Martin Eden (Penguin American Library)

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Summary: A ageless story of literary triumph and tragedy.
Review: As an individual ages from adolesence to retirement age, Martin Eden and other works of Jack London, though unchanged from the original printing, bring different meaning and worth to the individual. Jack London and other great authors of the period such as Ernest Hemingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald, share unparalleled triumph in their individual genre and a shared tragic consequence of death. As a teenager, Martin Eden served as that triumphant underdog that nestles in many teenagers of some 50 years ago. Yet those teenagers, many of who grew up before, during and after World War II, have come to know personal tragedy. The tragedy of Martin Eden (autobiographically speaking)takes on more of reality to those past generations than perhaps the present generation. Nevertheless, the story is timeless albeit bittersweet. Martin Eden could well serve as a primer for those individuals who have yet to read his more classical tales of Sea Witch and Call of the Wild. Those were raw boned and sometimes brutal times he described. A reader may be surprised at the reality in the novels but should accept there is more fact than fiction as Jack London did indeed experience or witness much of these tales

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Summary: Undoubtedly my favorite Jack London's book
Review: I have read several of Jack London's works and I consider this as my favourite. The struggle of the main charater (Martin) to get an education and become a writer is narrated so well by the author that I really had a hard time putting this book down. The plot is very simple: Martin Eden is a sailor who lives in Oakland California at the end of the ninteenth century. When he meet Ruth through her brother, he falls in love with her at once, eventhough she is a rich university student while he is an uneducated orphan that lives with his step sister and her husband. Martin deciedes to get an education so that he can get closer to Ruth. He starts to study grammar and to read heaps of books. eventually he decides to become a writer. The story of Martin striving to make it as a writer is very similar to that of London himself. The book is superbly written and a must read for struggling artists and also for lovers of good literature.

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Summary: illumination for sea wolf
Review: I loved "sea wolf" but didn't really understand why until I read Martin Eden a few weeks later; then instantly, at the unwanted ending of Martin Eden, I saw the dying of Wolf Larsen as the necessary end of a life of transformation. I can't think of this book without seeing the enforced slavery and punitive changes in the "second critic of America" on the sealing ship as an allegory for Jack London's own painful and wilful revolution into an author, and so as a variant of Martin Eden.

As Larsen and his first mate struggle for life on the deck of the derelict Ghost, it is a foregone conclusion that the writer and critic will triumph, since Wolf is really trying to kill himself and cannot, even after passing the best of himself and his knowledge and experience into these alien hands.
In "sea wolf" Jack London triumphs as a writer only by destroying his primitive self and uniting with a female alter ego. In Martin Eden, Jack shows that he really is only Wolf Larsen at heart, and cannot under any circumstances break away from his past without destroying himself.
Ah, some things are not worth their price.
Read these two books together, in any order, and preferrably in several orders to discover America and yourself, if you had to give up anything to grow up ...

Rating:
Summary: Great
Review: If there's such a thing as an American canon, this book should be there. Everytime I recommend this book to a friend, they ask, "Who's it by?" "Jack London." "Jack London! The author of call of the wild?"

Well, yes. He's the one, but wait!, this book is like nothing else Jack London has ever written, and bears scant semblance to his Sea Wolf or Call of the Wild. In short, this is serious literature (advance apologies to Call of the Wild and Sea Wolf fans), and it's worth reading.

This book reminded me a lot of Edith Wharton's Ethan Frome (another wonderful book). Both begin with hope, engage in change, and end in pathos. Martin Eden is a self-educated, self-made man (see why I say it should be in the American canon?) who attempts to garner the love of a young college student who pushes him out of what she sees to be his stifling chrysalis and become more like her and her fellow intelligentsia. The plot thickens when he does not only this, but surpasses them all in erudition with a passionate, eager mind, a more eager heart, and lots of hard work, all in the name of love. And then in the book's climax, he decides to ... oh, I can't tell you that. You'll hate me, and I'll ruin the book for you.

