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luna545's review against another edition
challenging
dark
reflective
sad
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
jackgray's review against another edition
5.0
“All the world is topsy-turvy, and it has been topsy-turvy ever since the plague.”
badseedgirl's review against another edition
4.0
I read this novella free courtesy of the Gutenberg Project. It is available here:
https://www.gutenberg.org/files/21970/21970-h/21970-h.htm
I have never read [b:The Call of the Wild|1852|The Call of the Wild|Jack London|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1452291694l/1852._SY75_.jpg|3252320]. I have never really felt the urge, but I stumbled upon this book while cruising the Gutenberg Project and I thought "Why not?"
Every time I read a story from this time period (Jack London wrote this story in 1910, and it was first published in 1912) was that it is easy to see why communism, socialism, and other political beliefs adherent to capitalism started to flourish. The working class was described as brutal, sloven, drunkenly, barbaric, undeserving of respect or human dignity. And this was the highest achievement of mankind, the protagonist discussed it when he meets people again, after years of hiding, thinking he was the last man on earth. In the following passage he describes meeting the Bill Chauffeur and his "wife" Vesta Van Warden.
“And so I say to you that you cannot understand the awfulness of the situation. The Chauffeur was a servant, understand, a servant. And he cringed, with bowed head, to such as she. She was a lord of life, both by birth and by marriage. The destinies of millions, such as he, she carried in the hollow of her pink-white hand. And, in the days before the plague, the slightest contact with such as he would have been pollution. Oh, I have seen it. Once, I remember, there was Mrs. Goldwin, wife of one of the great magnates. It was on a landing stage, just as she was embarking in her private dirigible, that she dropped her parasol. A servant picked it up and made the mistake of handing it to her—to her, one of the greatest royal ladies of the land! She shrank back, as though he were a leper, and indicated her secretary to receive it. Also, she ordered her secretary to ascertain the creature's name and to see that he was immediately discharged from service. And such a woman was Vesta Van Warden."
Now I am nor saying Bill Chauffer was a prince, in fact he beat Vesta, and possibly killed her according to our protagonist. But if I had spent my life beaten down and fearful of retribution for the act of handing a dropped object to someone of a higher station, I might be tempted to "get a little back" given the opportunity. I found the protagonist, Professor James Howard Smith to be as unlikable character as the rest of the characters in the story for this reason.
I have to wonder if society would be so diminished in the event of catastrophic plague. In the 60 years since, Professor Smith's grandchildren barely speak in any language, are dressed in fur, and have lost the ability to read or write. I'm not really blaming these kids for being awful people, I blame their parents and grandparents. There would have been books and literature on how to rebuild basics like steam powered machines and farming and husbandry techniques. The domesticated animals were there for re-domestication. This is like the "worst case scenario" if everyone left was too stupid to try and rebuild.
At first I thought "well, you did not feel this way about the movie Threads when you saw it." but I do not think it is an accurate comparison, because everything is still just sitting around. A more apt comparison would be to Stephen King's novel [b:The Stand|149267|The Stand|Stephen King|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1213131305l/149267._SX50_.jpg|1742269].
Apparently this story had a resurgence in popularity in 2020 due to COVID (Of course, what else. Everything in 2020 was because of COVID.)
https://www.baltimoresun.com/opinion/op-ed/bs-ed-op-0414-london-plague-20200413-zyfseceqkvcljl6v674uqw5dny-story.html
And as usual, I am late to the game.
The story itself was interesting because it tried to tie in the modern scientific theories according to what was known at the time it was written, and discussed the psychological and post traumatic aspect of seeing 99.99% of the population die in a pretty horrifying way. It also ends on a bit of a bummer note, because the narrator sees a future where humanity rebuilds, but will ultimately be destroyed by its own nature.
https://www.gutenberg.org/files/21970/21970-h/21970-h.htm
I have never read [b:The Call of the Wild|1852|The Call of the Wild|Jack London|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1452291694l/1852._SY75_.jpg|3252320]. I have never really felt the urge, but I stumbled upon this book while cruising the Gutenberg Project and I thought "Why not?"
Every time I read a story from this time period (Jack London wrote this story in 1910, and it was first published in 1912) was that it is easy to see why communism, socialism, and other political beliefs adherent to capitalism started to flourish. The working class was described as brutal, sloven, drunkenly, barbaric, undeserving of respect or human dignity. And this was the highest achievement of mankind, the protagonist discussed it when he meets people again, after years of hiding, thinking he was the last man on earth. In the following passage he describes meeting the Bill Chauffeur and his "wife" Vesta Van Warden.
