An exciting, suspenseful adventure novel. The most striking of Jack London's major works, included in the golden fund of world fiction, filmed more than once both in the West and in our country. Times change, decades pass - but even now, more than a century after the publication of the novel, the reader is not only captivated, but fascinated by the story of a deadly confrontation between a miraculously surviving shipwreck young writer Humphrey and his involuntary savior and merciless enemy - the fearless and cruel captain of the whaling ship Wolf Larsen, a half-pirate obsessed with a superman complex...
Wolf Larsen stopped his scolding as suddenly as he began. He lit his cigar again and looked around. His eyes happened to fall on the cook.
- Well, cook? – he began with a softness that was cold as steel.
“Yes, sir,” the cook answered exaggeratedly with soothing and ingratiating helpfulness.
– Don’t you think that you are not particularly comfortable stretching your neck? It's unhealthy, I heard. The navigator died, and I wouldn’t like to lose you too. You need, my friend, to really, really take care of your health. Understood?
Last word in striking contrast to the even tone of the entire speech, it struck like the blow of a whip. The cook cowered beneath him.
“Yes, sir,” he meekly stammered, and his neck, which had caused irritation, disappeared along with his head into the kitchen.
After the sudden headache received by the cook, the rest of the team ceased to be interested in what was happening and plunged into one or another work. However, several people who were located between the kitchen and the hatch and who did not seem to be sailors continued talking among themselves in a lowered tone. As I later learned, these were hunters who considered themselves incomparably superior to ordinary sailors.
- Johansen! - Wolf Larsen shouted.
One sailor obediently stepped forward.
- Take a needle and stitch up this tramp. You will find old sailcloth in the sail box. Adjust it.
- What should I tie to his feet, sir? - asked the sailor.
“Well, we’ll see there,” Wolf Larsen answered and raised his voice: “Hey, cook!”
Thomas Mugridge jumped out of the kitchen like Parsley from a drawer.
- Go downstairs and pour a bag of coal. Well, comrades, do any of you have a Bible or a prayer book? – was the captain’s next question, this time addressed to the hunters.
They shook their heads negatively, and one of them made some mocking remark - I did not hear it - which caused general laughter.
Wolf Larsen asked the sailors the same question. Apparently the Bible and prayer books were here a rare occurrence, although one of the sailors volunteered to ask the lower watch and returned a minute later with the message that these books were not there either.
The captain shrugged.
“Then we’ll simply throw him overboard without any chatter, unless our priestly-looking parasite doesn’t know the funeral service at sea by heart.”
And, turning to me, he looked me straight in the eyes.
-Are you a pastor? Yes? – he asked.
The hunters, there were six of them, all as one turned and began to look at me. I was painfully aware that I looked like a scarecrow. My appearance caused laughter. They laughed, not at all embarrassed by the presence of a dead body stretched out in front of us on the deck with a sarcastic smile. The laughter was harsh, cruel and frank, like the sea itself. It came from natures with rude and dull feelings, who knew neither gentleness nor courtesy.
Wolf Larsen did not laugh, although a faint smile lit up in his gray eyes. I stood just in front of him and received the first general impression of him, regardless of the stream of blasphemy that I had just heard. A square face with large but regular features and strict lines seemed massive at first glance; but just like his body, the impression of massiveness soon disappeared; the confidence was born that behind all this lay in the depths of his being a huge and extraordinary spiritual power. His jaw, chin and eyebrows, thick and hanging heavily over his eyes - all this strong and powerful in itself - seemed to reveal in him the extraordinary power of the spirit that lay on the other side of him. physical nature, hidden from the view of the observer. It was impossible to measure this spirit, define its boundaries or accurately classify it and put it on some shelf, next to other types similar to it.
The eyes - and fate destined me to study them well - were large and beautiful, they were widely spaced, like those of a statue, and covered with heavy eyelids under the arches of thick black eyebrows. The color of the eyes was that deceptive gray that is never the same twice, which has so many shadows and tints, like moire on sunlight: It can sometimes be simply gray, sometimes dark, sometimes light and greenish-gray, and sometimes with a hint of the pure azure of the deep sea. These were the eyes that hid his soul in a thousand disguises and which only sometimes, in rare moments, opened and allowed him to look inside, as into a world of amazing adventures. These were eyes that could hide the hopeless gloom of the autumn sky; throw sparks and sparkle like a sword in the hands of a warrior; to be cold as the polar landscape, and then immediately soften again and ignite with a hot brilliance or love fire that enchants and conquers women, forcing them to surrender in the blissful rapture of self-sacrifice.
But let's get back to the story. I answered him that, sad as it may be for a funeral rite, I was not a pastor, and he then sharply asked:
- What do you live for?
I confess that I have never been asked such a question, and I have never thought about it. I was stunned and, before I had time to recover, I muttered stupidly:
- I... I am a gentleman.
His lips curled into a quick grin.
- I worked, I work! – I shouted passionately, as if he were my judge and I needed to justify myself to him; at the same time, I realized how stupid it was for me to discuss this issue in such circumstances.
-What do you live for?
There was something so imperious and commanding about him that I was completely at a loss, “run into a reprimand,” as Faraset would define this state, like a trembling student in front of a strict teacher.
-Who feeds you? – was his next question.
“I have income,” I answered arrogantly, and at the same moment I was ready to bite off my tongue. – All these questions, forgive me my remark, have nothing to do with what I would like to talk to you about.
But he did not pay attention to my protest.
– Who earned your income? A? Not yourself? I thought so. Your father. You are standing on the feet of a dead man. You have never stood on your own two feet. You will not be able to be alone from sunrise to sunrise and get food to fill your belly three times a day. Show me your hand!
The dormant terrible force apparently stirred within him, and before I had time to realize it, he stepped forward and took my right hand and picked it up, examining it. I tried to take it away, but his fingers clenched without visible effort, and I felt that my fingers were about to be crushed. It was difficult to maintain my dignity under such circumstances. I couldn't flounder or struggle like a schoolboy. In the same way, I could not attack a creature that only needed to shake my arm to break it. I had to stand still and meekly accept the insult. I still managed to notice that the dead man on deck had been ransacked and that he and his smile were wrapped in canvas, which the sailor Johansen sewed up with thick white thread, piercing a needle through the canvas using a leather device worn on the palm of his hand.
