AUTHOR: Jack London
PUBLISHED: July 21, 1902
PUBLISHER: The Argonaut (Newspaper)
COLLECTION: Moon-Face and Other Stories (1906, The Regent Press)
[spoilers ahead]
I mean, I can see how a fellow like John Claverhouse could rub a person the wrong way. That fat Moon-Face, that cringe-inspiring laugh, that generally upbeat nature. I get it, I really do. I'd go a long way to avoid him myself; although that really doesn't distinguish him all that much. I also get that many readers will (rightly-so) view this story as a simple study in antipathy. Sure, it's that but also it's an opportunity to see things from the other side.
The descent into madness but here, not posited as the fear of experiencing it insofar as in a this can happen to you, you can snap fashion, but instead as in the crapshoot crossing of one's path at that (their) lunatic trajectory. The horror of being an innocent wrong place, wrong time bystander. (Talk about victim blaming.) I would say that there is a reason only one of these two characters is named but then shouldn't London have vice-verse'd that treatment? I believe he should have. If there is any titillating here angle here, it is that.
Also but then lesser-so is an offered view over the shoulder of he who perpetrates a dynamite (pardon the pun) little murder mystery, instead of the more usual POV of an official or unofficial meddling investigator justice-seeker attempting to crack a case. A how the sausage is made look-see at a nut-case doing away with a person. That's neat, but also the method, as I'll soon note further, is a bit less than stellar and maybe even silly-billy.
As a matter of fact, I wouldn't mind reading about a detective looking further into this feebly-foreshadowed Looney Tunes-Esque homicide. How would he (or she) find this unnamed fellow to be the guilty party? I mean, he did give him the dog but barring a receipt there seems not much left of the smithereens-ending trail. We'll come back to that. Furthermore, there was no wrong done to openly beg vengeance as our murderer admits to "no wrong or an ill turn" being suffered at the hands of Claverhouse.
Crazy, huh? Quite, but then he turns it on the reader with "We all experience such things at some period in our lives." And misses there because, no, I would like to feel that is not the case and we already get the fella is unhinged. The miss, to be clear, is seemingly the shot taken at trying to make this figure some sort of sympathetic for the purpose of juxtaposition. Again, a miss. Also, he seems to immediately backtrack upon his own sentient some, "I do not like that man," is a far cry indeed from mercilessly plaguing then killing him.
I'd be remiss in not mentioning Jack London as no stranger to plagiarism accusations, including one of which has directly to do with this tale. I'll allow you to research that on your own but an old joke comes to mind: If I were two-faced, why would I choose this one? You see, this short story reads quite flatly. I suppose one could say it's meant to because our main character sees nothing at all jarring about his own terrible murderous thoughts, but still. Flat.
Although 'jarring' is a word able to be pulled directly from the text, which he uses to define and describe his seething hatred of Claverhouse--and even then there is an underlining droning. There is a lumbering sense to what should be passionate even insanely-so words, inspired by false thoughts or not. It feels a tick like Ravel's Bolero played at half speed while a mime goes full-on dramatics. An unbalanced tale, then. There is just something off about it all.
Although perhaps I'm too not over the unforgivable transgression of killing a dog. Actually, two. (Just one instance of which really stopped me from enjoying the cinematic brilliance of John Wick.) "But I bided my time and one day when opportunity was ripe, lured the animal away and settled for him with strychnine and beefsteak." Deplorable. Unforgivable. And perhaps a way into pinning the murder (or any of his other assaults).
I'm stuck thinking of telling this tale from the perspective of a gumshoe. What makes some stories ripe for what might be considered pastiche? Not sure, but this mainly mediocre tale has it in spades. Maybe it's the injustice of it all. Perhaps mediocre things inherently ask for such improvements. Still, I remain a fan of Sherlock Holmes (if not so much a fan of his fans.)
Mediocre because the settings are so, as are the characters who play inside of them. It all feels so superficial and silly in an underlining and nagging sort of way. It's less slowed Bolero then and more-so any Billy Collins poem. Pick one. Why am I lashing out? "And where man and dog had been the instant before there was naught to be seen but a big hole in the ground." Perhaps I am wrong. Perhaps London frames this whole egregiously senseless murder as an erasure so that even when alive, the characters aren't fully.
I don't buy that though.