“And so I say to you that you cannot understand the awfulness of the situation. The Chauffeur was a servant, understand, a servant. And he cringed, with bowed head, to such as she. She was a lord of life, both by birth and by marriage. The destinies of millions, such as he, she carried in the hollow of her pink-white hand. And, in the days before the plague, the slightest contact with such as he would have been pollution. Oh, I have seen it. Once, I remember, there was Mrs. Goldwin, wife of one of the great magnates. It was on a landing stage, just as she was embarking in her private dirigible, that she dropped her parasol. A servant picked it up and made the mistake of handing it to her—to her, one of the greatest royal ladies of the land! She shrank back, as though he were a leper, and indicated her secretary to receive it. Also, she ordered her secretary to ascertain the creature's name and to see that he was immediately discharged from service. And such a woman was Vesta Van Warden."
Now I am nor saying Bill Chauffer was a prince, in fact he beat Vesta, and possibly killed her according to our protagonist. But if I had spent my life beaten down and fearful of retribution for the act of handing a dropped object to someone of a higher station, I might be tempted to "get a little back" given the opportunity. I found the protagonist, Professor James Howard Smith to be as unlikable character as the rest of the characters in the story for this reason.
I have to wonder if society would be so diminished in the event of catastrophic plague. In the 60 years since, Professor Smith's grandchildren barely speak in any language, are dressed in fur, and have lost the ability to read or write. I'm not really blaming these kids for being awful people, I blame their parents and grandparents. There would have been books and literature on how to rebuild basics like steam powered machines and farming and husbandry techniques. The domesticated animals were there for re-domestication. This is like the "worst case scenario" if everyone left was too stupid to try and rebuild.
At first I thought "well, you did not feel this way about the movie Threads when you saw it." but I do not think it is an accurate comparison, because everything is still just sitting around. A more apt comparison would be to Stephen King's novel [b:The Stand|149267|The Stand|Stephen King|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1213131305l/149267._SX50_.jpg|1742269].
Apparently this story had a resurgence in popularity in 2020 due to COVID (Of course, what else. Everything in 2020 was because of COVID.)
https://www.baltimoresun.com/opinion/op-ed/bs-ed-op-0414-london-plague-20200413-zyfseceqkvcljl6v674uqw5dny-story.html
And as usual, I am late to the game.
The story itself was interesting because it tried to tie in the modern scientific theories according to what was known at the time it was written, and discussed the psychological and post traumatic aspect of seeing 99.99% of the population die in a pretty horrifying way. It also ends on a bit of a bummer note, because the narrator sees a future where humanity rebuilds, but will ultimately be destroyed by its own nature.
geekwayne's review against another edition
4.0
'The Scarlet Plague' by Jack London is a book I was unfamiliar with until Dover brought it out in there Dover Doomsday Classics Series. I found it a really fun read.
Originally written in 1912, the book takes place 60 years after the great plague has wiped out humanity in the distant year of 2013. An old man, called Granser, tells his unruly (and mostly unlearned) grandsons the story of what happened. Apparently Granser was a college professor, but he can't communicate ideas like math or longer vocabulary words with his grandsons because they simply can't or won't comprehend them. We learn that sometimes when the plague comes, the people who take power are the ones we consider to be the least among us, as we see in the cruel and barbaric Chauffeur.
It was fun to see the vision of our present from 100 years ago. The setting is the bay area, where cities are now very far apart, and the remains of civilization are all around, or buried in the shallow sands of the beach. I've read Jack London, but I've never heard of this short novella. I think it holds up pretty well considering when it was written and I recommend it to any fan of dystopian fiction.
I received a review copy of this ebook from Dover Publications and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Thank you for allowing me to review this ebook.
Originally written in 1912, the book takes place 60 years after the great plague has wiped out humanity in the distant year of 2013. An old man, called Granser, tells his unruly (and mostly unlearned) grandsons the story of what happened. Apparently Granser was a college professor, but he can't communicate ideas like math or longer vocabulary words with his grandsons because they simply can't or won't comprehend them. We learn that sometimes when the plague comes, the people who take power are the ones we consider to be the least among us, as we see in the cruel and barbaric Chauffeur.
