I have been overwhelmed by the writings of Jack London for quite some time. The first book I had read was Call of the Wild after which White Fang piqued my interest. They were good books but my experience was limited to that feel good effect that doesn’t last very long. Once the pandemic had set in, I read Martin Eden and since that moment I had become obsessed with Jack London’s writings. The star rover, Smoke Bellew, The Sea wolf and The Cruise of the Snark have certainly lived up to the expectations but none bypassed Martin Eden. Martin Eden resembles him in various ways but still it was a creation of his imagination. But this voyage on the Snark was no fiction. Martin Eden was conceived during this journey. The name martin was also derived from the boy who volunteered to go with the London’s on this journey as a cook.

However, this isn’t the right space to talk about Martin Eden, so I must keep my attention towards the voyage which jack and others intended to carry out and did carry out. There is always a sense of realism and nearness one feels while reading jack’s books and his writings always have something supernatural or magical in them. It is difficult to believe that something of that sort took place and even more difficult to not believe the same. Jack’s personality creates this dilemma.

This sense of romanticism and heroism in his books makes one wonder where did that come from. What sort of inspiration did jack receive?

The most popular story he wrote was the one which he was living. It was his life and experiences derived therein that made him such a wonderful writer. It seemed so natural and real. Here was finally a chance for jack to prove once again that his stories weren’t only the creation of his imagination. He wanted to make his readers and more importantly the entire world including himself realize that he was still capable of being a man of adventures of great measure.

Sea has always played an important role in Jack’s books. Also, his life was shaped by the sea. Jack always thought of himself as a sailor. And mind you when I say sailor, jack has a few ideas of his own over what the definition of a sailor should be. Jack is coming from a time period which was still in the shadow of the transcendentalist movement which was started by Ralph waldo Emerson and the Walden movement by H.D Thoreau. The idea of self-reliance looms large over London’s mind. And to make matters even more interesting Joshua Slocum had sailed around the world all by himself in a boat.

Jack had been inspired by the readings of Hermann Melville, but more importantly here was a moment that doesn’t come too often, to live a story which you would have wanted one of your characters to have lived. To travel around the world in a 43 feet boat with 3-4 others.

His ideas of him being an able seaman were out of proportion if not too idealistic. But we can cut him some slack. A little bit of heroics will be present throughout his writings.

This book became less about the journey than about the man jack London. A man who never knew how to navigate, learnt navigation by being on the sea and reading books about it, learnt dentistry just by reading about it and experimenting, learnt surfing through falling and trying, and when it came to finding out the co-ordinates of the boat or distance or latitudes, I was dumbfounded that such a man could know so much by practical experience.

Before his journey he might have overqualified himself as being an able sailor but post the Snark journey it would be injustice to not call him a master of the seas. But still he was not a master of the circumstances. The seas tortured him. Eventually making him so ill that he had to finally cut short his voyage and return home to better his worsening condition.

The daily hardships of the seas never stopped his routine of writing. It only strengthened the man that was jack.

In the end the voyage turned out to be much difficult and different than previously imagined but what a journey it must have been. It definitely was a treat for me. For anyone who wants to get a first hand look at who Jack London was this book would be of the utmost significance.