PLOT: B+
CHARACTERS: B
SETTINGS: B
DIALOG: B+
FINAL GRADE: B
A 90-100 B 80-89 C 70-79
[spoilers ahead]
I mean, I can see how a fellow like John Claverhouse could rub a person the wrong way. That fat Moon-Face, that cringe-inspiring laugh, that generally upbeat nature. I get it, I really do. I'd go a long way to avoid him myself; although that really doesn't distinguish him all that much. I also get that many readers will (rightly-so) view this story as a simple study in antipathy. Sure, it's that but also it's an opportunity to see things from the other side.
The descent into madness but here, not posited as the fear of experiencing it insofar as in a this can happen to you, you can snap fashion, but instead as in the crapshoot crossing of one's path at that (their) lunatic trajectory. The horror of being an innocent wrong place, wrong time bystander. (Talk about victim blaming.) I would say that there is a reason only one of these two characters is named but then shouldn't London have vice-verse'd that treatment? I believe he should have. If there is any titillating here angle here, it is that.
Also but then lesser-so is an offered view over the shoulder of he who perpetrates a dynamite (pardon the pun) little murder mystery, instead of the more usual POV of an official or unofficial meddling investigator justice-seeker attempting to crack a case. A how the sausage is made look-see at a nut-case doing away with a person. That's neat, but also the method, as I'll soon note further, is a bit less than stellar and maybe even silly-billy.
As a matter of fact, I wouldn't mind reading about a detective looking further into this feebly-foreshadowed Looney Tunes-Esque homicide. How would he (or she) find this unnamed fellow to be the guilty party? I mean, he did give him the dog but barring a receipt there seems not much left of the smithereens-ending trail. We'll come back to that. Furthermore, there was no wrong done to openly beg vengeance as our murderer admits to "no wrong or an ill turn" being suffered at the hands of Claverhouse.
Crazy, huh? Quite, but then he turns it on the reader with "We all experience such things at some period in our lives." And misses there because, no, I would like to feel that is not the case and we already get the fella is unhinged. The miss, to be clear, is seemingly the shot taken at trying to make this figure some sort of sympathetic for the purpose of juxtaposition. Again, a miss. Also, he seems to immediately backtrack upon his own sentient some, "I do not like that man," is a far cry indeed from mercilessly plaguing then killing him.
I'd be remiss in not mentioning Jack London as no stranger to plagiarism accusations, including one of which has directly to do with this tale. I'll allow you to research that on your own but an old joke comes to mind: If I were two-faced, why would I choose this one? You see, this short story reads quite flatly. I suppose one could say it's meant to because our main character sees nothing at all jarring about his own terrible murderous thoughts, but still. Flat.
Although 'jarring' is a word able to be pulled directly from the text, which he uses to define and describe his seething hatred of Claverhouse--and even then there is an underlining droning. There is a lumbering sense to what should be passionate even insanely-so words, inspired by false thoughts or not. It feels a tick like Ravel's Bolero played at half speed while a mime goes full-on dramatics. An unbalanced tale, then. There is just something off about it all.
Although perhaps I'm too not over the unforgivable transgression of killing a dog. Actually, two. (Just one instance of which really stopped me from enjoying the cinematic brilliance of John Wick.) "But I bided my time and one day when opportunity was ripe, lured the animal away and settled for him with strychnine and beefsteak." Deplorable. Unforgivable. And perhaps a way into pinning the murder (or any of his other assaults).
I'm stuck thinking of telling this tale from the perspective of a gumshoe. What makes some stories ripe for what might be considered pastiche? Not sure, but this mainly mediocre tale has it in spades. Maybe it's the injustice of it all. Perhaps mediocre things inherently ask for such improvements. Still, I remain a fan of Sherlock Holmes (if not so much a fan of his fans.)
Mediocre because the settings are so, as are the characters who play inside of them. It all feels so superficial and silly in an underlining and nagging sort of way. It's less slowed Bolero then and more-so any Billy Collins poem. Pick one. Why am I lashing out? "And where man and dog had been the instant before there was naught to be seen but a big hole in the ground." Perhaps I am wrong. Perhaps London frames this whole egregiously senseless murder as an erasure so that even when alive, the characters aren't fully.
I don't buy that though.
PLOT: B+
CHARACTERS: B
SETTINGS: B
DIALOG: B+
FINAL GRADE: B
A 90-100 B 80-89 C 70-79
::: very :::