The Mutiny of the 'Elsinore.' By Jack London. (Mills and
Boon. 6s.)—As an adventure story pure and simple, The Mutiny of the 'Elsinore,' with its prolonged periods of inaction, may be counted a failure. But to assert this is not to condemn the book; for Mr. London, with all his brilliant power of characterization, has given us a psychological study of the horrible, of horror physical, moral, and mental, And it is just because his study was to be deep that he had of necessity to limit its breadth. So he fixed for it the narrow confines of a sea voyage in a cargo-boat. Twenty people, or rather more, may figure in it, but their movements and outlook and interests are necessarily focussed either on themselves or on one another. They are all exceptional, almost all entirely repulsive, and from beginning to end the author does not strike one note of idealism, unless it be in his evident con- sciousness that truth is being overwhelmed: "I, who penetrate it deepest, in the whole phenomena of living on the Elsinore see it only as phantasmagoria." At all events, Mr. London's study is fairly comprehensive, and he has not omitted to make effective use of the technicalities of life on a sailing ship—for instance, the long account of the storm off Cape Horn is written admirably, and, we should judge, from first.. hand knowledge. So you will read tha book once, and find it of absorbing interest: but, having once braved its horrors, yon will never desire to experience them again.
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