Customer Reviews

South Sea Tales

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

This review is of South Sea Tales (Modern Library Classics) by Jack London (Paperback - April 9, 2002). A commenter notes that the review may have been applied to other editions and formats in the Amazon automation maze that actually contain the original collection of stories.

One star is not because the Jack London stories in this book are not wonderful. It is because this book is not South Sea Tales by Jack London, which I first got from my grandfather's bookshelf and was one of the most memorable reads from my youth. It is a collection of sea stories, including four from South Sea Tales, but I have found a copy of the original stories at Barnes and Noble. One might guess that some of the stories were dropped because, like Huck Finn, they use dialogue and espouse attitudes that we now know better than to live. The stories are still great and do not deserve to become un-stories. This collection is misnamed and misleading.

This edit is a clarification. The replacement stories are wonderful. I believe they come mostly from The Voyage of the Snark. But the Snark stories are much more documentary style fiction and may? have been written to finance that ill-fated cruise. The original stories in South Sea Tales are literary and have the period qualities found in Joseph Conrad's novelettes. You won't be sorry you read them, but the replacements are not the quality of the original stories in the collection.

Eight good stories by Jack London, about the people and places of the south Pacific in 1908. Also a good long introduction by A. Grove Day which should (like all too many "introductions") only be read *after* reading the stories.

Most of the people in these stories are, of course, either victims or perpetrators (or both) of one of those long painful Western exploitations of a less civilized ("less civilized") part of the world. London knows that that's what's going on, and he writes with sympathy for all concerned, and without the more self-conscious bemoaning that would be expected of a XXIst century writer. To the modern reader, then, he can sometimes seem cold-blooded, but seldom disturbingly so.

The prose is fine and spare most of the time, and never gets in the way of the tale. The places and the tales are memorable. There is not a great variety of character and setting; the eight stories together could almost be a single novel. His voyage on the Snark (which inspired these stories) clearly left him with a strong and single impression of this place and these people, and he conveys that impression skillfully along to us.

Definitely worth reading.

London does not disappoint in this collection. His observations are as sound today as they were in his time. It was fascinating to see that London even experimented with science fiction in his story the Red One.

Sean O'Reilly

Editor-at-large

Travelers' Tales

Editor of 30 Days in the South Pacific

It's a shame Jack London's "South Sea Tales" (sometimes referred to as "Hawai'ian Stories") are not more respected, both by the masses and by literary circles. London's stories here are equally as engaging as his better-known Yukon tales ("White Fang," etc.). And the fact that the setting is so drastically different from the snowy Northern Hemisphere of his other tales represents how versatile of a writer he was. It is true, there is not a lot of character differentiation from story to story, which may annoy readers looking for a veritable "collection" of stories and yet please those other readers looking for stories that are connected and read more like chapters of a novel. Nonetheless, Hawai'i is a United State and yet, fiction from this region that is taught on an academic, American Literature collegiate level is rare. That is a shame, because this collection shows that the region is intriguing, dangerous, and beautiful, all at the same time (and what more can you want out of a short story collection)!

To start with, this is NOT "South Sea Tales." The original collection of Jack London short stories bearing that title is a collection of 8 stories as far as I have been able to determine, and only some of those appear in this collection. Publishers have been misleading readers by putting out a wide variety of editions that contain SOME stories from South Sea Tales, and using the same original title without indicating that it is not the original. To give the present publisher credit, if you check inside to read the table of contents, it contains 10 stories, only four of which are from South Sea Tales, but the book cover can mislead a purchaser who is not careful (Amazon, at least, gives you the option of checking inside).

Having said that, it represents some of the lesser writing by Jack London. It is not at the level of his writing about the Yukon. If you are a Jack London fan, you might want to read it. Otherwise save your money. I might have given it three stars if the publisher had used an honest title, but I am irked by publishers who mislead purchasers (another problem has been publishers who change a title on a book, so you think you are buying something new and end up with something you have already read).

Super politically incorrect by today's standards, but if you can look past that stuff and read it as it is, it is entertaining.

South Sea Tales is a collection of eight short stories by Jack London, first published in 1911. It is the first of his collections in which all the stories are set among the islands of the South Pacific. This region of the globe would become predominant in the writings of the second half of his career, much as the first half of his career was dominated by stories of the Klondike Gold Rush. In the stories included here, London paints a picture of life in the South Seas that is far from a tropical idyll. He shows us a brutal world in which the native islanders and their white oppressors are constantly at each other's throats.

