On The Sea Wolf and Virtue

https://london.sonoma.edu/

The Author

Jack London is another favorite here at Deliberately Aimless. The Call of the Wild is among my favorite books, and others of London’s aren’t far behind. After having read The Sea Wolf, I was not disappointed, and upon completion it landed itself in perhaps the upper ten percent of books that I have read.

London’s uncanny ability to write powerful dialogue is, in many respects, unmatched, and is on full display in The Sea Wolf. This ability is never more clear than in another of his works, The Iron Heel, in which the characters deliver forceful, compelling, and, an oft overlooked point, believable diatribes. In The Iron Heel, we find the main character, Ernest Everhard, facing a consistent onslaught from the ruling class, and constantly having to defend his socialist point of view. He does this via quite convincing arguments, lent additional beauty and fluidity the more that London’s own socialist ideals show through. While one may have qualms with the viewpoint put forth by the character Everhard, the reader is nevertheless forced to admit that London consistently imbues his characters with a ferocity and self-assurance driven home by their convincing words.

I use the illustration of The Iron Heel not to belabor the point but because I found The Sea Wolf to be quite its equal. I also found myself disagreeing with certain viewpoints of characters, though this certainly did not take away from the joy of getting lost in their dialogue. 

The Plot

In The Sea Wolf, we meet our titular character and antagonist, Wolf Larsen, after he picks up our protagonist, Mr. Van Weyden, from a shipwreck in the crossing of San Francisco Bay. We are immediately given insight into Larsen’s character by his refusal to take Van Weydon, or “Hump,” as Larsen and the crew take to calling him, back to shore or to let him board a passing vessel. It seems that Hump has been forcibly added to the crew of “The Ghost,” a seal-hunting vessel bound for the north Pacific, under the captainship of a very physically and mentally imposing Larsen. 

I don’t want to give anything away as far as the core plot is concerned, and would heartily recommend you read The Sea Wolf, but I do want to dissect both Larsen’s and Hump’s moral fortitude, character, virtue, whatever you wish to call it. Larsen finds himself intrigued by Hump, a man who hails from the softer side of society and who has made a career as a writer. Larsen, though coarse and brutal, is self-taught in matters of philosophy and literature and soon begins engaging in debates about the meaning of life with Hump.

Larsen is of the opinion that this life is all that we get; there is nothing to follow. He argues, essentially, that there is no soul in the human make up, but rather that we are all driven by a desire to fulfill our own needs and wants, regardless of what that means for our fellow man. Hump argues against this, though it is questionable whether Larsen ever gives serious consideration to an alternative viewpoint, such is the state of his ego. While I disagree with Larsen’s view, I do want to examine more closely one of his and Hump’s conversations.

The Rubaiyat

In said conversation, Hump references The Rubaiyat, an eleventh or twelfth century poem by Omar Khayyam, seeing that it aligns with Larsen’s view of the finality of this life. Larsen, it turns out, is unfamiliar with said work. 

So let's examine some background. The Rubaiyat is a poem that was originally written in Persian, but has since been translated by several different scholars through the centuries. Most translations result in a 101 verse poem on the meaning of existence, with four lines per verse. In it, Khayyam explains his view that because we are given this life only, we should essentially maximize our pleasure while on the earth, which he proposes to do by drinking more wine. In essence, Khayyam is arguing for Hedonism. As an admirer of the Stoic philosophy, I have obvious qualms with his contention that the highest aim is to fulfill one’s desires. However, I take more issue with Khayyam's claim of the finality of this life, though he does illustrate his point with some beautiful verse, one of which I have reproduced below.

When You and I behind the Veil are past,

Oh, but the long, long while the World shall last,

Which of our Coming and Departure heeds

As the Sea’s self should heed a pebble-cast.

Verse XLVII

I chose this particular verse both because of its reference to the sea and because I agree with it, at least in part. I admire the sense of humility that it conveys, its understanding that when we have finished this life we quite possibly will be remembered no more, except by a vanishingly small number of people. It lends a certain grounded perspective to life and speaks to our inherent limitations in understanding. I don’t, however, agree with Khayyam’s (and subsequently Larsen’s) conclusion, in both the above verse and the poem at large, that essentially all is for naught, that life ends with the grave, and therefore we should indulge ourselves. Despite this, I did enjoy the poem itself, beautifully written as it is.