What I can tell you, however, is that if you go to a bookstore, and pay full price for this book, you'll love it and feel that you've gotten a good bang for your buck. If you get it at a discount, you'll walk away feeling as though you've five-finger discounted this little gem.

Read it ... you'll be glad you did.

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Summary: Social Darwinism
Review: In MARTIN EDEN Jack London used his own life as as plot and cast about for its wider significance. Jack London died by overdose of morphine in 1916. He had suicidal impulses. MARTIN EDEN was Jack London's attempt to deal seriously and vigorously with important ideas. The forward notes that the novel is realistic but the metaphysics of the book are predominantly naturalistic.

Martin Eden thought of himself as a wild man-- a wild man brought home to dinner. He had defended Ruth Morse's brother from bullies. He borrowed Swinburne and Browning from Ruth to read. Ruth felt that Swinburne was not quite correct. He lived with his sister and brother-in-law. He thought the man, Bernard Higginbotham, a brute. The many books he read served to whet his unrest. He felt an enormous distance separated him from Ruth Morse.

He had always led a secret life in his thoughts. Martin saw Ruth at the theater. In his reading he was baffled by a lack of preparation. He attempted to read books that were beyond him. When he returned the books, Ruth noticed his pants were pressed and he seemed less rough. She wondered how to help him. His speech was uncouth.

In compliance with her desires he studied grammar and etiquette. His swift development was a source of surprise and interest. The remodelling of Martin's life became a passion with her. Then he shipped out and read Shakespeare and did not even contact her right away when he came back into port.

Martin planned to write. He wrote three thousand words a day and at the end of the week contacted Ruth. He bought a bicycle to accompany her on excursions. He heard Herbert Spencer quoted several times by orators and philosophers at City Hall Park and commenced to read his books. Martin was surprised that Spencer was very little read.

He came to see his rejected manuscripts as pitiable children and hired on to work at a laundry in a resort. The description of the work in the laundry is admirable. Martin returned and began work again on his writing. Ruth's mother considered him an inappropriate beau.

Ruth thought Martin's poverty was Lincolnesque. His landlady, Maria Silva, poor herself, knew better. Ruth appeared at the Silva house. He had been reckless enough to write to her to tell her that he had pawned his suit. Ruth saw the sordid face of poverty.

Martin began to have some small sucess. He still suffered and starved and his behavior at a gathering at Ruth's house reflected his state of overwork and under-nourishment. He lost Ruth. His family did not support him. Eventually he had great success and Ruth came back to him, but he said it was too late. He said he was the same person her family had disliked. He left for the South Seas.

Reading Jack London is akin to reading good science fiction. He portrays an entire separate parallel universe.

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Summary: A Neglected American Classic of Weight and Depth
Review: MARTIN EDEN follows the rise and fall of a young sailor who by sheer force of will educates himself and succeeds in becoming a famous writer (this is London's autobiographical novel, published in 1909, when he was thirty-three and the most popular living writer in the world). Few readers liked it then, they found it dark and depressing after a certain point; they wanted the entertainment they were used to from London ("Come on, Jack, give us another story with dogs and snow in it!"). Not as many read it now as should, and London himself disdained the fact that it inspired many young writers without talent to follow Martin Eden's example. But it is also a valuable story about a young man maturing in his conception of love as regards the opposite sex:

"Ambition soared on mad wings, and he saw himself climbing the heights with her, pleasuring in beautiful and noble things with her. It was a soul-possession he dreamed, refined beyond any grossness, a free comradeship of spirit that he could not put into definite thought." -- The youth becomes a man.

London's prose is straightforward and vibrant, much like the author at his best. Martin Eden falls victim to the vicissitudes of his fame and fortune, much like the author at his worst (too much hard living is often given as the reason for London's death at forty). London spends a lot of time in this book criticizing American materialism in the way that materialism ought to be criticized. He also displays a certain kind of American work ethic (five hours of sleep a night, perseverance through failure, etc.) that sometimes doesn't know what to do with itself once it achieves success. We should all have that problem--just hope that we deal with it better than young Martin Eden does. A very worthwhile read.