It was fun to see the vision of our present from 100 years ago. The setting is the bay area, where cities are now very far apart, and the remains of civilization are all around, or buried in the shallow sands of the beach. I've read Jack London, but I've never heard of this short novella. I think it holds up pretty well considering when it was written and I recommend it to any fan of dystopian fiction.
I received a review copy of this ebook from Dover Publications and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Thank you for allowing me to review this ebook.
eowynn01's review against another edition
informative
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
5.0
haleyscomet1's review against another edition
dark
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Diverse cast of characters? No
4.0
I wish it went on longer
tmpj99's review against another edition
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? N/A
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.5
messad's review against another edition
dark
reflective
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
milkfran's review against another edition
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.75
I did a module on the politics of pandemics as part of my degree and I’m also a big sci-fi nerd so I read this one to scratch a particular itch. The good news is that it’s short and sweet and out of copyright so it’s available freely online. Gordon Grant’s illustrations are a nice touch too: more books should have pictures!
The novel is set in 2073 and narrated by ‘Grandser’ a former Professor of English Literature at Berkeley and one of the sole survivors of the eponymous ‘Scarlett Plague’ that ravaged the planet in 2013. He mostly reminisces about what life was like before to his disinterested Grandsons who see him as a strange senile relic.
“Red is red, ain’t it?” Hare-Lip grumbled. “Then what’s the good of gettin’ cocky and calling it scarlet?”
“What is education?” Edwin asked.
“Calling red scarlet,” Hare-Lip sneered”
In all honesty, Jack London’s novel has more value as a historical document than as an enjoyable piece of literature. It’s easy to skip through in an hour or two but it becomes much more interesting when viewed in the context of its time. London wrote it in 1913, 5 years before the Spanish Flu pandemic which killed more people than the civilian and military casualties of the First World War combined twice over.
London’s imagined virus kills people within 15 minutes (in reality this would make it too successful at killing people to spread that far) leaving them to literally drop down dead.
Most plague literature (hi Chaucer) wrestles with the question of plague being a divine retribution for a society’s failings and London- a noted socialist- attempts this somewhat, clumsily blaming overpopulation and overcrowding for the spread of the virus:
“The easier it was to get food, the more men there were; the more men there were, the more thickly were they packed together on the earth; and the more thickly they were packed, the more new kinds of germs became diseases”
Maybe if he’d have been around in 2020 he’d have been on board with capitalism, globalisation and ecological exploitation of our planet as exacerbating factors in the spread of pandemics but it reads more like someone parroting the Social Darwinism that was in vogue around the turn of the century.
Indeed, the racism and Social Darwinism is what really dates this novel and makes it such a product of its time. Grandser clearly dislikes Hoo-Hoo who has inherited the violent tendencies from his Grandfather, ‘Chauffeur’ a working class man who also happens to survive the plague.
“He was a violent, unjust man. Why the plague germs spared him I can never understand. It would seem, in spite of our old metaphysical notions about absolute justice, that there is no justice in the universe. Why did he live?—an iniquitous, moral monster, a blot on the face of nature, a cruel, relentless, bestial cheat as well. All he could talk about was motor cars, machinery, gasoline, and garages—and especially, and with huge delight, of his mean pilferings and sordid swindlings of the persons who had employed him in the days before the coming of the plague. And yet he was spared, while hundreds of millions, yea, billions, of better men were destroyed.”
Chauffeur is made particularly unpleasant by contrasting him with his treatment of his former employer, Vesta, a formerly wealthy woman from ‘noble stock’: (“the perfect flower of generations of the highest culture this planet has ever produced”) who is beaten and enslaved by Chauffeur who delights in making her do manual labour and the reversal of their fortunes.
For instance, Grandser chastises Hoo-Hoo, saying:
“Strange it is to hear the vestiges and remnants of the complicated Aryan speech falling from the lips of a filthy little skin-clad savage. All the world is topsy-turvy. And it has been topsy-turvy ever since the plague.”
Chauffeur and his children are seen to have survived through sheer luck and brute force, and in the new plague stricken world, Darwin’s concept of Survival of the fittest applies on a grand scale in the natural world:
“In the last days of the world before the plague, there were many many very different kinds of dogs—dogs without hair and dogs with warm fur, dogs so small that they would make scarcely a mouthful for other dogs that were as large as mountain lions. Well, all the small dogs, and the weak types, were killed by their fellows. Also, the very large one were not adapted for the wild life and bred out. As a result, the many different kinds of dogs disappeared, and there remained, running in packs, the medium-sized wolfish dogs that you know to-day.”
