MoonValley: Late London

2024 Author: Leah Sherlock | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 05:25

The book "Moon Valley" by Jack London presents the late work of the writer. When he, already caressed by recognition and greatly disappointed in the ideas he had been chasing in his youth, decided to write about what he had wanted since the days of The Game. At the same time, it remains the same London: a realist, a romantic and a socialist idealist in one bottle. Let's analyze what came out of this mixture and whether it is worth taking on his later works at all.

Main actors

The protagonist of the novel "Moon Valley" is surprisingly similar to the boxer Joe he once created from the already mentioned "Game". However, if the reader has come across this story, which adequately represents even early London, he may remember that the creator mercilessly kills his character in the ring right in front of his beloved girl, whom he, in theory, should marry immediately after the end of the fight. This is the whole early author, he is categorically direct and, of course, a fighter in every act and thought.

Apparently, this boxer Joe was nicely resurrected in the Moon Valley novel. Moreover, clearly with the aim of continuing its existence, as if the fate of allstill gave him a chance to find a family, settle down, give birth to children and achieve the same all-American dream of prosperity, live happily ever after and die on the same day with his beloved.

Accordingly, there is also his other half, who was much more fortunate than the heroine of the "Game". In general, the writer brings this couple from the outskirts of the workers, so that, as expected, in his characteristic style, begin to test them with the vicissitudes of living together in the unfriendly conditions of bourgeois America.

Late London

And here the tricks of the new, late London begin. The protagonist somehow ceases to fight for a just cause too quickly, his youthful maximalism suddenly disappears somewhere. A month in prison for him and the ordeal of lack of money for her is enough for a persistent character to suddenly turn into a slob. He no longer wants to fight, but give him calm domestic happiness somewhere away from the bustle of the city. So the reader gets the most interesting epic road adventures of a couple of wanderers, united by a common desire to find the promised land.

Jack London is a great storyteller. The novel "Moon Valley" turned out to be extremely interesting in terms of describing the life of agricultural America. His personal family idyll has clearly migrated to the pages of this undoubtedly talented work. But the feeling that London is no longer the same clearly haunts, disappointing the reader so accustomed to it. He completely forgot his idealistic calls to fight for a socialistsociety. Now his goal is a strong farm, in which everything is well arranged.

By the way, "Moon Valley" is a novel written in 1913, when the author already had a difficult experience in running his own household, the debts from which he had to cover by doing day labor as a writer. However, this idea of a modern economy, intelligent and incredibly profitable, clearly dominates the work.

Socialist background

The inveterate socialist, of course, also has it here. But the manifestations of these ideas are already completely different, in many ways different from early London. Critics often combine the novel "Moon Valley" with his other famous work - "Iron Heel", which is a vivid example of dystopia. But there is a fundamental difference between these novels. If in the second the heroes continue to fight for a glorious socialist future, then in the first they don’t even think about it, they just live very easily and harmoniously with the idea of communism in family relationships.

Really, the idyll here is just classic. Their family is a miniature communist paradise. Here a man pays his woman for services, and she leases her property to him, they agree that common property is the limit of perfection. So London wrote a beautiful fairy tale that you want to believe in, but it just doesn't work out very well.

Conclusion

In the Soviet Union the most printed was, as you know, Hans Christian Andersen. And in second place on this list,Oddly enough, Jack London. "Moon Valley" is a vivid example of the work of this remarkable writer in the late period. He was loved by the entire Union for his sincerity and naive frankness. It is a pleasure to read, and this book is clearly no exception.