The Characters

To bring it back to the book, once Hump fills him in on The Rubaiyat, Larsen immediately shows an affinity for the viewpoint espoused in it. Larsen’s self-assurance is fiery, and again, it is unclear throughout whether he ever softens or questions his stance on the matter. This certainly makes for a compelling character, though, in that he remains a bit of a mystery, it is difficult to divine his motives, and therefore he is imminently unpredictable. 

Hump is a different matter entirely. At first timid and downright shocked by the behavior he witnesses not only from Larsen, but from the sealing crew at large, it takes him a while to find his sea legs, as it were. However frustrating he may find them to be, Hump gains a good deal from both his physical hardening aboard the ship as a mate as well as his sporadic rounds of mental sparring with Larsen.

In his own words (Van Weyden/Hump is the narrator), when speaking of a grievance with the cook aboard, Hump says, “Under all his cowardice there was a courage of cowardice, like mine, that would impel him to do the very thing his whole nature protested against doing and was afraid of doing.” This statement perfectly encapsulates the transformation that Hump must undergo throughout the narrative. Hump must overcome the “long years of bookish silence [which] had made me inattentive and unprepared.” Thrust into a vicious and violent world wholly unprepared, he quickly realizes that he must come to truly understand his own nature if he is ever to master his fears made manifest in the person of Wolf Larsen. 

There are some other twists and several other characters of note that I have intentionally omitted from my review, including a budding romance and a struggle for survival, all in an effort to not take away from the enjoyment of the story. I heartily recommend reading The Sea Wolf to any and all hoping to learn a little something about human nature and, possibly, about themselves.

Deep Roots Are Not Reached by the Frost

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"Deep roots are not reached by the frost."

We encounter another quote from Tolkien. Yes, Tolkien is a favorite here at Deliberately Aimless. In fact, this quote is drawn from the same poem as the one regarding wanderers. It seemed a natural follow-on, but also worth a deeper dive, as it were.

What do you think of when you hear the word roots? Trees, no doubt. Your hometown and your family, perhaps. A vague sense of where you "came from." The band from Philadelphia. Alright, maybe only a few thought of that last one.

Whatever the case, though, the term roots generally refers to some sense of groundedness, of being on a firm foundation. And the goal is to build upon a foundation that cannot be shaken. The focus is always, therefore, on the structure built upon the foundation, and never on the foundation itself. We like to admire the architecture – the soaring rooftops, the walls of glass, the intricate façades – and appreciate the foundation only insomuch as it prevents these architectural elements from crashing down, whether due to wind or seismic or snow loads. 

You see, the foundation enables the construction of what we term success. The visible building is the success. Our public lives are the successes – or failures. What matters in our world is that which can be seen. We do not give thought to that which the visible is built upon – unless it fails.

We recognize that things can come crashing down around us, but rarely do we consider that something can also be upended. The soil beneath the foundation can fail. The foundation itself can fail through tension, compression, shear stresses. Frost can grab hold of the foundation and heave it upward. Yes, even deep foundations – drilled piers, driven piles, etc. – can be reached by frost. 

It's an imperfect metaphor to describe the spiritual in terms of the physical, but it is nevertheless enlightening. Foundations fail – humans fail – because we fight against nature. We seek to build taller structures  in more remote and arduous environments. We seek greater status and wealth. Collectively, we build cities of millions of people in deserts that cannot support them and then transport water to them unsustainably via aqueducts and pipelines (Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Phoenix). We build upon improper foundations and ignore them, until they fail.

Conversely, trees (and other such plants that grow literal roots), do not battle nature. They are nature and are simultaneously one with nature. Roots form a symbiotic system with bacteria in the surrounding soil to aid in the growth of other organisms. Groupings of quaking aspen trees sharing a single root system, known as clones, can grow to cover up to 100 acres of area and live, in one case, for an estimated 80,000 years. The hardy mesquite tree  of the southwest can grow a taproot to depths of almost 200 feet, and its root system can regenerate and keep growing even if the tree above is killed. A firm foundation, indeed.

