Reviews

South Sea Tales Illustrated by Jack London

kyscg's review against another edition

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3.75

Some Robinson Crusoesque short stories that I really enjoyed reading. I liked The House of Mapuhi, Mauki, and The Heathen a lot.

cmjustice's review against another edition

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3.0

Great descriptive prose. Stirring tales of weather and sailing during a time of adventure and exploitation. Dated attitudes with some admirable moral insights shining through.

michaelmc's review against another edition

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5.0

Jack London is still a modern writer. He did live in the 19th and very early 20th centuries but his writing still seems fresh and current. His South Sea Tales do speak of the racism of the time but his writing about the people of the islands is respectful and admiring. In some stories the characters with bad characters are the white Americans and the good people are the islanders. London gathered his information about the South Pacific on his sailing trip on the Snark, a sailing ship he had built to his specifications. It was a costly trip, the ship was badly built and had to be nearly rebuilt in Hawaii. He and most of the crew became very ill from various tropical diseases and London spent several months in an Australian hospital before he was well enough to travel home to California. But the firsthand knowledge he gains informs the stories and makes them very real.

dr_dick's review against another edition

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5.0

a marvelous collection of stories, albeit somewhat brutal, by a master storyteller. the writing is impeccable.

magnaraz117's review against another edition

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adventurous dark tense fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

cmbohn's review against another edition

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Racist and colonial themes put me off and I couldn't finish. 

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chelseavk's review against another edition

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adventurous medium-paced

2.75

sofrosune's review against another edition

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adventurous dark mysterious medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.5

Dis book is rasist!!! OMG! but also worth reading and brutal. If you thought pirates were bad people, wait until you meet "the White Demons".

Este libro es rasista!!! No puede ser! pero también vale la pena leerlo y es brutal. Si creías que los piratas eran malvados, espera a que conozcas a "los Demonios Blancos".

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misterjay's review against another edition

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5.0

The House of Mapuhi
A great typhoon sweeps over a small atoll, leaving the inhabitants shaken and tossed about, only to realize that nothing, really, has changed. 4/5

The Whale Tooth
It's always a good idea to listen to the advice of those who are wiser than you, even when you have the hand of God on your side. 3/5

Mauki
The tale of the son of a chief who is taken away to be a slave and then a plantation worker, Mauki, is full of the kind of detail that makes the South Sea Tales come alive and a pleasure to read. 5/5

"Yah! Yah! Yah!"
A tale of the horrible, horrible reprisals that occur when the natives cross the white man. 4/5

The Heathen
I loved this story of how two men can become brothers and in doing so force them to become the men the other has always known them to be. 5/5

The Terrible Solomons
Essentially, this is the early 20th century version of "Boys in the Hood." You know, "If you've never been to the ghetto, don't ever come to the ghetto, because you wouldn't understand the ghetto," only in sailor talk. 4/5

The Inevitable White Man
Inevitable is a strange word to describe an ethnicity but, after reading this story, it becomes the only one that seems even remotely capable of encompassing all of Europe's attitude towards the less charted regions of the world and why they claimed dominion over them. 5/5

The Seed of McCoy
Almost more of a prose poem than a story, the gentle telling of this story belies its desperate stakes as a captain races to get his ship onto a soft, sandy bed, before the fire in her hold consumes her. 4/5

bookishwendy's review against another edition

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3.0

The best story in this collection, hands down, is "The House of Mapuhi" for being harrowing yet human, and for never going in the direction I was expecting. Fantastic read.

The next best was "The Seed of McCoy" about an on-fire ship trying to find a safe place to beach in a dangerous archipelago.

As for the rest...well, buckle up for some highly uncomfortable reading. London illustrates a brutal side of colonialism that is hard to stomach, and while he's clearly critiquing it, the gleeful violence occasionally confused me as to what the author was actually wanting to get across.