"Before Adam" and Some Londonese.

Maoriland Worker, Volume 2, Issue 10, 12 May 1911, Page 13

"Before Adam " and Some Londonese.

"EVERY LITTLE WHiLE" BOOK STUDY.

A Book and Its Signification.

By K. S. ROSS.

There is no gainsaying the popularity of Jaciv London's books. Whether Jack is delineating a prize light or natures wild, illustrating the theory of evolution or the class war, he is an author for a sure and a large public. There is a glow in his phrases, a fire in his images, a freedom in his subjects which arrest attention and compel liking. He is the novelist of the adventurous, the rough-and-ready, the virile, the natural. Equally at home in the long a« the short story, he however is distinctly modern in his stride. That is to say, with one or two exceptions, he is neither too long nor too short, hut Jn his novels hits tne happy medium. His longest factional eifort, -'The bca Wolf," has been described as a superb piece of craftsmanship. It is that, and more. It is a story for those whose blood is healthily red, and wnh a grip and a. grit in it that fascinates and excites. Then, consider "The Uamo" —and have you ever -read a truer description of an artistic prize-fight, tho which to road is to be carried "away with the hist for physique, and 10 realise the analogy between the fight and life. Again, have regard to "The Call of tho Wild" and "Yvmto Fang"—and are not these fiercely realistic stories full of blood pulsations and quivering vigour and savage strength—with an interest ail their own apart from the romantic*., and that a demonstration of tho social evolution, with its progressive as its atavistic polos. The reader of scientific books, the student of uarwin and of Marx, will perceive in these books a very simple yet very striking illustration of how the theories of heredity and environment explain ail things. As for London's volumes of short stories, they are all marked .by originality, vividness, graphieness—wiiuo some arc among tho most powerful of nineteenth eoniury condensation and magnetism. Generally speaking. Jack .London is luippjest and 'st-rongt-st in the portrajal of animal prowess and mentality. In "White Fang" one hears the wolf soliloquising. In "The Call of the Wild'" one sees the dog deliberating, weighing, measuring us in , - tics" as a politician. But, outside, of his sphere as storyteller, Jack Lonclnn unfolds a philosophy, and in several of his books—notably "The War of the Classes" and" "Tho People of the Abyss"—shows himself possessor of a social gospel. tor clear . aJid incisive reasoning the first-named is a model j for realism of pathos and horror the latter is a masterpiece. I. All this is by way of introduction to a consideration of "Before Adam," Mr London's evolutionist book, and the charges of plagiarism revived in connection with, its appearance. I notice a sixpenny edition of the work upon New Zealandbookstalls —published by Wonior Laurie. Here is a. chance for every "Worker" reader to add to his or her bedside shelf a work which is a story and more than a story. Get it. "'Before Adam" is a genuinely striking tale. Correctly speaking, I suppose, it is a prehistoric romance. It may, however, without overstrain bo regarded as a contribution to history and to science. In the light of modern knowledge, based on research, investigation and mathematics, I do not think thore is any room for doubt as to man's .beast origin. It is probable that man in his development lived and acted as depicted in "Before Adam,", and it is also probable that ages antecedent to tho Ada.mic epoch he had reached the stage presented in London's volume. The ago of tho traceable living life is the double figures of millions. Thus "because it is probably as correct a sketch as any penned of pre-iJrimitivo man, "Before Adam" will be found helpful in tho suggestive scientific sense as well as aiding in the co-ordinating of tho ideas appertaining to evolution. 11. There are three type-s of people illustrated in London's romance—-"Tho Tree People," "The Cavo People," and "The Fire People." The first-named are tho most backward. They lived in trees and swung along on the top of tho forest as nimble as any ape. Tho "Cavo People' , were a trifle less barbaric* and inhabited oaves. Tho "Fire People" occupied superior caves, and knew tho use of are. Instructive, doubtless, it will be r,-> peruse a description of one of the 'Tree" folk