It is not that trees cannot be uprooted or toppled that makes them remarkable – for they surely can be brought down. It's that they are true to their nature in their growth. One might even say that they are fulfilling their purpose. With few exceptions, a tree builds that which it can support. It seeks that which nourishes it: the sun. It does not grow lofty in order to garner praise. In drought years, its growth contracts and slows as needed. In the cold season, a tree's above ground growth may go dormant, but its root growth can continue on, buffered as it is from the frost via the soil and snowpack. An expansive root system gives a tree its resilience. May we learn to be so resilient.

It stands to reason that this is what Tolkien meant by deep roots not being reached by the frost. In a sense, even the deepest of roots are reached by calamities. There is no way to prevent the frost from occurring, even to depths not previously imagined. But when calamities befall us, when the hard frost comes, we do not utterly fail if we have made our roots resilient. And we make ourselves resilient by being true to our nature, by living with purpose.

On Tolkien, or The Nature of Wandering

"Not all those who wander are lost."

I can practically hear it in Gandalf's voice, though this particular quote did not find its way into the movie adaptations. It's a wonderful phrase from the venerable Mr. Tolkien, though it perhaps has been diminished in our day and age, repeated ad nauseam as it has been on coffee mugs, t-shirts, satchels, bags, and so forth. But don't let its ubiquity diminish its meaning.

From the man who wrote the much beloved The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, he should know a thing or two about wandering, even if by many accounts he rarely ventured far from his Oxford residence in his elder years. His stories are by their very nature about wandering. In The Hobbit, we follow Bilbo and a band of dwarves as they wander their way to the Lonely Mountain to reclaim that which was lost – taken, rather, by Smaug the dragon. In The Lord of the Rings, we follow Frodo and Sam as they venture forth with the One Ring on their wandering way to Mount Doom, a task that they believe themselves entirely unfit for.

Wandering, perhaps, does not convey the right meaning here. Or, at least, it is misunderstood. These characters were, more accurately, seeking, which is to say that they were wandering only insofar as they did not always know precisely where they were going. But they did not lack for purpose. 

Bilbo's task as the burglar may have been unclear to him at times, when he was wandering through the forests of Mirkwood or riddling with Gollum in the depths of the Misty Mountains; but his purpose was quite clear: to help the dwarves reclaim their homeland, a rather noble purpose. In a similar vein, Frodo (and Sam) may have wished to not have the burden of the ring, losing their way often and being caught up in a quest far greater than themselves; but that added weight is precisely what gave their journey purpose. Without the task of destroying the ring, they would have had no greater purpose and would have been reduced to mere wanderers.

And so it is with life, though the difference may not always be as obvious as in literature. Many of us appear to be wanderers and hopelessly lost, when we are, in fact, seeking. Someone fresh out of college, dispirited in their job search and wondering – not for the first time – whether they chose the right major, takes a job at the local golf course until they can find the opportunity they are looking for. Are they lost? Or merely seeking? The answer is not always clear. 

To some extent, nearly all of us seem to be seeking in our own imperfect ways. It's just that one man's seeking appears to another as idleness. And, conversely, one man's seeking appears to the other as desperation. Some wish to keep up with the Joneses, while others have different aims. Neither is wrong. Too often we believe that there is a narrow path to success which must be adhered to, without acknowledging that success looks different to everyone. Different paths cannot simply be written off as wandering.

Some of us are indeed lost, but not all of us. And that does not mean that lost wanderers, once lost, cannot again be found. At times, one must go with the current. At others, one must take the bull by the horns. But either of these actions will take time, and we must do our utmost to be patient along the way. And, as Tolkien's characters demonstrate, the purposes we unearth are rarely focused solely upon ourselves. Sometimes our purpose is to be found by looking to a higher power (or trusting to fate, as some would have it), and striving to be deliberate in our actions but aimless in our direction, so that we may better discern where we are being led. And so we wander, but are not lost. We are deliberately aimless.