The Sea-Wolf. By Jack London. (W. Heinemann. 6s.)—Whether a character
like that of Wolf Larsen is really possible may be doubtful, but it is certain that Mr. Jack London makes his readers for the time believe in it. The totally unmoral sea captain with the frame of a Greek athlete and a taste for Browning and Omar Khayyam is almost a convincing figure, though we cannot but question why a man who is not altogether an unheeding brute should not only be indifferent to suffering, but should take a fiendish delight in its unnecessary infliction. The book streams with blood, and there is hardly a page without its story of brutal violence. This may, of course, be a true picture of life on sealing steamers, but it is bad art, for the monotony of violence is as tedious as the monotony of uneventful detail. It will be a misfortune to the world of literature if Mr. Jack London falls into the error of mistaking brutality for force. The two are not interchangeable terms, and the strength of a book is not measured by the number of gallons of blood which are shed in it. In Mr. London's earlier work the element of brutality was held in check by a certain free nobility of aim—the "call of the wild" was a call for liberty—and by an atmosphere of poetry. Unless he returns to his former method, the loss to contemporary fiction will be considerable.
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