Wolf Larsen released my hand with a contemptuous gesture.
“The hands of the dead made her soft.” Good for nothing except dishes and kitchen work.
“I want to be taken ashore,” I said firmly, gaining control of myself. “I’ll pay you whatever you estimate the delay in travel and hassle to be.”
He looked at me curiously. Mockery shone in his eyes.
“And I have a counter-offer for you, and it’s for your own benefit,” he replied. – My assistant has died, and we will have a lot of movements. One of the sailors will take the place of the navigator, the cabin boy will take the place of the sailor, and you will take the place of the cabin boy. You will sign a condition for one flight and will receive twenty dollars a month for everything ready. Well, what do you say? Please note - this is for your own good. It will make something out of you. You will learn, perhaps, to stand on your own two feet and even, perhaps, to hobble on them a little.
I was silent. The sails of the ship that I saw in the southwest became more visible and distinct. They belonged to the same schooner as the Ghost, although the hull of the vessel - I noticed - was slightly smaller. The beautiful schooner, gliding along the waves towards us, obviously had to pass near us. The wind suddenly became stronger, and the sun, flashing angrily two or three times, disappeared. The sea became gloomy, leaden-gray and began to throw noisy foaming crests towards the sky. Our schooner accelerated and tilted heavily. Once such a wind came that the side sank into the sea, and the deck was instantly flooded with water, so that the two hunters sitting on the bench had to quickly raise their feet.
“This ship will soon pass us,” I said after a short pause. - Since it is going in the opposite direction to us, we can assume that it is heading to San Francisco.
“Very likely,” Wolf Larsen answered and, turning away, shouted: “Cook!”
The cook immediately leaned out of the kitchen.
-Where is this guy? Tell him I need him.
- Yes, sir! - And Thomas Mugridge quickly disappeared at another hatch near the steering wheel.
A minute later he jumped back out, accompanied by a heavy young man, about eighteen or nineteen years old, with a red and angry face.
“Here he is, sir,” the cook reported.
But Wolf Larsen did not pay attention to him and, turning to the cabin boy, asked:
- What is your name?
“George Leach, sir,” came the sullen answer, and it was clear from the cabin boy’s face that he already knew why he was called.
“Not a very Irish name,” the captain snapped. - O'Toole or McCarthy would be better suited to your snout. However, your mother probably had some Irish on her left side.
I saw how the guy's fists clenched at the insult and how his neck turned purple.
“But so be it,” continued Wolf Larsen. “You may have good reasons for wanting to forget your name, and I will like you no less for it, if only you stick to your brand.” Telegraph Mountain, that scam den, is, of course, your port of departure. It's written all over your dirty face. I know your stubborn breed. Well, you must realize that here you must give up your stubbornness. Understood? By the way, who hired you on a schooner?
- McCready and Swenson.
- Sir! – Wolf Larsen thundered.
“McCready and Svenson, sir,” the guy corrected himself, and an evil light flashed in his eyes.
– Who received the deposit?
- They are, sir.
- Well, of course! And you, of course, were damn glad that you got off cheap. You took care to get away as quickly as possible, because you heard from some gentlemen that someone was looking for you.
In an instant the guy turned into a savage. His body contorted as if to jump, his face was distorted with rage.
“This is...” he shouted.
- What is this? – Wolf Larsen asked with particular softness in his voice, as if he was extremely interested in hearing the unspoken word.
The guy hesitated and controlled himself.
“Nothing, sir,” he replied. – I take my words back.
“You proved to me that I was right.” – This was said with a satisfied smile. - How old are you?
“Just turned sixteen, sir.”
- Lie! You'll never see eighteen again. So huge for his age, and muscles like a horse. Pack up your belongings and head to the forecastle. You are now a boat rower. Promotion. Understood?
Without waiting for the young man's consent, the captain turned to the sailor, who had just finished his terrible work - stitching up a dead man.
- Johansen, do you know anything about navigation?
- No, sir.
- Well, it doesn’t matter, you’re still appointed navigator. Move your things to the navigator's bunk.
“Yes, sir,” came the cheerful answer, and Johansen rushed to the bow as fast as he could.
But the cabin boy did not move.
-What are you waiting for? – asked Wolf Larsen.
“I didn’t sign a contract for a boatman, sir,” was the answer. “I signed a contract for a cabin boy and don’t want to serve as a rower.”
- Roll up and march to the forecastle.
This time Wolf Larsen's command sounded authoritative and menacing. The guy responded with a sullen, angry look and did not move from his place.
Here again Wolf Larsen showed his terrible force. It was completely unexpected and lasted no more than two seconds. He took a six-foot leap across the deck and punched the guy in the stomach. At the same instant, I felt a painful jolt in my stomach, as if I had been hit. I mention this to show my sensitivity nervous system at that time and emphasize how unusual the manifestation of rudeness was for me. Young, who weighed at least one hundred and sixty-five pounds, hunched over. His body curled over the captain's fist like a wet rag on a stick. He then jumped into the air, made a short curve and fell near the corpse, hitting his head and shoulders on the deck. He remained there, writhing almost in agony.
“Well, sir,” Wolf Larsen turned to me. -Have you thought about it?
I looked at the approaching schooner: she was now heading across us and was at a distance of some two hundred yards. It was a clean, elegant little boat. I noticed a large black number on one of its sails. The ship looked like pictures of pilot ships I had seen before.
-What kind of ship is this? – I asked.
“The pilot vessel Lady Mine,” answered Wolf Larsen. – Delivered its pilots and is returning to San Francisco. With this wind it will be there in five or six hours.
“Please signal for it to take me ashore.”
“I’m very sorry, but I dropped the signal book overboard,” he answered, and laughter rang out in the group of hunters.
