WHAT COLOR ARE THE EYES OF JACK LONDON?

Americans do not read as much fiction as they did in years past. That is the claim being made by sociologists, at least. Therefore, I find it both interesting and remarkable that London's works have managed to remain in print. Again and again, his collections have been published: in editions containing just one or two of his stories and in huge, multi-volume sets containing stories, novels, and novellas. Three impressive volumes, published under the editorship of Russ Kingman, are absolutely amazing. The collections by Kingman are titled, Tales of the North (1979), Adventure Stories The Best of Jack London (1980), and (1984). These editions also include reproductions of the author's magazine publications. I was impressed by the magazine illustrations, which capture the quintessential spirit of the time in which they were published.

Another great publication entitled Avenel Books is a two-volume collection of London's works (1982). It is comprised mostly of stories never before included in other collections of the author's writing. And, at last, a volume devoted to Jack London was published in the series, Bibliography of American Classics, which can be interpreted as indicating official recognition for London.

Reading through the many collections of London's works, I found several works that were still unknown to the Russian reader. These works included essays, sport and war reports, articles, and even stories. I was pleasantly surprised to find my own books included in the catalogs of libraries in the United States. They were not only in the library at UC Berkeley, which would have been the logical place to search for them because I had sent copies to that library directly, but I also discovered that my books were included in the libraries of Columbia University, University of Wisconsin, University of Chicago, and Wayne University. Moreover, my books were available in all the cities that I had visited: New York, Madison, Chicago, Detroit, and Los Angeles. In the catalogs of various libraries, I found not only my writing about Jack London, but also my books about the American Workers Leaders and American youth.

I also discovered references to my works in many recent American publications on him. Joan, in the introduction to the second edition of her work Jack London and His Times, quoted my observations of particular details in London's literary career and my analysis of the reasons for his popularity. From Russ Kingman's letter, I learned that I had been elected a member of the Advisory Board of the Jack London Foundation.

The last several years have seen publications encompassing an entire spectrum of works about the author. Mass anti-war and various left-wing movements that sprang up all over the United States in the 1960s and 1970s have evidently played a distinct role in the orientation of interests in American literary scholarship by accentuating moral and aesthetic values of the masses. Elite art and the academic literary studies that supported it lost some or all of their influence. Literary criticism, focusing on the interests of a wide range of people, was forced to turn toward those authors who were able to write in a language that was familiar and understandable to their readers. Of course, Jack London occupies an honorary place among such writers. Besides the standard biographical work on London by Earle Labor, there are two other research works that present a particular interest. One work was written by Charles Watson, The Novels of Jack London: A Reappraisal (1983), and another by Carolyn Johnston, Jack London: An American Radical? (1984). Both authors have drawn their information from reputable archival sources. The facts they present in their respective works help one appreciate London as a great artist and social leader. A work written by Jacqueline Tavernier-Courbin, Critical Essays on Jack London (1983), is an equally valuable collection of critical inquiry and appreciation of London.

The most recent American works reveal interesting details about the public speeches of Jack London. After tiring many listeners with speeches on the subject of Socialism and class struggle, the writer would either read something from his Klondike stories or from his reports on the Russo-Japanese war, or re-read one of his tales about being a young "oyster pirate" and a newspaper boy on the streets of San Francisco.

In February of 1902, speaking to a group of women, he declared that he lost his original notes on Kipling and therefore, changed his topic to the stories about the homeless. In January of 1905, he was to have a discussion on literature. Instead, he began talking about the Revolutionary spirit of the American proletariat. His literary trip was interrupted in November of 1905 by a honeymoon trip after his marriage to Charmian.

In contrast to serious books about the outstanding writer, the attempts of some literary scholars with conservative-apologetic tendencies (for example, those like R. Spiller, an author of the part on Jack London in The Literary History of the United States [1955] and J. Perry, who published his book, Jack London — An American Myth [1981]) to diminish London's aesthetic contribution to the literary world seem anachronistic. Professor Charles Watson reasonably notes that literary scholars such as these "are more concerned with promoting their dissertations than with fair and objective evaluations of the writer's work," which, as he writes, "was aimed at the decadent aesthetics of the end of nineteenth century." "He was killed," concludes C. Johnston in her book, "by the very same system that generously rewarded him and which, according to him, he was going to destroy."

Russ Kingman spoke angrily about mistakes and factual inaccuracies in books written about Jack London. One biographer tells how the writer traveled around the world by the Panama Canal, while another says that the Snark went under the Golden Gate Bridge. Both the canal and the bridge were built much later—after London's death. Another biographer claimed that Jack did not have a hard, deprived childhood and that he never sailed on the "Sophie Southerland." In Irving Stone's famous biography Sailor on Horseback, Russ discovered more than 350 factual inaccuracies and incongruities. In Andrew Sinclair's biography, Jack (1977), Russ found more than 500 inaccuracies. A book by British literary scholar R. Barltrop, Jack London: The Man, the Writer, the Rebel (1976), Russ openly considered unsatisfactory and was very surprised at the attention given to it by Soviet publishers.

Russ was especially unmerciful in his judgment about John Perry's biography of London. I cannot help agreeing with his opinions on the books by A. Sinclair, Barltrop, and Perry.

Jack London once remarked, rather sarcastically, on the zeal of the sensation lovers among media representatives. They capitalize on the public's desire to know everything about every step of the famous writer in order to put money in their pockets for providing false details of his life. "I remember," wrote London, "how, one day three different sensational articles appeared in the newspapers. One of them claimed that my wife had quarreled with me in Portland, Oregon, packed her things and sailed on a ship to San Francisco, to her mother. Another article talked about how I was beaten up by some millionaire during a bar fight in Eureka, California. The third article described how I, while vacationing in the mountains, on the shore of a lake in Washington, won a bet for 100 dollars by catching some absolutely uncatchable kind of trout. Meanwhile, on that very day, my wife and I had been walking in the virginal woods of Southwestern Oregon."

