The House of Pride, and Other Tales of Hawaii

Throughout House of Pride, especially with the leper stories, the reader can see the dramatic influence London's earlier journey to Hawaii, chronicled in his The Cruise of the Snark, had upon these short stories. Scenes and phrases are virtually lifted from that earlier memoir. As for the stories themselves, the collection is brief and can be read in one sitting. But its imagery is memorable. The plots are terse and tightly structured. And London produces the most melancholy moments with just an implication as to their eventual development, leaving the resolutions to be played out in the readers' minds.

London did well to capture Hawaii at a moment that its Americanization was becoming complete. He knows the history of the Islands. And show more he understands the motivations of the people who arrived, the missionaries and traders, and the sense of loss of the native Hawaiians, who were overwhelmed with the immigration of Americans, British, Japanese, and Chinese.

If the impact of London's own earlier work is obvious on this volume, so, in turn, does the influence of London's Hawaii seem to play on later authors. Notably, James Michener. Michener must have been familiar with London's tales, for his own mammoth novel, Hawaii, not only is embedded with the themes and stories that London first explored but also shares something of the same viewpoint towards the various peoples who inhabit the Islands. show less

If I didn't need a book that took place in Hawaii for my fifty state challenge, I would have given up on this book of short after just a few paragraphs. The description of the lepers was graphic, the characters superficial.

Little collection of stories.

La carne es aquí dorada: los Mares del Sur, que Jack London recorrió y conoció a fondo, fueron para su obra literaria de madurez una fuente de inspiración tan rica y poderosa como lo había sido en su juventud la Alaska de los buscadores de oro. Los cuentos de La casa del orgullo (1909) están situados en las islas Hawaii, donde la tierra y el mar respiran por turno. Sin embargo, en este paraíso de Juno madurando al sol y bronceados Apollos, el hombre blanco ha propagado la palabra de Dios y la palabra del Ron, ha introducido un rígido sistema de explotación económica y de segregación racial, y ha traído, sobre todo, enfermedades desconocidas y fatales como la lepra, la marca de la Bestia. London enmarca en esta atmósfera show more crepuscular un dramático recuento de pérdidas y supervivencias, de cruciales reconocimientos afrontados con valor o con cobardía, pues no es bueno para nadie tener que verse como realmente es, como tampoco es posible verse así durante mucho tiempo y sobrevivir a la experiencia. Con su particular versión naturalista del exotismo romántico, estos relatos ofrecen nuevas perspectivas de la siempre heroica literatura de su autor. show less