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Summary: Martin, Jack and Friedrich
Review: Martin Eden is one of those books on which it's difficult to pass judgment. It doesn't rise to the realm of high art, although the writing is splendid in parts. The philosophy displayed through most of the novel comes across as sophomoric and meretricious. As autobiography it is dubious at best, as anyone who has read a biography of London knows. On all these accunts, London's other semi-autobiographical work, John Barleycorn, is much better and well-grounded......And yet, any one who has ever been in love or thirsted for beauty and knowledge, or has had ambition thwarted, or had it fulfilled and found that its reward led to emptiness can not help saying that this is the stuff of life.

The book has Nietzsche's influence written all over it. Indeed, the closing lines of Chapter XXVIII are directly lifted from Nietzsche. This influence doesn't, to my mind, detract from the novel though. Quite to the contrary, it's what holds the book thematically and artistically together.

The best part of the book by far is the ending, wherein London remains artistically and thematically true to himself and to his readers, and thereby renders the book unpalatable for mass consumption. As Nietzsche puts it, "I love him who is abashed when the dice fall to make his fortune, and asks, 'Am I then a crooked gambler?' For he wants to perish" There is also the influence and theme of that most anomolous of the books of The Bible, Ecclesiastes, which is, again, more overtly evident in London's John Barleycorn: "Vanity of vanities, saith the Preacher; all is vanity. What profit hath a man of all his labour which he taketh under the sun?"

This book has its faults, but indiffence to the very pulse of life and to the vagaries of the human condition is not one of them. I can't imagine any lover of and struggler with words and life coming away from Martin Eden unmoved.

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Summary: A life altering read!
Review: Perfection in its every breath!

Imagine a mind trapped in a body that was born to unfortunate social circumstance, but strives to rise with the masses for the sake of love, only to rise above and beyond it without being able to contain itself-that is the essence of Martin Eden. Then imagine again a mind obssessed with knowledge, a body hungry for love and a soul agonized from the vice of humanity-that is the plight and tragedy of Martin Eden.

Reading this book was a life altering read that I will always cherish, for every artistic mind will inherently and passionately understand every syllable uttered by Jack London's genuis-buy this book and read it and reread it indefinitely!

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Summary: The best book London ever wrote
Review: Read this shortly after reading "White Jacket" by Herman Melville. Certainly came away from reading this with the impression that Melville is the superior writer. I guess that's not really in question.

As an Oaklander, I take issue with the Amazon comment above that says this book takes place in San Francisco. Maybe one or two scenes take place in San Francisco, but the rest takes place in Oakland.

It is fun to read the action taking place on Telegraph Avenue or at Broadway and fourteenth street, locations that in some places still resemble the way they looked in London's day.

Plot of novel is best referred to as "semi-autobiographical", from what I can gather. Martin Eden struggles to teach himself to write, only to find that success leads to emptiness. Story mirrored a short story written by Nathaniel Hawthorne called "Ethan Brand". In that story, the main character becomes obsessed with finding "an unpardonable sin". After travelling around the world, he realizes that the only unpardonable sin is the uncontrolled thirst for knowledge.

Martin Eden is kind of like that... He thirsts to know everything, but when his knowledge is recognized by society, he is disappointed and left feeling empty inside.

Eden, the character, has a penchant for Herbert Spencer and Nietzche. I found the philosophizing involving these two hard to take, but I guess that's just par for the course with London.
Makes for a quick read, despite it's four hundred page plus length.

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Summary: Martin Eden
Review: When looking for leisure reading material, I would definitely recommend Jack London's, Martin Eden. If you are not used to London's word usage, you might be caught off guard. Despite his word usage the reader can still get the main points of the story. This story is one that touches on many topics such as self discovery, tragedy, trust, and the evolution of one's being. As you read Martin Eden you cannot help but identify with the main character in some way. By connnecting with the main character you will find yourself suppporting him in every way. You will celebrate his achievements and console him in his many failures. All of which make for an engaging novel. Those individuals that wish to cheer for Jack London's "Rocky" should read this novel.

Once you start this novel you will not want to put it down until you have completed it.