Book Notes: "The Mutiny of the Elsinore" by Jack London

The Mutiny Of The ElsinoreThe Mutiny Of The Elsinore by Jack London

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


Apparently this is London's worst work where he is quite the racial supremacist while being very poor at 'doing' romance. While some parts were gripping in the lead-up to the climax, the long slow anti-climax was disappointing, although one could imagine such things happening on the high seas. I doubt that London was being such a racial supremacist in the spirit of the noble savage à la Joseph Conrad or Rudyard Kipling, rather he added this to his somewhat awkward class commentary while at the same time trying to write a Boy's Own story. However, I wonder if I would have been so put-off by the book if the short introduction did not tell me how awful the book was, compared with London's other works, before I had even started.



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