John Barleycorn (1913)

A brutally honest? account of John Barleycorn or Alcoholism that Jack London wishes was eliminated even before he was born. I listened to this on Librivox, paying careful attention to every word because I am afraid I may know someone who is also friends with this rather destructive chap.
Jack London's analysis is sharp but he never is canny enough to give it up. Jacks Life was one brought up in dire poverty, no money, with poverty of circumstances, not helpful and contributing to the destructive alcoholism. But he ends up -due to his considerable self taught talents as a Writer (he was let down at School as a working class lad) mean't he ended up with houses, marriage, wife, friends. Only his ever present 'friend' John Barleycorn would haunt him for the rest of his life-whether he liked it or not and often one hears how he HATED his habit but was in it's unbeknowns to him lethal permanent grip that would in his 40's kill him (end stage alcoholism which I googled sounds horrible could not continue). Therein is the inherent sadness of the book, Jack London's helplessness in the face of his alcoholism, despite abstinence on a ship at sea and in writing work, when he has a drink it reclaims him as his own and so the destructive path continues, despite ' a satisfying love relationship''warm nights' (us women do see something terribly endearing in these men you know!!), and other good stuff coming to him as a result of his hard grafts as Writer.
Jack London is seen as a hard worker who is grievously wounded by working in a Coal Firing plant? that is no better than slave labour. It was good to see him work again but we have a wounded animal flinching from his wounds.
Jack London exposes us to his wounds and hurts. John Barleycorn his master doesn't help, sure it would not help as it compounds stigma and makes life difficult for loving friends, family etc. Those wounds are not healed. But I can only thank the Lord that good stuff happened to him at the final part of his life to give him some kind of life-when so many sad alcoholics meet such ghastly fates. ( )

I always believed that Jack London kind of sucked. Like most people, I read 'To Build a Fire' and Call of the Wild in school, and was bored senseless, wishing the hero would just freeze to death faster.

John Barleycorn proved me completely wrong. In it, London is funny and sharp and angry about all the right things. Lately it's been marketed as a pro-prohibition book, which I think obscures the point. London is not concerned with alcoholism as a disease. What he's trying to pin down is the malevolent spirit of the ancient god of drink, personified, as of old, as John Barleycorn. It's the best description I've ever read of the glories of drinking to excess - the shining nights, the wild tales, the companionship - and exactly why this is so dangerous to the thinking person. He argues that it's precisely the best, the strongest, the brightest, the wildest, who poison themselves with drinking, worn down by the dullness of normal life; that drinking becomes an adventure, a sign of courage and great-heartedness. But he also believes that John Barleycorn demands your life as payment, and brings, instead of wisdom, what he called 'the White Logic', a sort of super-lucid, nihilistic despair.

The book is filled with these mystical, revelatory, poetic ravings, passages so beautiful I wish I could just tear them out and plaster them on walls for everyone to read. But there's tons of other great stuff in here, too - stories about the socialist movement, and about working in factories and hopping trains and grappling with cheap typewriters and sailing and fighting and oyster pirates and Aristophanes and loving and eating too much candy. It's been a great read, and it's given me a lot to think about. I mean, alcoholism is such an easy answer, isn't it? If you drink too much, you're an alcoholic; you have a disease, you need treatment. London's viewpoint is more complex and feels more valid: that you drink because that is what people of vision do, and you drink together, and your life is richer, and you put aside the injustices of the world - what he calls the cold iron collar around the neck of your soul. Therefore, change not yourself, but the world. I love it! The answer isn't repentance and detox and rehab and counseling, it's revolution! ( )

This is a pathetic memoir in which London writes about his alarming drinking problem (stemming back to his childhood) all the while denying that he’s an alcoholic. The edition I have has a nice introduction by Pete Hamill in which he plainly states that London was a hack who wasted what talent he had by churning out inadequate work and, of course, drinking himself to death. It's an entertaining book, but I might respect it more if London had called it Denial. ( )

More delusion than memoir, I'm guilty of seeing my own reflection. London, under the spell of "White Logic," died without a true understanding of his condition. May his adventurous spirit live on.

Jack London is the master of denial in John Barleycorn. His drinking takes him on adventures he cannot fully remember. He wakes up with his shoes, jacket, and of course, his money stolen with no memory of how he ended up where he is and yet, it is not his problem. It's John Barleycorn's problem. London calls alcohol John Barleycorn as if to personify the alcoholism; allowing Barleycorn to take the blame and London to be absolved of it. Early in the narrative London illustrates his confusion with John Barleycorn, "I am. I was. I am not. I never am. I am never less his friend than when he is with me and when I seem most his friend" (p 4). Sure. In addition to denial London is obsessive. Everything he does is to the extreme. Shoveling coal, studying books, drinking, writing. Whatever he does he attacks it, spending 15 hours a day at it. ( )