Irving Stone's hypothesis on London's suicide has, in my opinion, outlived itself. I was of the same opinion as he at one time. However, the most recent American findings on the circumstances of the writer's death, such as the work of Alfred Shivers, "Jack London: Not a Suicide," present evidence for quite the opposite. I will briefly discuss his counter-arguments to Stone. Reporting about the piece of paper that London supposedly used to calculate the fatal dosage of the medicine, Stone makes references to Thompson, one of the three doctors that were called to the author's deathbed. Shivers finds it strange that the doctor kept this secret for 21 years, and that no one else saw this piece of paper. Nevertheless, Shivers, himself formerly a pharmacist, decided to find the book that aided London in calculating the fatal dose of morphine. He researched all of the 36 medical books found in the writer's personal library. Four of them contained articles on morphine, but none presented information about dosages or how to calculate them. Shivers questioned a therapist and two pharmacists. Not a single one of them knew the exact fatal dosage of morphine, nor could they determine it with reference to the medical literature. If modern doctors were not able to calculate this, then how could Jack London, without a medical education, calculate it more than 80 years ago?

The empty capsules from the prescribed morphine sulfate with atropine sulfate, allegedly found on the bedroom floor, were thinner and twice as short as a regular pencil. One of them, if not both, could have been used earlier and then just lay on the floor unnoticed for several days. This would greatly reduce the amount of medicine taken by London on that tragic night. Besides, London had been taking this narcotic drug for almost a year by then. Thus, his body was accustomed to larger doses. On the other hand, morphine is known for its ability to accumulate in the body. The piece of paper with "calculations" was most likely a record of dosing for a prolonged period of time. London was warned about the accumulating characteristics of morphine in the body. Therefore, he took every precaution to avoid the danger of poisoning himself. Another American biographer, R. O'Connor, presented an argument in defense of the suicide theory. He argued that London's death certificate had been signed by only one doctor, whereas there were three present at his deathbed. From this fact O'Connor concluded that the two other doctors disagreed with the diagnosis. However, having acquired a photocopy of the death certificate, Shivers claimed that a medical form of this sort had room only for one doctor to sign, and that therefore it required only one signature.

Naturally, London's doctor, Porter, signed the certificate. Dr. Porter did not change his conclusions even after the publication of Stone's book. In his conversation with London's daughter Joan, Dr. Porter confirmed that in the last months of his life, London's health was so unstable that the end could have come at any moment (London never followed doctor's advice and did not stick to healthy habits).

If Jack London really wanted to kill himself, noted Shivers (and it is hard to disagree with this argument), he would not have chosen such a painful (10-12 hours of agony) way to do it. This man, the embodiment of dignity and courage, would not have chosen such a way to end his life when his 45 caliber Colt was always with him. London's letters, sent just the night before he died, as well as his preparations for a trip to New York, present proof for an unpremeditated death. Shivers concluded that the writer's death was a result of acute uremic poisoning, just as was indicated in the medical finding. A strong dosage of morphine, apparently, had facilitated the end by paralyzing the fighting mechanisms of the body. Of course, we need not exclude the possibility of accidental overdose that resulted from the accumulation of morphine in the body, as well as the possibility of miscalculation by the patient, who was taking increasingly larger doses of morphine to suppress pain. However, there is absolutely no reason — and Shivers holds this argument very firmly — to accept the hypothesis of deliberate suicide. Two empty morphine capsules present the evidence for just the opposite. They, like the piece of paper with "calculations," would have ruined any attempted cover-up if London had killed himself. In any case, whether it was uremic poisoning, morphine poisoning or both—Jack London's death was not deliberate suicide. With such statement Shivers ended his well-argued work. The majority of modern London scholars, including Kingman, share such a point of view.

In the United States, people still subscribe to publications devoted solely to Jack London. These publications list various events and interesting facts connected with the life and work of the writer. Looking through Jack London Echoes magazine, one learns which colleges and universities offer courses on Jack London. For example, one of the articles in it discussed the success of the first special seminar on Jack London taught at Texas University. The total class time was 45 hours, including written examinations and tests. Besides the State Historic Park and the movement that encouraged various scholars to analyze London's works, there was another event that serves as evidence for the acceptance of the great writer in his native land. In 1986, for the 110-year anniversary of Jack London's birth, the United States Postal Service produced a stamp with his portrait. Almost 900 people were present at the official ceremony of the stamp canceling, which was an unusual turnout for such an event. Russ presented me with a set of specially designed envelopes with the picture of Jack London as well as the new stamp. The designs for both the stamp and the envelopes were done with great taste.

I sorted through my pictures of Jack London. (I have more than 30 of them.) Some of the most interesting portraits have been included in books. The greatest number of them appear in R. Kingman's Pictorial Life of Jack London. What color were his eyes? Thoughtful, attentive, kind. In the woods, near the rock (picture from 1903, after he left his family)—sad; in the days of the lecture tour of 1905—fixed and intense. In one picture, taken in the depths of the slums in London, his eyes look worried, full of hidden pain. In some amateur photos—happy, even playful, and in this portrait, in which he wears a hat, he has an alert, clever look. People who knew Jack (Anna, Charmian) talked about his blue eyes, but others less close to him referred to them as gray. He himself thought his eyes were greenish-gray. Perhaps they were gray on dull days and became blue on clear days, when the sky reflected the tender blue and his mood was not clouded. This is the only way I can explain the contradictions in the stories of his contemporaries.