The stories take place in the Solomon Islands, Fiji, Tahiti, the Paumotus, and elsewhere throughout Polynesia and Melanesia. Many of the natives make their living gathering the natural fruits of the sea, including pearls, and must deal with white traders who continually try to swindle them. White corporations own plantations on the islands, where they harvest copra (coconut meat), cocoa, sugar cane, or other agricultural exports. White men's boats known as "blackbirders" patrol the island coasts, gathering up cheap labor to work these plantations. Once signed on, the islanders are held in indentured servitude and brutalized by their masters. London depicts these slaves as constantly trying to kill their masters, steal their goods, and escape. When these attempts take place, the whites slaughter them mercilessly and indiscriminately.

London displays little sympathy for the brutalized natives here. In fact, he treats the violence and killing with an almost comic nonchalance, much in the way that stories set in the Wild West often make light of gunfights and hangings. The unfortunate difference between the two genres, of course, is that what we're talking about here is racial violence, black vs. white. In some of the stories, the natives are depicted as little more than a relentless tide of savages who must be exterminated in order to defend the white man's life and livelihood. The story entitled "The Inevitable White Man," for example, begins with a conversation about manifest destiny, then goes on to glorify a man whose only discernible talent is the shooting of blacks. Modern audiences are likely find such tales off-putting, if not downright offensive.

Luckily, three of the stories break from this pattern and redeem the collection somewhat overall. These three exceptions focus primarily on conflicts between man and nature. "The House of Mapuhi" tells the story of a native who discovers a giant pearl on a remote atoll. Three white traders vie for the prize, all of whom try to swindle the pearl diver. All deals are off, however, when the island is devastated by a hurricane. In "The Seed of McCoy," a ship with a hold full of flaming cargo pulls up to Pitcairn Island. There they are met by a descendant of the Bounty mutineers who offers to guide them to another island with a suitable port, in hopes that they can save their ship before it burns up entirely. In "The Heathen," by far the most positive story in the book, a trading vessel sails into the heart of a hurricane. The two survivors of the disaster, the white narrator and a native Bora Boran, form a close, lifelong friendship.

These three worthy stories provide some relief from the relentless brutality. As a collection overall, however, South Sea Tales leaves the reader with the impression that London was a master of adventure storytelling who could have used a little sensitivity training.

I am about 3/4 through this and I am really enjoying it. The descriptions of the locations, the characters, and the narrative all give a great sense of location. It is especially interesting reading about the Solomon Islands after reading another, rather different take in PT 109 : John F. Kennedy in World War II.

The main problem with "South Sea Tales" is that publishers have printed a variety of collections of Jack London's short stories and called all of them "South Sea Tales." There is a version somewhere that has 16 stories and additional material. The search for that edition is elusive. This 1911 edition (printed by McKinlay, Stone and Mackenzie) appears to be the original collection indicated in his biography and has eight stories dealing with pearls, shells, blackbirding (recruiting native labor), white traders, missionaries, cannibals, and headhunters. It is written in the language of the times (including the "N" word), and gives a picture of the characterization of the natives and the prejudices of the time. It ia not "politically correct," to use modern terminology. The author's tales set in Alaska are better (at least in this reviewer's opinion), but these are some stories of interest. Included in this version are:

"The House of Maphui," a story about trading for a very valuable pearl a native has found. He wants a house in exchange. There are complications, including a hurricane.

"The Whale Tooth," is a classic tale about a missionary and cannibals, and the power of a whale tooth in trading.

"Mauki," is a story about a native sold into servitude who continually tries to escape.

"Yah! Yah! Yah!" is about ruthless white traders who dominate natives by force of arms.

"The Heathen," is about a loyal native who saves a white trader and continues in his service.

"The Terrible Solomons" is about a tourist wanting to sample life in the raw, who receives a performance.

"The Inevitable White Man," is about a man with few skills except the ability to use a gun (and who has a willingness to kill natives).

"The Seed of McCoy," is about a man from Pitcairn Island piloting a ship in distress on what seems like an endless journey to reach a safe haven (this was in the days of tall ships powered by sails, whose course was determined by wind and currents). It is different than the rest as it does not involve natives.