Martin Eden

Credo che la storia di Martin Eden sia ben conosciuta: da giovane marinaio e rozzo uomo del popolo a grande scrittore, che nel processo di cambiamento perde la sua identità, l'amore, e alla fin fine anche la vita.
Detto questo Martin Eden è un urlo, un urlo continuo e sovrumano contro la mentalità borghese, contro i valori stereotipati, contro la mancanza di fantasia. Ma è anche un monito per chi fa di un individualismo sfrenato la vera ragione di vita, rammentando che un simile soggetto non potrà mai sopportare le convenzioni di vita correnti, con la loro mediocrità, il tedio, la disillusione e la depressione saranno i suoi soli guadagni, e potranno cessare solo con la morte data di propria mano.
Detto questo, alcune note:
1) ho show more potuto apprezzare veramente Martin Eden solo leggendolo in inglese, che due tentativi in due differenti traduzioni italiane mi avevano disgustato, sostituendo al potente linguaggio di London la melensaggine con cui in Italia si intende debbano essere scritti dei libri destinati a diventare classici, magari educativi per ragazzi.
2) Martin Eden non è un romanzo di formazione da destinare alle giovani menti, né è un libro di avventure, ma è uno scritto fortemente politico.
3) E' interessante notare come il rozzo linguaggio di Martin all'inizio del libro, il linguaggio della classe lavoratrice americana da cui egli si deve affrancare allo scopo di elevare la propria mente dandole gli strumenti per penetrare negli scritti dei grandi pensatori, sia oggi diventato a sua volta linguaggio politico attraverso il rap. Non so se London ne sarebbe disgustato o estasiato.

Prima lettura 7 giugno 2008
Candido è tornato, con tutto il suo incredibile ottimismo e fiducia nel mondo, si è incarnato in un marinaio americano moderno che crede nel mito del superuomo ed è convinto di poter raggiungere le vette del mondo. E le raggiunge, solo per accorgersi che tutto è vanità, che coloro che ha messo su un piedistallo, per potersi elevare al loro livello e infine superarli, in realtà su un piedistallo non ci sono mai stati, sono anzi creature meschine, infime.
Ovviamente, siccome in realtà nemmeno lui è un superuomo sebbene ne sia fortemente convinto, si lascia cogliere da uno scoramento così forte da assomigliare molto da vicnino a un forte esaurimento nervoso e a uno spleen invincibile, che gli permetterà di esercitare ancora una volta la sua volontà solo col suicidio.
Il libro ha dei momenti molto belli, sciupati da una forte ripetitività e dalla continua incombenza del mito americano, e soprattutto, nell'edizione in mio possesso, da una traduzione sciagurata. Spero che le edizioni più recenti scrivano almeno "ubriaco" al posto di "ubbriaco". show less

Published in 1909, three years earlier than G.B Shaw's Pygmalion (1912), Martin Eden is a male Eliza Doolittle. Saving an upper-class gent in a brawl leads to Martin's introduction into this wealthy family, where he falls in love with the daughter, Ruth Morse. From his point of view, Martin realizes that he must 'improve' himself to meet Ruth at an equal level: he sets out to learn proper English, mend his ways, and goes to school to learn all subjects. Bent on giving up his life as a sailor, he tries to change jobs, and hits on the idea that a career in writing is the best way to go to make a fortune, which would put him on an equal footing with Ruth. Years of toil and rejection follow, but Martin perseveres. In the meantime, however, show more Ruth's parents steer her away from an unthinkable marriage with Martin Eden, who, in their eyes, will always remain an unworthy choice. Losing Ruth, and achieving fame and riches through the (same) stories which were rejected so many times before, Martin Eden becomes disillusioned. He writes no new stories, and in the end goes back to sea, where he came from.

At just over 400 pages, Martin Eden by Jack London is a remarkably readable novel. It is semi-autobiographical, and puts an interesting angle of the reality of becoming a writer, in particular getting stories published in literary magazines. With class differences in the young American nation being less important than in Shaw's Great Britain, the Morse family supposedly nouveau riche, class plays a minor role in the novel. show less

If Martin Eden is indeed autobiographical, it demonstrates the extraordinarily perceptive intellect and much-tortured soul of Jack London. The book is riveting. At first, somewhat banal in its celebration of the typical hard man, then academic in its treatment of the philosophers of its time, then ending in a way that Hemingway would have been proud. London's own story of intellect and physical rigour are captured in the work. While White Fang and Call of the Wild may have been his more popular works, and I found The Assassination Bureau fascinating, here London is at his best. Much like George Bernard Shaw's Back to Methuselah, which Shaw considered to be his masterpiece, I cannot help but think that this was London's masterpiece, show more although the purchasing public may not have agreed. show less

Martin did some seafaring and cow-poking and rubbing rough against the law. Then in California, whoa, discovers he is smarter than everybody else and finds overwhelming and permanent confidence in himself. But no important people care except Martin. He studies books and, whoa, decides he could write better than anybody else. He writes and, whoa, he does write better than anybody else but nobody understands how good it is or will pay for it. No one important believes in him. Even his girlfriend finally gives up on him (facing a life of grinding poverty with him, a point London hardly considers). Martin is very sad but soldiers on in poverty against the unbelievers.