I hesitated for a second, looking into his eyes. I saw the terrible punishment of the cabin boy and knew that I could probably get the same, if not worse. Like I said, I hesitated, but then I did what I consider to be the bravest thing I've ever done in my entire life. I ran up to the board, waving my arms, and shouted:
- “Lady Mine”! A-oh! Take me ashore with you! A thousand dollars if you deliver it to shore!
I waited, looking at the two people standing at the steering wheel; one of them ruled, while the other put a megaphone to his lips. I did not turn around, although I expected every minute a fatal blow from the man-beast standing behind me. Finally, after a pause that seemed like an eternity, unable to withstand the tension any longer, I looked back. Larsen remained in the same place. He stood in the same position, swaying slightly to the rhythm of the ship and lighting a new cigar.
-What's the matter? Any trouble? – there was a cry from the Lady Mine.
- Yes! – I screamed with all my might. - Life or death! A thousand dollars if you get me ashore!
“Drank too much in Frisco!” – Wolf Larsen shouted after me. “This one,” he pointed his finger at me, “seems to be sea animals and monkeys!”
The man with the Lady Mine laughed into a megaphone. The pilot boat rushed past.
- Send him to hell on my behalf! – came the last cry, and both sailors waved their hands goodbye.
In despair, I leaned over the side, watching how the distance between the pretty schooner and us was rapidly increasing. dark space ocean. And this ship will be in San Francisco in five or six hours. My head felt like it was ready to burst. His throat tightened painfully, as if his heart was rising to his stomach. A foaming wave hit the side and doused my lips with salty moisture. The wind rushed stronger, and the Ghost, tilting heavily, touched the water on its port side. I heard the hiss of waves lapping the deck. A minute later I turned around and saw the cabin boy getting to his feet. His face was terribly pale and twitching in pain.
- Well, Lich, are you going to the forecastle? – asked Wolf Larsen.
“Yes, sir,” came the humble answer.
- Well, what about you? – he turned to me.
“I offer you a thousand...” I started, but he interrupted me:
- Enough! Do you intend to take up your duties as cabin boy? Or will I have to talk some sense into you too?
What could I do? To be severely beaten, maybe even killed - I didn’t want to die so absurdly. I looked firmly into those cruel gray eyes. They seemed to be made of granite, there was so little light and warmth in them, characteristic of human soul. In the majority human eyes you can see the reflection of the soul, but his eyes were dark, cold and gray, like the sea itself.
“Yes,” I said.
- Say: yes, sir!
“Yes, sir,” I corrected.
- Your name?
- Van Weyden, sir.
- Not a surname, but a first name.
- Humphrey, sir, Humphrey Van Weyden.
- Age?
- Thirty-five years, sir.
- OK. Go to the chef and learn your duties from him.
So I became a forced slave of Wolf Larsen. He was stronger than me, that's all. But it seemed surprisingly unreal to me. Even now, when I look back, everything I experienced seems completely fantastic to me. And it will always seem like a monstrous, incomprehensible, terrible nightmare.
- Wait! Don't leave yet!
I obediently stopped before reaching the kitchen.
- Johansen, call everyone upstairs. Now everything is settled, let's get down to the funeral, we need to clear the deck of excess debris.
While Johansen convened the crew, two sailors, according to the captain's instructions, laid the body sewn in canvas on the hatch cover. On both sides of the deck there were small boats attached upside down along the sides. Several men lifted the hatch cover with its terrible burden, carried it to leeward and laid it on the boats, with its feet facing the sea. A bag of coal brought by the cook was tied to his feet. I had always imagined a funeral at sea to be a solemn and awe-inspiring spectacle, but this funeral disappointed me. One of the hunters, a small dark-eyed man whom his comrades called Smoke, told funny stories, generously laced with curses and obscenities, and bursts of laughter were constantly heard among the hunters, which sounded to me like the howling of wolves or the barking of hellhounds. The sailors gathered in a noisy crowd on the deck, exchanging rude remarks; many of them had been sleeping before and were now rubbing their sleepy eyes. There was a gloomy and worried expression on their faces. It was clear that they were not happy about traveling with such a captain, and even with such sad omens. From time to time they glanced furtively at Wolf Larsen; it was impossible not to notice that they were afraid of him.
Wolf Larsen approached the dead man, and everyone uncovered their heads. I quickly examined the sailors - there were twenty of them, and including the helmsman and me - twenty-two. My curiosity was understandable: fate, apparently, connected me with them in this miniature floating world for weeks, and maybe even months. Most of the sailors were English or Scandinavian, and their faces seemed gloomy and dull.
The hunters, on the contrary, had more interesting and lively faces, with a bright stamp of vicious passions. But it’s strange - there was no trace of vice on Wolf Larsen’s face. True, his facial features were sharp, decisive and firm, but his expression was open and sincere, and this was emphasized by the fact that he was clean-shaven. I would find it difficult to believe - if not for a recent incident - that this is the face of the man who could act so outrageously as he did with the cabin boy.
As soon as he opened his mouth and wanted to speak, gusts of wind, one after another, hit the schooner and tilted it. The wind sang its wild song in the gear. Some of the hunters looked up anxiously. The lee side, where the dead man lay, tilted, and when the schooner rose and righted itself, water rushed along the deck, flooding our legs above our boots. Suddenly it started pouring rain, and every drop of it hit us as if it were hail. When the rain stopped, Wolf Larsen began to talk, and people with bare heads swayed in time with the rise and fall of the deck.
“I remember only one part of the funeral rite,” he said, “namely: “And the body must be thrown into the sea.” So, drop it.
He fell silent. The people holding the manhole cover seemed embarrassed, puzzled by the brevity of the ritual. Then he roared furiously:
- Lift it from this side, damn you! What the hell is holding you back?!
The frightened sailors hastily lifted the edge of the lid, and, like a dog thrown over the side, the dead man, feet first, slid into the sea. The coal tied to his feet pulled him down. He disappeared.
