Написати штрихи до творчого портрету Джека Лондона

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Jack London is one of the most popular American writers in Russia. His popularity gives the deceptive impression that his work is well known. But it is worth delving into his creative biography, and many readers will make real discoveries for themselves.

London wrote fiction

Although most of Jack London's works use his real life experience in one way or another and are written in a realistic manner, the writer also resorted to fiction – mainly in the form of individual elements. But he also has a completely fantastic work. This is a dystopian novel "The Scarlet Plague".

According to the plot of the story, in 2013, a terrible disease rolls around the world: from the manifestation of the first symptoms to death, an hour passes. The body of the deceased then decomposed very quickly. The plague has destroyed civilization all over the Earth. Only individual human groups remained alive (probably having a natural immunity to the scarlet plague), but they were unable to maintain their civilization.

All this is like the affairs of bygone days, says the old man, a former university professor. The story ends almost like a parable. His grandchildren, tired of listening to their grandfather, decide which of them will play what role in the tribe, thereby determining the social development of society.

A novel that can be called both social fiction and social forecast, "The Iron Heel", stands apart. The preface states that it is the manuscript of a twentieth-century revolutionary found many centuries later. The main plot almost makes no sense to retell, because it, with small variations, describes the rise and power of monopolies, the Great Depression, two world Wars involving Germany, the rise and failure of the socialists in Germany, and much more that we know from history books – only slightly shifted the dates of events and places of the main actions. But the novel was first published in 1908, and when you realize it, you get a chill.

Jack London described the horrors of the twentieth century before they came.

London has written out many strong female images

Although this writer for heroes, flexing its muscles and bristling with testosterone, I just love men sexist movements, it is impossible not to notice that almost all the female characters in the writer – active, independent, developed in mental and often physical relationship girls ready to change their fate and the fate of those who are near.

A shot from the movie *Hearts of Three* in 1992.

London showed "tolerance" before it became an American trend

Although the main character of London is usually a white male of English or Celtic origin in his novels and stories are active (both full positive and negative characters) representatives of the Hispanic cultures and native American tribes, unvarnished shows the consequences of colonization for peoples of the American North and called aloud the reasons for their new attitude to life and a sad situation.

But the books, which take place in the Solomon Islands, where the Pacific Australoid tribes live, are accused of racism: they say that London showed local men as exceptional savages, cruel to their women and obsessed with cannibalism. On the other hand, he showed their lives to be filled with intrigues worthy of the intrigues of European royal courts, while in his time the motives and customs of the representatives of tropical and equatorial tribes were usually simplified and presented almost more primitive than those of children.

Jack London

London wrote a novel entirely devoted to the promotion of abstinence from alcohol

We are talking about "John Barleycorn". The name is a euphemism for whiskey. The story is written in the form of a confession, in which, nevertheless, everything that once happened to the author and is shown precisely as milestones of his biography, at the same time is represented by a typical development of the habit of alcohol. Starting from the very young years and ending with the "chic" alcoholism of a person who can afford expensive drinks.

In general, London wrote most of the books based on his life experience. This is all the more surprising because the characters in his stories are adventurers and prosperous bourgeois, urban workers and tropical sailors, and that his stories are set in large cities where corporations rule, and in places that are incredibly far from civilization. What can I say here – the writer really shook both in life and in the world. The mystical notes in his work are brought by the experience of communicating with his mother, who considered herself a medium and claimed that she was always in touch with the spirit of a late Indian chief.