A brief introduction to Jack London.

Jack London (1876 65438+1October12 ~1916 65438+1October 22nd)

brief introduction

Jack London (1876 65438+1October12 ~1916 65438+1October 22nd), formerly known as "John Griffith. American writer who has written more than 50 books, such as Martin Eden and The Call of the Wild. A pioneer of business writers.

Personal background

Jack London's life is controversial. It is generally believed that his father is the astrologer William Qiu Chen. London didn't know who his father was before he came of age, and William Qiu Chen himself denied that London was his son. The municipal records and birth certificates at that time were destroyed in the San Francisco earthquake of 1906, so they were not verified. The only way now is DNA paternity. There is no such result at present.

Early life

Jack London was born in San Francisco, California, USA. My family was poor when I was a child. I have to get up at three o'clock in the morning to sell the morning paper and continue to sell the evening paper after school. He is mainly self-taught, and his tuition must be earned by himself. He said that his passion for literary writing originally came from Vader's novel The Signatory. In the novel, the child of an Italian farmer who never went to school finally became a famous playwright through hard work.

1893, he signed on the whaling ship "Sophia Sudland" and arrived at the Japanese coast. When he returned to America, America was in a state of chaos caused by the workers' movement. London first toiled in textile mills and urban railway power stations for some time. Then he joined Kelly's industrial army and became a professional vagrant worker. Jack London's works fully show the rough atmosphere. Some people think that they are "full of vigor", while others think that they are "rough and have not changed much".

summary

Jack London is a famous American novelist. He wrote about 50 books in his life, the most famous of which are The Call of the Wilderness, The Sea-Wolf, White Teeth, Martin Eden, and a series of excellent short stories, such as League of the Old, The Odyssey in the North, The House of Mapuche, etc. Jack London is a writer. He worked as a child laborer, drifted at sea, trudged on the snowy fields, and then worked and studied part-time. His legendary and romantic short stories often describe the lives of aborigines and whites in the Pacific Islands and Alaska, most of which can be said to be the adventures of his short life. The realistic style and diversified themes in his works, as well as the writer's unique personality, have been deeply attracting readers of different times and experiences for many years. Love life was praised by Lenin, who held it in his hand until a few days before his death.

Love Life tells the story of a gold digger who got lost in the wasteland and finally struggled to survive.

"Childhood-adolescence" has a strong desire to read.

Jack London was born in a poor family when he was a child, but his interest and ideals in literature were hard to contain. He has a strong desire to learn, so in order to balance life and study, Jack London will work and study from the age of 10, and he will spend all his time reading whenever possible. When Jack London was less than 9 years old, he was already familiar with washington irving's Spanish travel book "Alhan Bora". He also reads some dime novels borrowed from employees, and reads whatever he catches. Jack London left the ranch at the age of 1 1 and came to Auckland. He eagerly read the first book he could borrow from the free public library. Until 16 years old, he has been working-reading, reading-working.

At this time, Jack London had a strong desire to go out and take risks, so he got to know some oyster robbers, joined the business of robbing oysters, and then joined the water patrol that chased the oyster robbers in turn. Later, he boarded a seagoing ship, caught seals along the coast of Japan and the Bering Sea, and passed through many islands in the Pacific Ocean. His experiences in these waters later became the material of his South China Sea story. Life in the stormy waves was hard, but he didn't forget to study. When he returned to San Francisco Bay, he had finished reading Madame Bovary by Flaubert and Anna karenin by Tolstoy.

I won the first prize for my first writing.

During the period of 1893, the American economy was depressed, and Jack London occasionally wrote some exercises when looking for a job. At that time, the Voice of America in San Francisco held an essay contest. Jack London, with his mother's encouragement, tried to write a "Hurricane on the Japanese Sea" and won the first prize, 25 yuan. Jack London, who only received primary education, showed his creative talent for the first time, which was attributed to his diligent study-he carefully read the excellent works of literary masters and developed the habit of taking notes.

The next year, Jack London began to wander around the United States, from California to Boston, and then from Canada to the Pacific coast. In Canada, he was arrested and imprisoned for wandering the streets and was punished by short-term imprisonment. Jack London's wandering life in the eastern United States made him realize the miserable life of selling manual labor.