- Johansen! – Wolf Larsen shouted sharply to his new navigator. - Detain all the people upstairs, since they are already here. Remove the topsail and do it properly! We are entering southeast. Take reefs on the jib and mainsail and don’t yawn once you get to work!
In an instant, the entire deck began to move. Johansen roared like a bull, giving orders, people began to poison the ropes, and all this, of course, was new and incomprehensible to me, a land dweller. But what struck me most was the general callousness. Dead Man was already a past episode. He was thrown out, sewn up in canvas, and the ship moved forward, work on it did not stop, and this event did not affect anyone. The hunters laughed at Smoke's new story, the crew pulled the gear, and two sailors climbed up; Wolf Larsen studied the gloomy sky and the direction of the wind... And the man, who had died so indecently and was buried so unworthily, sank lower and lower into the depths of the sea.
Such was the cruelty of the sea, its pitilessness and inexorability that fell upon me. Life became cheap and meaningless, bestial and incoherent, a soulless immersion in mud and mire. I held onto the railing and looked across the desert of foaming waves to the rolling fog that hid San Francisco and the Californian coast from me. Rain squalls came between me and the fog, and I could barely see the wall of fog. And this strange ship, with its terrible crew, now flying to the top of the waves, now falling into the abyss, went further and further to the southwest, into the deserted and wide expanses of the Pacific Ocean.
The novel takes place in 1893 in the Pacific Ocean. Humphrey Van Weyden, a resident of San Francisco and a famous literary critic, goes on a ferry across Golden Gate Bay to visit his friend and on the way gets into a shipwreck. He is picked up from the water by the captain of the fishing schooner Ghost, whom everyone on board calls Wolf Larsen.
Already for the first time, asking about the captain from the sailor who brought him to consciousness, Van Weyden learns that he is “mad.” When Van Weyden, who has just come to his senses, goes to the deck to talk with the captain, the captain’s assistant dies before his eyes. Then Wolf Larsen makes one of the sailors his assistant, and in the sailor’s place he puts the cabin boy George Leach, he does not agree with such a move and Wolf Larsen beats him. And Wolf Larsen makes the 35-year-old intellectual Van Weyden a cabin boy, giving him the cook Mugridge, a tramp from the London slums, a sycophant, an informer and a slob, as his immediate superior. Mugridge, who has just flattered the “gentleman” who got on board the ship, when he finds himself subordinate to him, begins to bully him.
Larsen, on a small schooner with a crew of 22 people, goes to harvest fur seal skins in the North Pacific Ocean and takes Van Weyden with him, despite his desperate protests.
The next day, Van Weyden discovers that the cook has robbed him. When Van Weyden tells the cook about this, the cook threatens him. Carrying out the duties of a cabin boy, Van Weyden cleans the captain's cabin and is surprised to find there books on astronomy and physics, the works of Darwin, the works of Shakespeare, Tennyson and Browning. Encouraged by this, Van Weyden complains to the captain about the cook. Wolf Larsen mockingly tells Van Weyden that he himself is to blame, having sinned and seduced the cook with money, and then seriously sets out his own philosophy, according to which life is meaningless and like leaven, and “the strong devour the weak.”
From the team, Van Weyden learns that Wolf Larsen is famous in the professional community for his reckless courage, but even more so for his terrible cruelty, because of which he even has problems recruiting a team; He also has murders on his conscience. Order on the ship rests entirely on the extraordinary physical strength and authority of Wolf Larsen. The captain immediately severely punishes the offender for any offense. Despite his extraordinary physical strength, Wolf Larsen experiences severe headaches.
After getting the cook drunk, Wolf Larsen wins money from him, finding out that besides this stolen money, the tramp cook does not have a penny. Van Weyden reminds that the money belongs to him, but Wolf Larsen takes it for himself: he believes that “weakness is always to blame, strength is always right,” and morality and any ideals are illusions.
Frustrated by the loss of money, the cook takes it out on Van Weyden and begins to threaten him with a knife. Having learned about this, Wolf Larsen mockingly declares to Van Weyden, who had previously told Wolf Larsen, that he believes in the immortality of the soul, that the cook cannot harm him, since he is immortal, and if he does not want to go to heaven, let him send the cook there by stabbing with his knife.
In desperation, Van Weyden gets an old cleaver and demonstratively sharpens it, but the cowardly cook does not take any action and even begins to grovel before him again.
An atmosphere of primitive fear reigns on the ship, as the captain acts in accordance with his conviction that human life- the cheapest of all cheap things. However, the captain favors Van Weyden. Moreover, having started his journey on the ship as an assistant cook, “Hump” (a hint of the stoop of people of mental work), as Larsen nicknamed him, makes a career to the position of senior mate, although at first he does not understand anything about maritime affairs. The reason is that Van Weyden and Larsen, who came from the bottom and at one time led life, where “kicks and beatings in the morning and in the coming sleep replace words, and fear, hatred and pain are the only things that fed the soul” are found common language in the field of literature and philosophy, which are not alien to the captain. It even has a small library on board, where Van Weyden discovered Browning and Swinburne. IN free time The captain is interested in mathematics and optimizes navigation instruments.
The cook, who had previously enjoyed the captain's favor, tries to win him back by denouncing one of the sailors, Johnson, who dared to express dissatisfaction with the uniform given to him. Johnson had previously been in bad standing with the captain, despite the fact that he worked regularly, as he had self-esteem. In the cabin, Larsen and the new mate brutally beat Johnson in front of Van Weyden, and then drag Johnson, unconscious from the beatings, onto the deck. Here, unexpectedly, Wolf Larsen is denounced in front of everyone by the former cabin boy Lich. The Lich then beats up Mugridge. But to the surprise of Van Weyden and the others, Wolf Larsen does not touch the Lich.
One night, Van Weyden sees Wolf Larsen crawling over the side of the ship, all wet and with a bloody head. Together with Van Weyden, who poorly understands what is happening, Wolf Larsen descends into the cockpit, here the sailors attack Wolf Larsen and try to kill him, but they are not armed, in addition, they are hampered by darkness, large numbers (since they interfere with each other) and Wolf Larsen, using his extraordinary physical strength, makes his way up the ladder.
