Customer Reviews

The Star Rover

5 star:		(17)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Jack London's Star Rover surprised me on every page. It's a riveting, action-packed adventure tale filled with gritty heroes and villains, and fascinating settings, both grim and glorious. The protagonist is a fabulous anti hero, a cross between Indiana Jones and a character straight out of HBO's prison drama Oz.

The characters are so well defined, from the sadistic warden to prisoners Ed and Jack, whom we never really see, and only know through intricate, faceless conversations. The lead character, Darrell Standing, is wily, handsome, intrincsically good, but hardened and made cruel by the warden's treatment. Charming and dangerous, he's just the sort of bad-boy we love to root for. Ed and Jack, his two fellow prisoners, are perfect foils, one believing and encouranging, the other skeptical but reluctanly fascinated nonetheless. The warden makes a formidable, multi-faceted villain, at turns weak and cruel, and inventive in his tortures. What a wonderful read!

It makes me very sad that only a few people knows about this book. It tells the story of a man who finds himself in prison. He is trapped in a madman's shirt, in order to confess facts he knew nothing about. Obliged to pass days and nights without being able to move a single muscle, living in complete darkness inside special punishment cells, he manages to avoid getting nuts and yet bravely resists his tortures' will. Developing a way of traveling with his mind, he escapes from all human suffering and still has the chance to watch his actions of past lives, finally understanding how most of his present beliefs and flaws had been built.This is a tale about FREEDOM and REDEMPTION! It makes you firmly believe that free spirits are unbeatable and that we can dream no matter how life is. For anybody who is familiar with London's deep feelings about life and dreaming and freedom, I must say that this is his best book ever. A glimpse of the deepest beliefs of a great writer who left us so soon. A MUST!!!

An Excellent, yet not very well known book by Jack London. It's inspired by a real story of an innocently sentenced man, Ed Morrell, whom we find to participate in the book.The main character is Darrel Standing, university profesor sentenced for his life to San Quentin jail and is then sentenced to death for hitting a warden in nose. London describes the suffering and solitude of a criminal who finds his freedom in a world of dreams and memories of recent lives his soul went through. London shows the strength of a man's soul, which cannot be broken even by the worst tortures. An extraordinary book, really a must-read.

This is a brilliant, beautiful novel. The idea of escape from a reality of suffering is presented to the reader through wonderful short stories that are layered within the theme of a prisoner condemned to death. Particularly those who are interested in Eastern philosophy will enjoy this immensely. The rest will simply read a masterpiece. I will never forget it.

I started to write a review over two years ago after I read this piece, then stopped, deciding to wait, wanting to know whether such poignant effect on my thinking and outlook could last. IT HAS! This little-known work by Jack London is a masterpiece, through which my perspective on life- in particular during times of disappointment, loss, or pain- has been placed in new and better perspective. Mr. Morrell conquers the heartless cruelties inflicted by his captors, and London's amazing talent leads the reader vicariously through it.

As usual, another eloquently written novel from London. If you are a London fan, such as myself, you will find this book to be no less than what you've come to expect from his writings. However, if you are just beginning to delve into the world of London or are simply looking for something that is a little more "off the beaten path" than you are accustomed to then this is an excellent book.

It is a somewhat atypical work of London in that instead of man's struggle against someone or something, it is about a man who learns how to let go of himself and to allow himself to travel through space and time back to previous lives.

Whoever reads this novel should, at the least, find it intresting.

The Star Rover is unknown compared to Londons other works but this is an amazing book. A straight jacketed prisoner is brutalized and basicly left in the dark in solitary confinement, wills himself to learn astral projection, and relives past lives from previous incarnations. Very unique book that is unlike anything else Jack London wrote. Although the theme of struggle, defiance, strength of spirit and willpower are one of the main themes in The Star Rover as in most of Londons other work, but even that aspect is different in the sense that the main character achieves his victory by giving up and willing himself to leave this existence. You will find no bigger lover of Jack London than me but even though this is very different than anything else he has written I hold it in just as high regard and consider it a classic. Besides recomending this to fans of Londons work I would recomend this to someone into science fiction, or anybody interested in astral projection, meditation or shamanism.

