HE COULD THROW THE STARS

Charmed by London's Northern and South Sea stories, as well as his realistic novels, literary scholars paid little attention to his works of science fiction, with The Iron Heel being the only exception.

Although literary historians have neglected the science fiction story "The Scarlet Plague," it is well known to readers of Jack London. This is a story about the great damage done to the population of the Earth by a horrible disease that took away millions of lives and threw all of humanity back to the prehistoric ages. Among The Collected Works of Jack London, a reader will also find the following stories: "The Enemy of All the World," which tells about a discovery of fantastic beams that could destroy explosive materials from a distance, and "The Shadow and the Flash," which is about the discovery of some substance that makes people invisible. The story "Goliah" is less known, however. Its protagonist is a scientific genius who discovered the possibility to obtain energon, a host of energy from the Sun. Energon can free people from hard labor and give them financial security for happy living. At least, this is the dream of the scientist. However, he still has to convince the ruling class to reject exploitation through private ownership of the means of labor. Having created the powerful energon weapon, Goliah demands reconstruction of the entire society, basing it on humane principles. Then, when the government tries to kill the professor, Goliah destroys their ports, their fleet, their weapons, and forces those in power to nationalize the means of labor and distribution. From then on, everything is devoted to rest and peaceful labor. The freed mind expresses itself in its fullness; people become makers of their own happiness. Such is the utopian dream of Jack London.

In contrast to those impatient "revolutionaries" who were ready to attack capitalistic forces, Jack London had a different view on the historic process in America. "I should like to have socialism," he wrote in a letter of 4 February 1901, "yet I know that socialism is not the very next step; I know that capitalism must live its life first. That the world must be exploited to the utmost first; that first must intervene a struggle for life among the nations, severer, intenser, more widespread, than any ever before. I should much more prefer to wake tomorrow in a smoothly-running socialistic state; but I know I shall not; I know it cannot come that way. I know that the child must go through its child's sicknesses ere it becomes a man."

In "The Red One," a story about a gigantic metal ball that comes from the depths of the universe, London let his imagination soar to its heights. The protagonist of the story was convinced that a mysterious messenger from outer space held the history of the greatest discoveries, which surpass human imagination. These discoveries, if learned by the people, would raise human social and personal lives to the "amazing heights of purity and grandeur."

In Jack London's novel The Star Rover, pictures of horrible daily life in the American prison, San Quentin, were mixed with bright and dramatic episodes from the past. The prisoner, Darrell Standing, during hours of inhuman torture, had fantastic hallucinations of things that happened a hundred years ago. Bringing the action into a different epoch, Jack London did not fail to criticize the lifestyle and morals of contemporary society. The genre of science fiction let him do so more freely, for he covered his criticism by phrasing and intriguing plot, easily understood by a wide range of readers. Science fiction not only reflected the dreams of Jack London, but also showed his ability for scientific research and even, to a certain degree, capacity to foresee inventions. For example, one of the Soviet scientists, in his interview about the invention of laser, admitted that the idea of the magic beam had been expressed in London's story "The Enemy of the World."

Sometimes, intuitively foreseeing the events of the future, London warned the reader. This is what he did in The Iron Heel. Playing with history and time, London speculated about the coming of the despotism, similar to fascism. He was talking not from a political point of view, but from the standpoint of an artist, convinced realistically of such danger.

The future was not the only direction of London's imagination. Before Adam, for example, is an artistic speculation on the lives of prehistoric people. It is both a very convincing and extremely powerful work. Another story, "The Strength of the Strong," is about the past as well as the present. In the portrayal of the life of an ancient tribe, of its primitive conflicts and passions, obviously lies a description of the institutions of contemporary society.

I will not discuss the "The First Poet" since it belongs to the pen of George Sterling and is mistakenly included in London's Collected Works. Among London's plans for future works, there was a plot for a novel about people traveling into space by means of the energy of radioactive decay. It is amazing that London's fantasy could fly so far into the future! He was concerned with the possibility of our civilization coming to an end, but he wanted to believe in the power of human mind and hope for a wonderful future.

These are the lines from one of his alarming poems:

Future Man! Ah! Who can say?

May blow to smithereens our Earth;

In the name of warrior play

Fling death across the heavens' girth.

Future man may hurt the stars,

Leash the comets, o'er-ride space,

Sear the universe with scars

In the fight twixt race and race.