After this, Wolf Larsen calls Van Weyden, who remained in the cockpit, and appoints him as his assistant (the previous one, along with Larsen, was hit on the head and thrown overboard, but unlike Wolf Larsen, he was unable to swim and died), although he knows nothing about navigation.
After the failed mutiny, the captain's treatment of the crew becomes even more cruel, especially against Leach and Johnson. Everyone, including Johnson and Leach themselves, are sure that Wolf Larsen will kill them. Wolf Larsen himself says the same thing. The captain himself is experiencing intensifying attacks of headaches, now lasting for several days.
Johnson and Leach manage to escape on one of the boats. Along the way of pursuing the fugitives, the crew of the “Ghost” picks up another group of victims, including a woman, the poet Maud Brewster. At first sight, Humphrey is attracted to Maud. A storm begins. Angry over the fate of Leach and Johnson, Van Weyden announces to Wolf Larsen that he will kill him if he continues to abuse Leach and Johnson. Wolf Larsen congratulates Van Weyden that he has finally become an independent person and gives his word that he will not lay a finger on Leach and Johnson. At the same time, mockery is visible in Wolf Larsen’s eyes. Soon Wolf Larsen catches up with Leach and Johnson. Wolf Larsen comes close to the boat and never takes them on board, thereby drowning Leach and Johnson. Van Weyden is stunned.
Wolf Larsen had earlier threatened the unkempt cook that if he did not change his shirt, he would ransom him. Once making sure that the cook has not changed his shirt, Wolf Larsen orders him to be dunked into the sea on a rope. As a result, the cook loses his foot, bitten off by a shark. Maude witnesses the scene.
The captain has a brother nicknamed Death Larsen, the captain of a fishing steamer, in addition to this, as they said, he was involved in the transportation of weapons and opium, the slave trade and piracy. Brothers hate each other. One day, Wolf Larsen encounters Death Larsen and captures several members of his brother's crew.
The wolf also becomes attracted to Maud, which ends with him attempting to rape her, but abandoning his attempt due to the onset of a severe headache attack. Van Weyden, who was present, even at first rushing at Larsen in a fit of indignation, saw Wolf Larsen truly frightened for the first time.
Immediately after this incident, Van Weyden and Maude decide to escape from the Ghost while Wolf Larsen lies in his cabin with a headache. Having captured a boat with a small supply of food, they flee, and after several weeks of wandering around the ocean, they find land and land on a small island, which Maude and Humphrey named Endeavor Island. They cannot leave the island and are preparing for a long winter.
After some time, a broken schooner washed up on the island. This is the Ghost with Wolf Larsen on board. He lost his sight (apparently this happened during the attack that prevented him from raping Maud). It turns out that two days after the escape of Van Weyden and Maude, the crew of the “Ghost” moved to the ship of Death Larsen, who boarded the “Ghost” and bribed the sea hunters. The cook took revenge on Wolf Larsen by sawing down the masts.
The crippled Ghost, with its masts broken, drifted in the ocean until it washed up on the Island of Effort. As fate would have it, it is on this island that Captain Larsen, blind due to a brain tumor, discovers the seal rookery that he has been looking for all his life.
Maud and Humphrey, at the cost of incredible efforts, get the Ghost in order and take it out to the open sea. Larsen, who successively loses all his senses along with his vision, is paralyzed and dies. At the moment when Maud and Humphrey finally discover a rescue ship in the ocean, they confess their love for each other.
Very briefly, a hunting schooner led by a smart, cruel captain picks up a drowning writer after a shipwreck. The hero goes through a series of trials, strengthening his spirit, but without losing his humanity along the way.
Literary critic Humphrey van Weyden (the novel was written on his behalf) is shipwrecked on his way to San Francisco. A drowning man is picked up by the ship "Ghost", heading to Japan to hunt seals.
The navigator dies before Humphrey's eyes: before sailing, he went on a heavy binge, and they could not bring him to his senses. The ship's captain, Wolf Larsen, is left without an assistant. He orders the body of the deceased to be thrown overboard. He prefers to replace the words from the Bible necessary for burial with the phrase: “And the remains will be lowered into the water.”
The captain's face gives the impression of "terrible, crushing mental or spiritual power." He invites van Weyden, a pampered gentleman living off his family's fortune, to become a cabin boy. Watching the captain's reprisal against the young cabin boy George Leach, who refused to advance to the rank of sailor, Humphrey, not accustomed to brute force, submits to Larsen.
Van Weyden receives the nickname Hump and works in the galley with cook Thomas Mugridge. The cook, who had previously fawned over Humphrey, is now rude and cruel. For their mistakes or insubordination, the entire crew receives beatings from Larsen, and Humphrey also gets beaten.
Soon van Weyden reveals a different side to the captain: Larsen reads books - he educates himself. They often have conversations about law, ethics and the immortality of the soul, which Humphrey believes in, but which Larsen denies. The latter considers life a struggle, “the strong devour the weak in order to maintain their strength.”
For special attention Larsen's cook gets even angrier towards Humphrey. He constantly sharpens a knife on the cabin boy in the galley, trying to intimidate van Weyden. He admits to Larsen that he is afraid, to which the captain remarks mockingly: “How can this be, ...after all, you will live forever? You are a god, and a god cannot be killed.” Then Humphrey borrows a knife from the sailor and also begins to sharpen it demonstratively. Mugridge offers peace and since then behaves with the critic even more obsequiously than with the captain.
In the presence of van Weyden, the captain and the new navigator beat the proud sailor Johnson for his straightforwardness and unwillingness to submit to Larsen's brutal whims. Leach bandages Johnson's wounds and calls Wolf a murderer and a coward in front of everyone. The crew is frightened by his courage, but Humphrey is admired by Leach.
Soon the navigator disappears at night. Humphrey sees Larsen climb onto the ship from overboard with a bloody face. He goes to the forecastle where the sailors sleep to find the culprit. Suddenly they attack Larsen. After numerous beatings, he manages to escape from the sailors.
