack London. And then I remembered that it's probably been over twenty years since I read anything by him. I remember reading the universally required "To Build a Fire" in high school, and then, on my own, reading The Call of the Wild and White Fang.
So I grabbed this collection of short stories in order to get started and they are fabulous.
Trigger warnings about animal cruelty and what extreme elements can do to the human body.
I didn't find him to be racist, in fact many of his non-white characters are fully developed and are more often the hero of the story vs the "white man", but these were written around 1900, so keep that in mind while reading.
Also, I found one story to be pretty dismissive about women. Then, the next TWO featured extremely strong female characters that were just awesome. I read somewhere this might be because London's second wife was quite awesome. There is a balance here I don't normally run into with classics.
Now onto more his "socialist" writings.
So I grabbed this collection of short stories in order to get started and they are fabulous.
Trigger warnings about animal cruelty and what extreme elements can do to the human body.
I didn't find him to be racist, in fact many of his non-white characters are fully developed and are more often the hero of the story vs the "white man", but these were written around 1900, so keep that in mind while reading.
Also, I found one story to be pretty dismissive about women. Then, the next TWO featured extremely strong female characters that were just awesome. I read somewhere this might be because London's second wife was quite awesome. There is a balance here I don't normally run into with classics.
Now onto more his "socialist" writings.