Towards the end of the book Grandser becomes particularly reflective and the language takes on an almost Biblical tone. In imagining the future of the planet and how to rebuild it from the grim blank slate that the pandemic causes he cannot imagine an alternative.
“The gunpowder will come. Nothing can stop it—the same old story over and over. Man will increase, and men will fight.”
So he urges his Grandsons to also remember that
“all that was lost must be discovered over again. Wherefore, earnestly, I repeat unto you certain things which you must remember and tell to your children after you. You must tell them that when water is made hot by fire, there resides in it a wonderful thing called steam, which is stronger than ten thousand men and which can do all man’s work for him. There are other very useful things. In the lightning flash resides a similarly strong servant of man, which was of old his slave and which some day will be his slave again.”
And so, the cycle continues.
Ultimately, if London meant this to be a critique of early 20th century American society, it’s a clumsy one. In one breath his protagonist critics his Grandsons for descending into savagery whilst rhapsodising about the pre-pandemic world and the entrenched class system that allowed him to be a Professor of Literature at Berkeley whilst others struggled.
TL;DR- It was certainly thought provoking and an interesting from a historical point of view but not one I’d recommend to a casual reader.
“He was a violent, unjust man. Why the plague germs spared him I can never understand. It would seem, in spite of our old metaphysical notions about absolute justice, that there is no justice in the universe. Why did he live?—an iniquitous, moral monster, a blot on the face of nature, a cruel, relentless, bestial cheat as well. All he could talk about was motor cars, machinery, gasoline, and garages—and especially, and with huge delight, of his mean pilferings and sordid swindlings of the persons who had employed him in the days before the coming of the plague. And yet he was spared, while hundreds of millions, yea, billions, of better men were destroyed.”
Chauffeur is made particularly unpleasant by contrasting him with his treatment of his former employer, Vesta, a formerly wealthy woman from ‘noble stock’: (“the perfect flower of generations of the highest culture this planet has ever produced”) who is beaten and enslaved by Chauffeur who delights in making her do manual labour and the reversal of their fortunes.
For instance, Grandser chastises Hoo-Hoo, saying:
“Strange it is to hear the vestiges and remnants of the complicated Aryan speech falling from the lips of a filthy little skin-clad savage. All the world is topsy-turvy. And it has been topsy-turvy ever since the plague.”
Chauffeur and his children are seen to have survived through sheer luck and brute force, and in the new plague stricken world, Darwin’s concept of Survival of the fittest applies on a grand scale in the natural world:
“In the last days of the world before the plague, there were many many very different kinds of dogs—dogs without hair and dogs with warm fur, dogs so small that they would make scarcely a mouthful for other dogs that were as large as mountain lions. Well, all the small dogs, and the weak types, were killed by their fellows. Also, the very large one were not adapted for the wild life and bred out. As a result, the many different kinds of dogs disappeared, and there remained, running in packs, the medium-sized wolfish dogs that you know to-day.”
Towards the end of the book Grandser becomes particularly reflective and the language takes on an almost Biblical tone. In imagining the future of the planet and how to rebuild it from the grim blank slate that the pandemic causes he cannot imagine an alternative.
“The gunpowder will come. Nothing can stop it—the same old story over and over. Man will increase, and men will fight.”
So he urges his Grandsons to also remember that
“all that was lost must be discovered over again. Wherefore, earnestly, I repeat unto you certain things which you must remember and tell to your children after you. You must tell them that when water is made hot by fire, there resides in it a wonderful thing called steam, which is stronger than ten thousand men and which can do all man’s work for him. There are other very useful things. In the lightning flash resides a similarly strong servant of man, which was of old his slave and which some day will be his slave again.”
And so, the cycle continues.
Ultimately, if London meant this to be a critique of early 20th century American society, it’s a clumsy one. In one breath his protagonist critics his Grandsons for descending into savagery whilst rhapsodising about the pre-pandemic world and the entrenched class system that allowed him to be a Professor of Literature at Berkeley whilst others struggled.
TL;DR- It was certainly thought provoking and an interesting from a historical point of view but not one I’d recommend to a casual reader.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Sexual violence, Medical content, Gun violence, Sexism, Vomit, Slavery, Racism, Fire/Fire injury, Death, Pandemic/Epidemic, and Violence
ancientcopper's review against another edition
dark
mysterious
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.5