The captain appoints Humphrey as navigator. Now everyone must call him "Mr. van Weyden." He successfully uses the advice of sailors.
The relationship between Leach and Larsen is becoming increasingly strained. The captain considers Humphrey a coward: his morals are on the side of the noble Johnson and Leach, but instead of helping them kill Larsen, he remains on the sidelines.
Boats from the “Ghost” go to sea. The weather changes suddenly and a storm breaks out. Thanks to Wolf Larsen's seamanship, almost all the boats are saved and returned to the ship.
Suddenly, Leach and Johnson disappear. Larsen wants to find them, but instead of the fugitives, the crew notices a boat with five passengers. There is a woman among them.
Suddenly, Johnson and Leach are spotted at sea. The amazed van Weyden promises Larsen to kill him if the captain starts torturing the sailors again. Wolf Larsen promises not to lay a finger on them. The weather gets worse, and the captain plays with them while Leach and Johnson desperately fight the elements. Finally they are overturned by a wave.
The rescued woman earns her own living, which delights Larsen. Humphrey recognizes her as the writer Maud Brewster, and she realizes that van Weyden is a critic who flatteringly reviewed her works.
Mugridge becomes Larsen's new victim. The cook is tied to a rope and plunged into the sea. The shark bites off his foot. Maud reproaches Humphrey for inaction: he did not even try to stop the bullying of the cook. But the navigator explains that in this floating world there is no right, in order to survive, there is no need to argue with the monster captain.
Maude is a "fragile, ethereal creature, slender, with flexible movements." She has a regular oval face, brown hair and expressive brown eyes. Watching her conversation with the captain, Humphrey catches a warm glint in Larsen's eyes. Now Van Weyden understands how dear Miss Brewster is to him.
The "Ghost" meets at sea with the "Macedonia" - the ship of Wolf's brother, Death-Larsen. The brother carries out a maneuver and leaves the Ghost hunters without prey. Larsen implements a cunning plan of revenge and takes his brother’s sailors onto his ship. "Macedonia" gives chase, but "Ghost" disappears into the fog.
In the evening, Humphrey sees Captain Maud struggling in the arms. Suddenly he lets go: Larsen has a headache. Humphrey wants to kill the captain, but Miss Brewster stops him. At night, the two of them leave the ship.
A few days later, Humphrey and Maud reach the Island of Effort. There are no people there, only a seal rookery. The fugitives have huts on the island - they will have to spend the winter here; they cannot reach the shore by boat.
One morning, van Weyden discovers the “Ghost” near the shore. There is only the captain on it. Humphrey does not dare to kill Wolf: morality is stronger than him. His entire crew was lured away by Death-Larsen, offering a higher payment. Van Weyden soon realizes that Larsen is blind.
Humphrey and Maud decide to repair the broken masts in order to sail away from the island. But Larsen is against it: he will not allow them to rule his ship. Maud and Humphrey work all day, but during the night Wolf destroys everything. They continue restoration work. The captain attempts to kill Humphrey, but Maud saves him by hitting Larsen with his club. He has a seizure, first the right side is taken away, and then the left side.
The "Ghost" hits the road. Wolf Larsen dies. Van Weyden sends his body into the sea with the words: “And the remains will be lowered into the water.”
An American customs ship appears: Maud and Humphrey are rescued. At this moment they declare their love to each other.
In my spare time, I wrote in my column on the Polis website a review of one of the old favorite books of my childhood.
Recently I decided to take one of the books from a dusty shelf that I had been reading since childhood. This famous novel Jack London " Sea wolf».
The main character is the literary critic Humphrey Van Weyden, who lives as a rich slacker on his father's inheritance. Having gone on a ship to visit a friend, he gets into a shipwreck. Van Weyden is picked up by the fishing schooner "Ghost", which catches fur seals. The crew is a semi-criminal rabble with corresponding morals. The captain is Larsen, nicknamed "Wolf". He is an unprincipled sadist who professes the philosophy of social Darwinism and is endowed with phenomenal physical strength. Larsen refuses to put the rescued man ashore, deciding to make him a member of the team for fun.
Humphrey Van Weyden
A pampered intellectual finds himself in a world where might reigns, where human life is not worth a penny. He will have to fight for status in this cruel environment. Starting with the cook's assistant - the most despised creature on the ship, vile and cruel, he eventually becomes the second person on the ship after Larsen. Along the way, he learns to endure adversity and masters the sailor's craft to perfection. He spends his time free from ship duties in philosophical conversations with Wolf Larsen. As it turned out, despite his lack of education, Wolf Larsen has diverse intellectual hobbies - literature, philosophy, moral issues. It must be said that Van Weyden’s rise was determined precisely by the fact that he was the only one on the ship who was suitable as an interlocutor on such topics.
Wolf Larsen
Larsen and George Leach
It must be said that the conditions on the “Ghost” were terrible. Fights to the death, stabbings, even murders are the order of the day. Wolf Larsen mercilessly tyrannizes the crew - out of indifference to other people's lives, for profit, or for fun. He brutally beats obstinate sailors who are outraged by humiliation and subtly abuses them. This leads to an unsuccessful riot, the instigators of which he condemns to death. Van Weyden is outraged, and does not hide this in front of Larsen, but is powerless to change anything. He was inspired to revolt only by love - for the woman who appeared on the ship. The same selected shipwreck victim. (And just as disconnected from real life idealist). Protecting her, he raised his hand to Wolf Larsen. Then, taking advantage of the fact that the captain had another attack, he escapes on a boat with his beloved.
Van Weyden and Maud Brewster
A few days later they are washed up on a deserted island, lost in the ocean. What follows is a struggle for survival in essentially primitive conditions. The fugitives had to learn how to make fire, build huts from stones, and hunt fur seals with a club. (Here the harsh school of the “Ghost” turned out to be very useful). And one morning they see the destroyed “Ghost” washed up by the waves near the shore. There is only Captain Larsen on board, half paralyzed by a brain tumor. As it turned out, soon after Van Weyden’s escape, the “Ghost” was boarded by Larsen’s brother, with whom the Wolf had a fierce enmity. He lured away the crew of the schooner, leaving Wolf Larsen to wander alone in the ocean. Van Weyden repairs the broken ship in order to leave the island. Wolf Larsen, meanwhile, is dying of illness; his last word, scribbled on paper, was “nonsense” - the answer to the question about the immortality of the soul.
