Jack London never fired blanks. There isn’t a book of his
that I’ve read where he isn’t trying to mortally wound a lazy convention, a
notion taken for granted, or what often passes for common sense. London’s
exhortation is always, in my words, “Think! Act! Live to the fullest!” He
believes in the power of the will and body, and despises those who fear their
own breath fogging the mirror. One of my favorite lines from his works, “I'd
rather sing one wild song and burst my heart with it, than live a thousand
years watching my digestion and being afraid of the wet.” Pretty much sums him up.
That being said, Valley
Of the Moon definitely was London-esque, but it wasn’t my favorite for a
few reasons. There weren’t as many good one-liners. He took too long telling
the story. The plot became too swollen with needless details about how his
characters were outsmarting everybody else. Of course, to be fair, it was
written as a kind of manual for people in his time to know how to escape their
situation. But I’m not them. They can
write their own reviews and give him 5 stars if they want to. Oh wait, they’re
dead.
So, the protagonists in this story were Californian
urbanites, mired in hand-to-mouth living, and finally having their financial
Achilles-heel snipped by a union strike that embroils them in riots,
incarceration, and an widening distance from each other in their marriage. The
beginning of the book is heavily steeped in mawkish romance between the
characters: “I love you more! No, I love you more!” It starts feeling like the
story is about to end 100 pages in. Everything is so perfect. Sickeningly so.
Come on, London! Send a plague or something! If I’m going to read 400 more
pages of this, I need a plague or some severed limbs…something!
So, half-way through the book it gets really interesting.
Everything’s calculated to dump old-timey religion, antiquated values, and dumb
sense halfway through the book. It’s a Jack London signature move: skinning the
weak and boring, and re-fleshing them with something more, well, readable. The
heroine, Saxon, finally hits rock-bottom (thank you Jack), starts wading out
into the San Francisco bay to collect mussels to eat so she doesn’t starve. Her
man is incarcerated for nearly crushing a man’s skull. Their neighbors are afraid,
and people are getting stalked and killed over the scarcity of employment. Then
suddenly, struck with a new vision of freedom, Saxon and Billy let go of their
choked, wheezing pittance of the city-life, and go on the road with just their
backpacks and a little bit of cash. Bravo!
To be sure, initially there appears to be some
white-supremacy overtones in the story, but this actually turns into high
praise for Hispanics and Asians who are smart, hard workers and have progressed
further than whites because of their ingenuity and courage…two qualities London
extols above all others. So, was he really a supremacist, or merely calling for
whites to catch up to their hardworking brothers-from-other-mothers? I’ll bet
that London was probably most in love with his own self and his hard body, and
tended to dwell on people and ancestry that resembled his narcissistic self. Even
Saxon’s name referred to past Anglo honor and grit up to the early days of
pioneering. But I have to hand it to this heroine; she was a boss! A master of
herself and others. She drew on her inner reserves, and “she rebelled…fluttered
and beat her soul against the hard face of things as did the linnet against the
bars of wire…She did not belong in the trap. She would fight her way out of the trap… It
was the stupid that remained and bowed their heads to fate.” She was
independent and emanated love and concern for others, but she had a commanding
aspect to her that enabled her to take the reins from her husband when he
became abusive and began to neglect himself and his family. She singlehandedly
created a life-strategy during a period of want, led her family out of Oakland
with the marvelous slogan, “Oakland’s just a place to start from”, slept on the
ground, went without food, humbled herself to demeaning roles to survive financially,
and ultimately guided others around her to live out their strengths and make a
better life together with her. Such a powerful example of a proud and noble
woman.
Of course, the characters are WAY too lucky, and it doesn’t
help matters that even the title of the book signifies a utopian ideal that is
impossible to realize. But I’ll be darned if our heroes don’t actually find a
spot in California that fits their dream and is actually called The Valley Of the Moon (Sonoma Valley)! Seriously?
Whatever happened to the line from the book, “I don’t want to dream…I want
things real!” I’ll tell you what happened. London went out playing with the
butterflies again instead of writing us a book that helps the rest of us who
haven’t yet found the greener grass, and may never. Geez, thanks Mr. “just-giving-you-the-hardcore-truth-so-you-can-learn-to-live-better-and-smarter-and-not-in-a-fairy-tale-land-that-will-ultimately-leave-you-bleeding-in-a-hole-somewhere”!!
Yeah, thanks Jack…for a friggin’ lot of JACK SQUAT!!
But I still love him. Overall a good story, good points;
just took too long.
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