London The Great

When it comes to Jack London and his autobiographical novel there is a dispute about the work’s greatness. For with Martin Eden the novelist reveals his personal narrative of thought and his unique state of mind though the character Martin. However this character is a transparent veil that mirrors his life and experiences in a vivid and frightening, possibly deadly way. The critic Sam S. Baskett brings this to light in his essay “Martin Eden: Jack London’s “Splendid Dream””. He argues for the fantastical unreality of London’s splendid dream; that his ambitions to grasp the world were ultimately too grand, leaving the author in disillusionment and failure. To adequately show this Mr. Baskett compares London’s work to Henry Adams’ The Education of Henry Adams and Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby. What the critique really brings to light is the struggle of all of these novelists to find what London terms “the scheme of existence.” All three authors were obsessed with the ordering of things, how the world was bound together, or the unity of the universe. The writers all experienced utter breakdown and found in the world only chaos. They experienced the break down of thought and connections and the loss of the Spenserian ideal; they found unreality in reality. Both London’s and Fitzgerald’s characters are overtaken by a romantic ideal. The ideal lover with which their souls connect bring each writer’s character transcendence and make existence tangible. However Martin is ultimately disappointed with his ideal lover –Ruth- when he finds her to be a mortal woman, compromised in the normal struggle of reality. His whole world crashes and falls to an even greater dismal state. Mr. Baskett shows how Adams and Fitzgerald go though the same process of collapse, but unlike London, they emerge with a more modest inspiration to find truth with a grimmer hope. But for London his hopes and searching are dashed with the death of his splendid dream of uniting the universe. The characterization of Martin’s death coincided with London’s intellectual death, the critic argues. London’s last years produced nothing as worthy as Martin Eden. Eight years of decline and then he died. Thus Baskett concludes that London failed in the sense that he did not rise above this fall to despair to a more modest ordering or imagining of the world. And yet the author is respected by Mr. Baskett as fulfilling the “impossible yet characteristic task of the central American writer” (155). He also seems to be impressed by the overpowering nature of London.
I have not at this point read Martin Eden or any of the comparative works. The strengths of the article were firstly, its limited thesis, and secondly the abundance of reference and support from the texts to support his overall critique of the writer’s mind. The author refused to address the issue of suicide in the piece and glanced over it with no attention. This could have been a serious distraction from his purpose but in glossing the matter he left a gap in his critique. Mr. Baskett also took the perspective of a skeptic without ever giving serious heed to London’s “Splendid Dream”. He therefore claims London a failure without ever clarifying what he failed to do; what system he did not live up to. This is a logical error but one that is small in comparison to his overall perspective on the novel Martin Eden. The critic presents a view of Jack London which is immediately intelligible and unnervingly close to describing the state of mind within the American novelist.

Works Cited:

Baskett, Sam S., “Martin Eden: Jack London’s “Splendid Dream””. Ed. Jacqueline Travernier –Courbin. Critical Essays on Jack London. Boston, Mass. 1983.