Larsen and Van Weyden
Wolf Larsen is essentially the key figure of the book, although the path personal growth Van Weyden. You can even admire the image of Wolf Larsen (if you forget about the consequences of any conflict of interest with a person of this type). Well, Jack London created a very complete, organic character. Wolf Larsen personifies the ideal of an egocentric, for whom only profit and his own whims are important. And endowed with sufficient power to ensure absolute power, at least within the confines of an isolated ship world. Some will say that this is the embodiment of the Nietzschean superman, free from the shackles of morality. Someone else will call it a concentration of satanic morality, calling to indulge any desires. (By the way, Larsen identified himself with Lucifer, the rebellious angel who rebelled against God). Let us note that many thinkers characterized the essence of evil precisely as superegoism. As the desire to follow only one’s desires, ignoring the inconvenience of other people, the prohibitions of morality. Note that the entire evolution of human culture was essentially the development of restrictions on the selfish impulses of the individual for the sake of the convenience of others. So that individuals like Wolf Larsen, if not eradicated, then somehow restrained.
Thomas Mugridge, ship's cook
Van Weyden embodies the ideals of compassion, forgiveness, and helping one's neighbor. Moreover, he managed to save them even in the cruel little world of the “Ghost”. And he doesn’t finish off Wolf Larsen even when he turns out to be completely defenseless in front of him a couple of times.
But we have to admit that Van Weyden's vague arguments about humanism sound pale in comparison with Larsen's cold logic. In fact, he cannot object to anything on the merits. The judge in the novel is life itself. As soon as a more powerful force appeared, it broke Larsen - and the crew, to a single person, turned away from him, leaving him to die in the middle of the sea. And he died in the hands of those who suffered many insults from him and whose “idealistic prejudices” he cynically ridiculed. It would seem that good has triumphed. On the other hand, evil was not defeated - in battle or ideological polemics. It died on its own for a reason hardly related to its professed values. Unless you make an assumption about God's punishment.
By the way, I knew people with the worldview of Wolf Larsen. They lived according to the philosophy of “might is right”, guided only by desires, had money and influence, were endowed with strength, and masterfully wielded weapons. And at some point, they seriously began to imagine themselves as “supermen”, standing above morality. But the result was death, prison, or flight from justice.
Van Weyden
Some people assessed “The Sea Wolf” as a kind of “quest” about survival - first in an aggressive closed group, then in conditions wildlife. With the accompanying line of a kind of rivalry between two males - the dominant one and the one becoming dominant. And the woman acted as the arbiter in the dispute, giving preference to the “survivalist,” albeit weaker, but more humane.
"The Sea Wolf" has been filmed many times. I think the best is the Soviet mini-series from 1990. Humphrey Van Weyden was played by Andrei Rudensky, Wolf Larsen was played by Lithuanian actor Lyubomiras Lautsevičius. The latter managed to very vividly embody the book character, creating a truly demonic image.
Who is right in this dispute between altruist and egoist? Is man really a wolf to man? As the book showed, it all depends on whose hand the lever of power is in. In the hands of an altruist it will turn into good, in the hand of an egoist it will serve his desires. The superiority of ideas can be debated endlessly, but the weight on the scale is the power to change something.
Jack London
p.s. I forgot to mention that the book character had, it turns out, real prototype- commercial poacher Alexander McLane, a famous thug in his time. And like the book Wolf Larsen, MacLane came to a bad end - one day the surf washed his corpse ashore. Presumably, he was killed during another criminal adventure. Also, ironically, literary character turned out to be much brighter than a real person.
I didn’t write about this in the review, because it took the topic away, and the volume already exceeded the conditional limit. But one can note a competent description of both maritime affairs and the life of sailors. After all, it was not in vain that Jack London spent his youth as a sailor on fishing vessels like the Ghost.
Yes, also: I recently rewatched that old Soviet film adaptation. (Script by Valery Todorovsky, director - Igor Apasyan). For the first time - since that distant year 1991. I can still note the good quality of the film, although some moments seem too refined in our “naturalistic” times. The actors convincingly reproduced the characters in the book. The deviations from the original are minor, except that some episodes were shortened, simplified, or even tightened a little. For example, in the book Larsen simply leaves the boat of the escaped Leach and Johnson to sink in the middle of a storm, but in the film he rams it with the hull of a schooner. The ending has also been slightly changed - the fire started by Larsen on the crashed Ghost cannot be prevented.
By the way, I was very surprised that Mugridge’s cook, it turns out, was played by Chindyaykin. I would never have thought - the participant in the film does not look like the current Chindyaikin at all. But Rudensky has hardly changed since those times, although almost a quarter of a century has passed.
In conclusion, I will simply say that The Sea Wolf is a powerful book.
Jack London Sea wolf. Stories from the Fishing Patrol
© DepositРhotos.com / Maugli, Antartis, cover, 2015
© Book Club “Family Leisure Club”, edition in Russian, 2015
© Book Club “Family Leisure Club”, translation and decoration, 2015
Wields a sextant and becomes a captain
I managed to save enough money from my earnings to last three years in higher school.
Jack London. Stories from the Fishing Patrol
This book, compiled from the “sea” works of Jack London “The Sea Wolf” and “Tales of the Fishing Patrol”, opens the “Sea Adventures” series. And it is difficult to find a more suitable author for this, who is undoubtedly one of the “three pillars” of world marine studies.