Alaska's "Northern Story" and the Publication of the First Novel

1896 Klondike discovered a gold mine, and Jack London joined the gold rush to Alaska. Instead of finding Jinsha, he got scurvy. But during the long journey, he heard many stories and legends and took notes, which later became the best material for his creation.

Although Jack London often leads a life of vagrancy, adventure and hard work, his enthusiasm for reading has not diminished. He has read many works by European and American writers. He read carefully, studied the writing methods of Kipling and Stevenson, and wrote down his experiences and wonderful writings in his notebook at any time. He has no formal education, but his self-taught knowledge and writing ability are better than those of liberal arts students who graduated from colleges and universities.

After Jack London's father died, he began to do odd jobs to support his family. When looking for a job, Jack London wrote this river, but the manuscript was returned. While waiting for the rejection, he wrote another serial novel with more than 20,000 words, and the result was returned. Although the manuscript was returned every time, Jack London still found time to write and continue to write new topics. In the end, Continental Monthly published his first novel-"A toast to the people on the road", and the contribution fee was only 5 yuan. Soon, Black Cat magazine asked 40 yuan to write a novel. Finally, there was a turn for the better.

In order to make further achievements in his creation, Jack London began to read famous works in all aspects: in philosophy, he read the works of Kant, Hegel, Spencer, Nietzsche and Marx; In terms of evolution, he read the works of Darwin, Wallace and Huxley; In economics, he read Adam Smith's The First Rich Man. He also continued to read many famous European and American literary works.

Based on the literary world, win a reputation

From 1900, Jack London published a series of short stories and began to occupy a place in American literature. After that, he wrote The Man in the Abyss based on his own experience in Britain, which caused a shock among European and American readers. In the same year, The Call of the Wilderness came out and sold well in America and other countries. The following year, he wrote one of his masterpieces, The Waves, followed by White Teeth. 1909, his masterpiece Martin Eden was published.

After 19 13, Jack London's creation obviously began to decline. Later, because of economic setbacks and family disputes, he was severely hit mentally and became addicted to alcohol. 19 16, like the hero in his masterpiece Martin Eden, committed suicide in extreme spiritual emptiness and pessimism.

Among American writers, Jack London is prolific. In the creative career of 16 years, he wrote 150 short stories and 19 novels. Together with other articles, his complete works reach 49 volumes. Jack London has won a reputation in American literature with his creative strength.

Jack London's reading method

The little note became a treasure bag.

Anyone who has been to the home of Jack London, an American writer, feels very strange: there are all kinds of small notes everywhere on curtains, clothes hangers, cabinets, bedside, mirrors and walls. Everyone who came to his room for the first time thought it was a special decoration.

In fact, these little notes are not blank. It is full of all kinds of materials he collected: wonderful words, vivid metaphors and all kinds of materials. Jack London never wanted to let time slip away under his nose. Before going to bed, he recited a small note posted on the bedside; When he woke up the next morning, he got dressed and read a small note on the wall. When shaving, look at the small note on the mirror; While pacing and resting, he recalled the contents of the small note and looked everywhere for words and materials that inspired his creation. Not only at home, but also when going out. When Jack London goes out, he will put a small note in his pocket, and whenever he has time, he will take it out and look at it, think about it and write it down. Because of his persistent collection and accumulation of materials, he put them into his mind bit by bit and used them flexibly, so he wrote a wonderful book.

The death of Jack London

1916165438+1On October 22nd, Jack London committed suicide by taking too much morphine in his luxury ranch. His death provided an important example for the writer's suicide. We can make a long list of suicide writers: Mo Bosang, Virginia Woolf, Hemingway, Yasunari Kawabata, Ryunosuke Akutagawa, Yukio Mishima, Ye Saining, Mayakovski, Zvetayeva, Haizi and so on. When people talk about the writer's suicide, they always try to understand some philosophical implications from the writer's pain, loneliness and despair. This over-interpretation may just poeticize the complicated phenomenon of writer's suicide.

Of course, after all, human beings are in a state of birth and death, and the finiteness of life makes it impossible for human beings to give up thinking about death. Writers pay more attention to people's inner world, pursue their own ideals, ask more about the meaning of life, and are more sensitive and harsh on the real world. So the writer's suicide is indeed a spiritual event to a great extent, a spiritual event.

