Jack London- John Barleycorn

John Barleycorn

Jack London

1913

“The fortunate man is the one who cannot take more than a couple of drinks without becoming intoxicated. The unfortunate wight is the one who can take many glasses without betraying a sign; who must take numerous glasses in order to get the ‘kick’.”

It took me a while to get around to reading a Jack London book, but it was inevitable following the pattern of my reading habits for a long while- probably a decade, actually. I've always known that London is considered as one of the elite peers of American literature, one of the most influential writers of the twentieth century, up there with Hemmingway, Steinbeck and Fitzgerald as authors who shaped the Western art form for all to follow- in a fashion bridging the gap between the classical US authors of the 19th century who were still heavily influenced by Victorian literature, and the outragous post-World War II hippies and beatniks who fill so much of my time now. I bought two charity-shop copies of London books in quick succession, leaving me with the choice of what to tackle first.

One of these was a Penguin Classics collection of some of London's most famous and most successful shorter stories (including White Fang and The Call of the Wild- the former of which I oddly remember seeing an animated children's TV series, many years ago), the stories that primarily made his name and stand out the most on a fairly-packed bibliography. The other one was a much different prospect; the controversial autobiographical work John Barleycorn. Truth be told, the back cover blurb sold me immediately, since rather than promise stories about a bunch of wolves and whatnot, it promised 'the first intelligent literary treatise on alcohol in American Literature' (Oxford World's Classics edition), with London writing in detail about his massive consumption of alcohol during his younger days; with the name John Barleycorn from the old US folk song used to represent alcohol as a familiar acquaintance.

I've always been interested in quality literature permeated by chemically altered states, and I genuinely think that the best US fiction of the second half of the last century revolved around the influence of certain such texts, by Bukowski, Kerouac, Burroughs et al, and, with that in mind, John Barleycorn read to me like an incredibly important influence; the similarities to Bukowski's novels primarily jumping to mind in terms of the construction of the story, its pacing, characterisation and chronology. London forsakes much of a sense of typical storytelling structure through his constant introspective analysis regarding the physical and mental effects that his huge alcohol intake had upon him. The real people he describes meeting during his youthful days working on the ocean and docks seem to be heavily styled to emphasize their wildness, (reminding me most of On the Road) , which is fun to read, but as a counterpoint he refrains from following an obvious chronological narrative, instead perhaps assuming that the reader is familiar with his life and career already.

Unfortunately I can't actually say I enjoyed the overall effect of London's style for this book, and it actually took me much longer to finish it than it usually does for a 200-page piece. I found that the lack of detail about his life a whole at the time, and his rather straightforward presentation of his younger character prevented me from caring enough about him to want to read on. I also found his musings on John Barleycorn (a nickname that became a drag to read so often) to be repetitive, detached from emotion, and lacking in much of a revelatory impact to conclude things. London's general prose skills are clearly exceptional, written in the Americanised English that always reminds me, through Hemmingway to Steinbeck, of Charles Dickins. It did come across as dry to me though, especially with a lack of story to drive it.

I seem to be criticising the book quite a bit here, but I think that has a lot to do with my own personal biases coming into play. I was looking for London to be another great storyteller for me to indulge in, but I chose a book that focuses on being self-analytical without giving much in the way of further context. Hopefully I'll enjoy London's short fiction a lot more, and it'll put John Barleycorn in a more interesting light. As a taster of London's skills, it was interesting, if a little disappointing, but not off-putting.