It is necessary to say a few words about the appropriateness of highlighting marine studies in separate genre. I have a suspicion that this is a purely continental habit. It never occurs to the Greeks to call Homer a seascape painter. "Odyssey" - heroic epic. It is difficult to find a work in English literature that does not mention the sea in one way or another. Alistair MacLean is a mystery writer, although almost all of them take place among the waves. The French do not call Jules Verne a marine painter, although a significant part of his books are dedicated to sailors. The public read with equal pleasure not only “The Fifteen-Year-Old Captain,” but also “From the Gun to the Moon.”
And only Russian literary criticism, it seems, just as at one time she put Konstantin Stanyukovich’s books on a shelf with the inscription “marine painting” (by analogy with the artist Aivazovsky), she still refuses to notice other, “land” works of authors who, following the pioneer, fell into this genre. And among the recognized masters of Russian marine painting - Alexey Novikov-Priboi or Viktor Konetsky - you can find wonderful stories, say, about a man and a dog (Konetsky’s works are generally written from the perspective of a boxer dog). Stanyukovich began with plays exposing the sharks of capitalism. But it was his “Sea Stories” that remained in the history of Russian literature.
It was so new, fresh and unlike anything else in the literature of the 19th century that the public refused to perceive the author in other roles. Thus, the existence of the genre of marine painting in Russian literature is justified by its exoticism life experience sailor writers, of course, in comparison with other masters of words from a very continental country. However, this approach to foreign authors is fundamentally wrong.
To call the same Jack London a marine painter would mean to ignore the fact that his literary star rose thanks to his northern, gold-mining stories and tales. And in general - what did he not write in his life? And social dystopias, and mystical novels, and dynamic adventure scenarios for newborn cinema, and novels designed to illustrate some fashionable philosophical or even economic theories, and “novels-novels” - great literature that covers any genre. And yet his first essay, written for a competition for a San Francisco newspaper, was called “Typhoon off the Coast of Japan.” Returning from a long voyage fishing for seals off the coast of Kamchatka, at his sister’s suggestion, he tried his hand at writing and unexpectedly won the first prize.
The size of the remuneration surprised him so pleasantly that he immediately calculated that it was more profitable to be a writer than a sailor, a fireman, a tramp, a dray driver, a farmer, a newspaper seller, a student, a socialist, a fish inspector, a war correspondent, a homeowner, a Hollywood screenwriter, a yachtsman, and even - gold digger. Yes, there were such wonderful times for literature: pirates were still oyster pirates, not Internet pirates; magazines are still thick, literary, not glossy. That, however, did not stop American publishers from flooding all the English colonies of the Pacific Ocean with pirated editions of British authors and (sic!) cheap sheet music by European composers. Technology has changed, people not so much.
In Jack London's contemporary Victorian Britain, moralizing songs with morals were fashionable. Even among sailors. I remember one about a lax and brave sailor. The first, as usual, slept on watch, was insolent to the boatswain, drank away his salary, fought in the port taverns and ended up, as expected, in hard labor. To the brave sailor who sacredly observed the Charter of service on ships navy, the boatswain could not get enough of it, and even the captain, for some very exceptional merits, gave his master’s daughter in marriage to him. For some reason, superstitions regarding women on ships are alien to the British. But the brave sailor does not rest on his laurels, but enters navigation classes. “Operates a sextant and will be a captain!” - promised a chorus of sailors performing shanti on the deck, nursing the anchor on the spire.
Anyone who reads this book to the end can be convinced that Jack London also knew this moralizing sailor's song. The ending of “Tales of the Fishing Patrol,” by the way, makes us think about the relationship between autobiography and sailor folklore in this cycle. Critics do not go to sea and, as a rule, cannot distinguish “an incident from the author’s life” from sailor’s tales, port legends and other folklore of oyster, shrimp, sturgeon and salmon fishermen of the San Francisco Bay. They do not realize that there is no more reason to believe the fish inspector than to believe a fisherman who has returned from fishing, whose “truthfulness” has long become the talk of the town. However, it’s simply breathtaking when, a century later, you see how the young, impatient author “writes out” from story to story in this collection, tries out plot moves, builds a composition more and more confidently to the detriment of the literalism of the real situation, and brings the reader to the climax. And we can already guess some of the intonations and motives of the upcoming “Smoke and the Kid” and other pinnacle stories of the northern cycle. And you understand that after Jack London wrote down these real and fictional stories of the fisheries patrol, they, like the Greeks after Homer, became the epic of the Golden Horn Bay.
But I don’t understand why none of the critics have yet let it slip that Jack himself, in fact, turned out to be the slack sailor from that song, who was enough for one ocean voyage. Fortunately for readers all over the world. If he had become a captain, he would hardly have become a writer. The fact that he also turned out to be an unsuccessful prospector (and further along the impressive list of professions given above) also played into the hands of the readers. I am more than sure that if he had gotten rich in the gold-bearing Klondike, he would have had no need to write novels. Because all his life he considered his writing primarily as a way of making money with his mind, and not with his muscles, and he always scrupulously counted the thousands of words in his manuscripts and multiplied in his mind the royalties per word by cents. I was offended when editors cut a lot.
As for The Sea Wolf, I am not a supporter of critical analyzes classical works. The reader has the right to savor such texts at his own discretion. I will only say that in our once most reading country, every cadet at a naval school could be suspected of having run away from home to become a sailor after reading Jack London. At least, I heard this from several gray-haired combat captains and the Ukrainian writer and marine painter Leonid Tendyuk.
The latter admitted that when his research vessel Vityaz entered San Francisco, he unscrupulously took advantage of his official position as the “senior group” (and Soviet sailors were allowed ashore only in “Russian troikas”) and dragged him along the streets of Frisco for half a day two disgruntled sailors in search of the famous port tavern, where, according to legend, the skipper of the “Ghost” Wolf Larsen loved to sit. And this was a hundred times more important to him at that moment than the legitimate intentions of his comrades to look for chewing gum, jeans, women's wigs and lurex headscarves - the legal prey of Soviet sailors in colonial trade. They found the zucchini. The bartender showed them Wolf Larsen's place at the massive table. Unoccupied. It seemed that the skipper of the Phantom, immortalized by Jack London, had just gone away.