Martin burns out, quits writing and submits his stuff one last time, what show more the hell. Whoa, people start paying for his stuff, he gets celebrity and now the unbelievers come back. Martin is not having any of it because, by golly, he is the same man now whom no one believed in before. (See Philoctetes's reluctance to join battle at Troy in Sophocles.) Now he doesn't like anybody but a few poor folks he knows and relatives and very old friends, and he is generous to some of them. He detests the hypocrisy and decides to return to Tahiti to live but jumps overboard, not wanting to face even the hassle of getting set up there.

What was wrong with Martin? His exalted self-value poisoned his relations. He didn't respect a humanity in common with others. He couldn't sympathize with successful people less capable than himself. He thought he could do it all by himself. He couldn't function without his illusions. He couldn't overcome his bitterness.

This book can't hold a candle to Sea Wolf, and I don't understand the high ratings. Perhaps London, caricaturing himself as Martin Eden, rid himself of some self-pity. Remarkably, this novel was written after three of his most successful. London attributes the book as an attack on individualism, but it looks to be more like his own disillusion. show less

Martin Eden é um livro que quebra estereótipos. As pessoas dá tanto valor à educação formal, aos títulos, às imagens exteriores de educação e cultura. Esse livro não é somente sobre um autodidata que descobre a falsidade de tudo isso, ele é escrito por um. Without education, we are in a horrible and deadly danger of taking educated people seriously - Chesterton.
O final é um dos suicídios mais interessantes da literatura. London pretendia mostrar seu herói como um individualista, que teve que morrer não por sua falta de fé em deus, mas por sua falta de fé nos homens. Já foge dos estereótipos, mas ainda não é tão interessante.
O interessante é que os tempos mudaram, o socialismo real caiu (London mesmo tinha grande show more fé no socialismo), e hoje a falta de fé nos homens de Martin Eden atinge muita gente, que passou a considerar seu suicídio como um ato heróico de recusa a um mundo que jamais será como deveria ser, um mundo sem esperança.
Obras-Primas permitem muitas interpretações, mesmo se contrárias à intenção do autor: London afirmava que nenhum leitor descobriu sua crítica ao individualismo. É por isso que esse livro deve ser relido. show less

Given that Martin Eden is the most autobiographical work Jack London ever wrote (this, according to Andrew Sinclair, who wrote the Intro), we have to believe that the author actually lived most of what he writes. If so, the work should be mandatory reading for anyone contemplating a writing career at the cost of a day-job.

If any of us should still believe that ‘the road less traveled’ is a glorious one, this work will cure him or her of that illusion. But for an occasional fluke (which aspiring writers and the publishing world alike all feed upon), the writer’s life – if Jack London’s is a fair example, and I believe it is – is one of poverty and debilitation – if not downright humiliation. Oh, and did I mention hunger?

But show more no matter. Go and feast on the ideal if you insist. Just know that the ideal contains damned few calories.

At one point, Martin Eden (the eponymous principal character of this novel) actually does achieve fame and fortune. Is this, then, a kind of ‘Cinderella story?’ Without giving away the actual conclusion of London’s novel, I’ll allow you a glimpse via some of his principal character’s ruminations: “And always was Martin’s maddening and unuttered demand: Why didn’t you feed me then? It was work performed. “The Ring of Bells” and “The Peri and the Pearl” (two of the fictional writer’s short stories) are not changed one iota. They were just as artistic, just as worthwhile, then as now. But you are not feeding me for their sake, nor for the sake of anything else I have written. You’re feeding me because it is the style of feeding just now, because the whole mob is crazy with the idea of feeding Martin Eden” (p. 450).

Antiquated if not downright flawed though it and he may be, I suspect that Martin Eden (the novel) and Martin Eden (the novel’s protagonist) are – just as is London’s superb short story, “To Build a Fire” – memories to last a lifetime. In this age of rampant self-publication and an unbridled quest after the glory of artistic recognition – but in which so few are willing to do the work London obviously did to achieve recognition for his work – this novel should stand as both Bible and roadmap. Or as Dante once wrote over the gates of Hell, “Abandon all hope, ye who enter here.”

RRB
Brooklyn, NY, U.S.A.
07/17/14 show less

London, Jack
Martin Eden

Fiction
Jack London, known predominantly as the author of The Call of the Wild and the short story "To Build a Fire," is often pigeonholed for his “dog” and “man-against-nature” books. But he actually wrote on other subjects, including a memoir of his struggles with alcoholism, John Barleycorn. Considered too shocking to be published in his day, today it would rest on a crowded shelf. Martin Eden is not about dogs or nature but is an adventure story of another kind. Imbued with philosophy and the difficulties faced by anyone who tries to circumvent society’s predilection for squelching individualism and nurturance of mediocrity, the peril of our hero, while not physical, is real. Attempting to become show more worthy of a woman far above his class, autodidact extraordinaire Martin Eden manages to outstrip all his contemporaries only to find that it is, indeed, lonely at the top. Throughout Martin’s quest, London gives glowing examples of public libraries and librarians and the self-empowerment they facilitate. I felt as if I’d been thanked. Thank you, Jack.
Recommended February 2009 show less