Jack London, born out of wedlock, believes in individualism and superman philosophy, which is related to his painful childhood memories. It is because of suffering from poverty and vagrancy that Jack London's impulse to break through the unfair and unequal social status quo is particularly strong. It is better to fight against fate than to wait helplessly. Jack London's life is very stressful. All his life, he sought to rise from the bottom and succeed from bad luck. 1 1 years old, going out to do odd jobs to make a living. /kloc-at the age of 0/4, he was arrested for taking part in a sneak attack on a private oyster farm and was punished as a coolie. Later, he became a sailor and began his sailing career. /kloc-at the age of 0/8, he joined the "Kirin Army", an unemployed organization that "marched" into Washington. After the parade was banned, he resumed his wandering life, living between the prison and the street. At the age of 20, he was admitted to the University of California, dropped out of school because of poverty, and went to Alaska for gold with his brother-in-law. The rough life experience and profound experience of the lower class provided rich materials for his writing.

In his short story Love Life, the hero is a hungry and cold gold digger. He met a sick wolf in the wasteland. The gold digger finally won the struggle with his strong will to life and radiated the light of life. Jack London didn't give the gold digger a specific name. He is a fragile and tenacious fighter. Jack London's intention in describing this miracle of life is not to create a "strongman", but to show people's life energy from generate in despair. At the beginning of the novel, Jack London wrote such a poem: "This is the only wealth in life. B has lived and experienced pain. B can do this well. B Even if he loses the final bet. " "I must achieve my goal. There is hope for everything. I want to succeed. I plucked up my courage with a feeling of strength, left the noisy hell and stepped onto the deck. The fog on the deck floats like a ghost in the night, and the air is sweet, pure and quiet. " This is a passage written by Jack London in The Waves. In Jack London's view, the purpose of life is to smash obstacles and overcome setbacks.

However, once you stand at the peak of success?

After Martin Eden became famous through personal struggle, he got not joy, but terrible emptiness, and finally ended his life by suicide. Jack London wrote: "When life becomes painful and boring, death will make you fall asleep and stay awake." Jack London reveals such a tragedy with his works and his own life experience, that is, when a person is in trouble, he can stick to it by dreams. Once he gets out of trouble and succeeds, the meaning of life becomes a problem. Suffering can make a person's heart strong, but success can destroy everything.

In the process of a person's bottom-up struggle, what drives him to keep forging ahead is the aura of success and the glory of getting ahead. Once you have money, fame and power, the ultimate question is in front of you: what is a person's life struggle for? What is the meaning of living? Life without expectation can only grow into endless despair. As Socrates said, "We should pursue a better life, far beyond life." Blank dreams and lack of ideals are fatal. Poetry is always conceived in the extension of life process. Once we lose the other shore, the candlelight and lighthouse, the calling and listening, the poetry of life will gradually drift away.

After becoming famous, Jack London fell into the quagmire of money, wrote poorly and copied some inferior works in batches. His life is also full of depravity, killing his inner boredom by buying cruise ships and building luxury villas. And when this boredom reaches its limit, death becomes the only choice. Jack London committed suicide at the age of 40. Such an ending is not only the end of life, but also the denial of empty life, and an eternal unresolved question about the meaning of life. Jack London's death revealed his success. He can endure pain and suffering, but he can't face happiness and comfort.

Nietzsche said: "Creation is a great relief from pain and a comfort to life." After bidding farewell to suffering, Jack London's creativity and writing quality declined rapidly, and he went further and further on the road of losing his spiritual self. Jack London, who stuck to his strong belief and superman philosophy all his life, became extremely fragile in the face of emptiness and loneliness. He was defeated by his own successful career. Jack London seems to be telling people with his own death that literature is destined to be a bitter career, and an excessively comfortable and luxurious life is its end.

Famous sayings about Jack London

1. Everything that enlarges life and makes the mind sound is good; Everything that shortens, hurts and squeezes life is bad.

The only way to get wisdom is to buy it with youth.

3. Young people are always young, and only old people get old.

4. There is love first, and then there is the language of expression. In the youth when love just came to this world, it learned a set of methods that it will never forget.

5. Love stays at the top of the mountain, above the valley of reason. Love is the sublimation of life.