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stp2
Core - Executor of Justice
Joined: 09 Apr 2003
Posts: 394
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| Posted: Fri Jun 16, 2006 7:08 am Post subject: Jack London |
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Im in a pretty good situation at work. most of the time my boss isnt around. hes a good boss but hes about to retire and spends a lot of time away from the office. that gives me time to read on the internet when i get my work done. ive been reading all of Jack London's short stories. most of them are well worth reading. this guy was a pretty incredible individual. if any of you enjoy reading you should check out his short stories. if you dont wanna buy the books the link to all his works is right here: http://london.sonoma.edu/Writings/. have fun .
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spanker76
Koutei
Joined: 08 Apr 2003
Posts: 1278
Location: Jesusland
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| Posted: Fri Jun 16, 2006 7:18 am Post subject: |
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Yea, Jack London's short stories do rock. Man, there's some great ones... and they usually have kind of bummer endings, too. I don't recall the titels, but the one where the dude tricks the natives into cutting his head off so they can't torture him is pretty bad ass. So is the one where the guy has an African friend who fights a big shark and gets eaten so that his white friend can make it back to the boat (the biggest point being that one was black and one was white during the 1700s, yet they were the best of friends). To Build a Fire rocks.... all of em are good.
I don't know this for sure, but I remember reading a biographical excerpt about Jack London... supposedly he liked to hit women, was a hopeless drunk, and lived in the suburbs his whole life. Not the first drunk writer, but I don't dig the hitting women part if it's true. |
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stp2
Core - Executor of Justice
Joined: 09 Apr 2003
Posts: 394
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| Posted: Fri Jun 16, 2006 7:27 am Post subject: |
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lol when i read the one about that guy about to be tortured tricking the natives into chopping his head off. that freaked me out too. that was a great story. i cant remember the name of it either. ill look it up. i heard he drank like a fish. i never read about him beating up on women but it doesnt surprise me. drunks and geniuses like him have their foibles and i agree with you too morg about hitting women being completely uncool.
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spanker76
Koutei
Joined: 08 Apr 2003
Posts: 1278
Location: Jesusland
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| Posted: Fri Jun 16, 2006 7:34 am Post subject: |
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i wanna read books at work
lucky dog.... |
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stp2
Core - Executor of Justice
Joined: 09 Apr 2003
Posts: 394
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| Posted: Fri Jun 16, 2006 7:42 am Post subject: |
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ya its nice morgoth. btw heres the link to that story: http://london.sonoma.edu/Writings/LostFace/lostface.html
anyone with some time check this story out. if you dont like this story, you probably wont like Jack London. if you do, you owe me . a lot of his stories are just as good as this one. check out the site. its chock full of his stories. his novels rock too.
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spanker76
Koutei
Joined: 08 Apr 2003
Posts: 1278
Location: Jesusland
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| Posted: Fri Jun 16, 2006 7:50 am Post subject: |
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| Quote: | | Clarice Stasz, in a capsule biography, writes "Following London's death, for a number of reasons a biographical myth developed in which he has been portrayed as an alcoholic womanizer who committed suicide. Recent scholarship based upon firsthand documents challenges this caricature." |
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_London
looks like the stories about his woman-beating aren't true. if you read the wikipedia description of his life, it sounds like it was pretty full. he was a sailor, a tramp, worked in a cannery, was a water patrolmen, etc.... the list goes on and on. |
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spanker76
Koutei
Joined: 08 Apr 2003
Posts: 1278
Location: Jesusland
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| Posted: Fri Jun 16, 2006 7:52 am Post subject: |
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hehe, he did like his booze, though...
| Quote: | Jack London's autobiographical book of "alcoholic memoirs", John Barleycorn, was published in 1913. Recommended by Alcoholics Anonymous, it depicts the outward and inward life of an alcoholic. The passages depicting his interior mental state, which he called the "White Logic", are among his strongest and most evocative writing. The question must, however, be raised: is it truly against alcohol, or a love hymn to alcohol? He makes alcohol sound exciting, dangerous, comradely, glamorous, manly. In the end, when he sums it up, this is the total he comes up with:
And so I pondered my problem. I should not care to revisit all these fair places of the world except in the fashion I visited them before. Glass in hand! There is a magic in the phrase. It means more than all the words in the dictionary can be made to mean. It is a habit of mind to which I have been trained all my life. It is now part of the stuff that composes me. I like the bubbling play of wit, the chesty laughs, the resonant voices of men, when, glass in hand, they shut the grey world outside and prod their brains with the fun and folly of an accelerated pulse.
No, I decided; I shall take my drink on occasion. |
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stp2
Core - Executor of Justice
Joined: 09 Apr 2003
Posts: 394
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| Posted: Fri Jun 16, 2006 8:02 am Post subject: |
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wikipedia is great. its another source i read from whenever i get the chance at work. im glad to hear he wasnt a woman beater. that would detract from his legend.
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spanker76
Koutei
Joined: 08 Apr 2003
Posts: 1278
Location: Jesusland
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| Posted: Fri Jun 16, 2006 8:07 am Post subject: |
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agreed... he lived quite a life it sounds like.
i don't think i've ever heard anyone glorify booze like that, though |
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