''There- was an elemental economy about his body—as was there about all our bodies. The chest was deep, it is true, caveraously • deep; but there were no full-swellmg muscles, no widespreading shoulders, no cleanlimbed straightness, no generous symmetry of outline. It represented strength, that body of my father's, strength without beauty ; ferociotxs, primordial strength, made to clutch and grip and rend and destroy. His hips were thin, and the legs, lean and hairy, wcro crooked and stringymuscled. In his legs were more like arms. They were twisted and gnarly, and with scarcely the semblance of the full meaty calf sxich as grace your leg and mine. I remember ho could not walk on the flat of his foot." •# * * ' They hated and they loved in those days—not as moderns hate and love, but by instinct, or reason in its germ. And so, "Before Adam" is the story of

internecine war and sexual matosliip combined with conouest _ and resistance to aggression. As a yarn pure and simple it is absorbingly readable, and few will want to leave it until the last page is readied ar,d tlio miiscular KedE\° tile .Atavism is seia in company with his own people and his latest wife. Talk about Indian yarns and their magical charm, well., they can't beat "Before Adam/ , wiih its romantic characters, such as T>op Ear, The Swift One, Saber Tooth—not* to mention wild animals and precipitous cliffs and everlasting wilds, with the thrillingly everpresent adventurous and cataclysmic. 111. A tale of the Mid-Pleistocene period, I should say London's .book was also an accurate account of that period. The people of then were great athletes. Attacked by a boax with clashing tusks, a child leaps to meet its mother, "and on the instant she leaped straight up into the air, catching at an overhanging branch wth her hands." It was a great leap, boys. Again, one of our ancestors weighed one hundred and seventy pounds. One can understand the person who is telling the story remarking "Sometimes when in the newspapers I happen upon descriptions of our modern bruisers and prize-fighters, I wonder what chance the best of them would have had against him." And nmvj you must know that a singular tiling about "Before Adam" is that it is written in the first person by a man of to-day, who from childhood has been haunted by strange dreams and visions which ho gradually learns to explain scientifically as inherited memories. -X- -X- « It is undoubtedly educative to note how Txmdon explains the genesis of souml* and the beginnings of thoughtsytuf.oig and speech, of gregaxiousness, or ii.irriage, of' social customs and con- " euiences, and of collective fighting and protection. In one place he writes of a very human-like incident: "I take it as a foreshadowing of the altruism and comradeship that have helped to make man the mightiest of the animals." Mightiest of the mighty, aye; and to become mightier still if not overwhelmed, Samson-like, by his own blind resistance to social and economic forces.

By the way, the title page text to the volume is striking. It is as follows:— "These are our ancestors, and their history is our history. Remember that as surely as wo one day swung down out of the trees and walked upright, just as surely, on a far earlier day, did we crawl up out of the sea and achieve our first adventure on land." IV. On the charge of plagiarism, Jack London, has been several times arraigned. He has serenely admitted his ■borrowings whilst insisting that as long as the sources drawn upon were works of fact and not of fiction, he was within his rights as a creative artist. In the case of "Before Adam," however, he is charged with plagiarising a story of similar fantastic sort, to wit, "The Story of Ab," by Stanley Waterloo. There seems no room to Question London's indebtedness to Mr Waterloo. Indeed, he frankly admits it. Whether Jack London's methods can be justified or not, it remains unanswerable that they win approval. Patently, London does what thoso from whom he extracts ideas cannot do —achieve success and reputation. He improves that which he

plagiarises: adorns that which he touches. And as he is ever interesting, he may be forgiven. To be interesting is to be effectual. * * * I close these jottings with a quotation from London's reply to Stanley Water-jf 100. He first denies Mr Waterloo'®* right to preempt any epoch of the?, world's development, even a prehistoric? , .' one. He says he liked the fundamental* idea of "The Story of Ab," felt it de* served better treatment, and had cordingly written "Before Adam. ,57 Then he adds: "Let mc tell you that your fitory ; and mine arc as far apart as the poleij in treatment, point of vieWj grip, etcj Why, I wrote my story as a reply td yours, because yours was unscientific* You crammed the evolution of a thousand generations into one generaj tion —a thing at which I revolted from the time I first read your story* This situation strikes mc as very funny. Here I fall out with you because of your unscientific treatment* of the primitive world, and therefore write a reply, and then you say that in six weeks I took all I knew from you."