I read this wonderful book in high school, more than 40 years ago. Some parts of it are still fresh in my mind... clinging to the rock in the middle of the sea... (illustrated on the cover of the edition I read). The Mountain Meadows massacre, which I had never heard of, and did not believe until I went to the encyclopedia to look it up. The determination of the protagonist not to yield to the abuse of the warden. The transcendence of the soul!

Many of London's stories are testaments to the will to survive or to overcome some desperate situation. I kept hoping that Standing would escape the prison or be pardoned. He did escape, but in a very different way than I was expecting.

I agree with others that this is one of London's greatest works, and it is surprising it is so little known.

Prison life has never been easy, and prisoners have always had to endure physical and mental hardship that goes well beyond the suffering of the loss of freedom. Prisoners have oftentimes had to suffer physical abuse and corporal punishment at the hands of prison authorities. "The Jacket" is Jack London's novel that explores one particularly cruel form of physical punishment - straitjacketing of prisoners into a full-body "jacket" that severely restricts the flow of blood to most parts of their bodies, and in extreme cases induces angina.

The main protagonist of "The Jacket" is Darrell Standing, a former university professor who is serving a life imprisonment for a murder. Due to some low-level intrigue amongst prisoners, he is suspected of hiding dynamite and sent to solitary confinement. There he is put into the jacket, and at first he experiences excruciating pain. However, one other prisoner introduces him to a "trick" that would make his condition in the jacket tolerable. He is introduced to a technique of entering a trance-like state where your conscience is freed from the constraints of your body and is free to roam the universe. Once Standing accomplishes this state of mind, he starts to recall episodes from what he believes are his previous lives. These various episodes form the bulk of the narrative in the book, and each one of them can be read as a separate short story. The stories are very interesting in their own right. This is a very good thing, because otherwise the constant repeated recollection of previous lives could make the plot development tedious. Standing is convinced that these experiences are real, and even though there are some very strong hints throughout the novel that seem to corroborate this view, there is never a strong "smoking gun" proof of any of that.

The theme of reincarnation and past life recollections has today become extremely commonplace, and is usually associated with practitioners of some eastern religions and new-age practices. However, a century ago these things must have still been novel, at least to the general public. Regardless of whether London really believed in reincarnation or not, or whether Darrell Standing really experienced past lives, this novel is a powerful tribute to the endurance and resilience of human spirit even under the harshest imaginable conditions. London is a very good writer, and his prose is fresh and inspiring even a whole century later. This is a book that is well worth reading.

In 1915, just one year before his untimely death, Jack London's most ambitious work was published. It is "The Star Rover" (aka "The Jacket"), story about Darrell Standing, former university professor who is now a Death Row inmate of San Quentin. Opinions about this unique novel still divide among readers, but his intense descriptions about the people in extreme situations are as riveting as his more famous works like "To Build a Fire."

The story of "The Star Rover" is told in the first person by Darrell Standing. In prison he is subjected to severest tortures including straightjacket by the brutal guards and sadistic officers. In this story set in San Quentin (the prison part based on the accounts of London's friend Ed Morrell), Darrell finds a way to escape from the pains by separating his spirit from his body and living the past lives of other people - a little boy in the westward emigration in America; a shipwrecked English sailor in medieval Korea, and so on.

In a way "The Star Rover" is a collection of short stories put together by the framing story of Darrell Standing. The tense and passionate sentences of Jack London are gripping in most of the story, but it must be said that some parts are redundant and a little boring, London not knowing where to go next. Still, once actions start, the book becomes a page turner. Like many stories by Jack London, the protagonists must experience and endure severe conditions of life and their willpowers are tested in the process.

"The Star Rover" is a book about a man who lives many lives. After all the fact that it is written Jack London is nothing surprising because Jack London really lived many lives. The book is certainly flawed and less famous than his Klondike stories, but its style is definitely that of Jack London.