2008-04-24

Having now finshed The Sea Wolf, I have the following to say about it;

The plot while good, had it's lacking points, such as the introduction of Maud Brewster three-quarters of the way through the book, and the lack of introduction to Wolf's brother Death, even though it had built up a confrontation surrounding the two of them. Unlike most critics, however, I do not see anything wrong with the way Wolf dies. Many critics were disapointed that Wolf is neither felled by Hump, or "by his own actions", or is he? You see very early in the book, Hump talks about Wolf's "headaches", as being braught about by periods of melancoly at the realization that his entire crew loathes him. London does not wish to seem to push this point much, though, and I think I know why. There is a lot of reference to Milton's Paradise Lost throughout the book, and I believe that he doesn't wish to make Milton's mistake of making his antagonist too "sympathetic". However, it is no coincidence that Wolf recieves the first of his truly debilitating headaches only after his crew deserts him.

Over all I give this book three stars out of a possible five. While the plot had some weaknesses, it did not have holes big enough to steer a sealing vessel through, and overall summed up the conflicts of London's own personality quite well. It is no secret that a good lot of Wolf Larsen's personality traits and philosophies were patterned directly after the authors own, but then again so were many of Hump's.

~M

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