Jack London's Sea-Wolf

In The Sea-Wolf, Jack London has created one of the most amazing characters I've ever read. Captain Wolf Larson is a true bastard, an incarnation of pure, amoral evil. Pure, coldly logical self-interest and complete dispassionate disregard for those around him. Larson is a character that is worthy of the readers hatred but also his grudging love, respect, and in the end, pity.

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The viewpoint character, Van Weyden, is in some ways the exact opposite of Larson. He is physically weak where Larson is superhumanly strong and vital. Van Weyden is at home only under the shelter of society's and his money's wing, whereas Larson is self-made and self-sufficient.

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The story is about Larson kidnapping Van Weyden and forcing him into virtual slave labor aboard his ship and torturing him physically and psychologically under the pretense of "making him stronger' and "teaching him to stand on his own legs." The story involves themes of hatred, suffering, death, and decay (moral, physical, and societal), masculinity and femininity, and many others.

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One of the interesting points in the book is Van Weyden's realization that Larson has these vast, gaping holes in his worldview due to his being self-educated. Because he had not been formally educated with mentors to oversee the scope of his education, Larson had become overdeveloped in some areas and underdeveloped in others. Left to his own devices he'd read the things he liked and could understand and could get his hands on while disregarding the rest as irrelevant. Similarly, Van Weyden had become overdeveloped on the intelectual and social side while retaining these vast self-doubts and complete lack of practical skills and physical under-development. Setting these two characters at each others' throats in the self-enclosed world of a sailing ship what a stroke of genius by London.

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Ben Bova calls this one of the best novels ever written by an American. I agree, but without all the qualifiers. I'd say it is perhaps the best novel I've ever read - and I've read a LOT of very good ones. Very Highly Recommended.

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