War

Jack London (1876–1916)
From Jack London: Novels and Stories

Interesting links:
The World of Jack London
(A Web site devoted to all things Jack London, edited by David Hartzel)

Buy this book:
Jack London: Novels and Stories
The Call of the Wild • White Fang • The Sea-Wolf • 25 stories

Also available:
Jack London: Novels and Social Writings
The People of the Abyss • The Road • The Iron Heel • Martin Eden • John Barleycorn • selected essays

John Griffith Chaney—or, to use the name by which he was known after his mother’s marriage, Jack London—is primarily remembered as the author of adventure tales set in the Klondike (Call of the Wild, “To Build a Fire”) and of proletarian fiction (Martin Eden, The Iron Heel). But the nearly 200 stories he published during his lifetime are impossible to pigeonhole into such tidy categories; London often blended genres from naturalism to science fiction to create unprecedented hybrids for an international readership.

Set during an unspecified conflict in an unspecified land, “War” (1911) uses deceptively quiet, sparse prose to describe a young, voiceless man who suddenly confronts an enemy soldier “with several weeks’ growth of ginger-colored beard.” The story is a masterpiece of brevity; in London's best work, H. L. Mencken noted, “are all the elements of sound fiction: clear thinking, a sense of character, the dramatic instinct, and, above all, the adept putting together of words.”

He was a young man, not more than twenty-four or five, and he might have sat his horse with the careless grace of his youth had he not been so catlike and tense. His black eyes roved everywhere, catching the movements of twigs and branches where small birds hopped, questing ever onward through the changing vistas of trees and brush, and returning always to the clumps of undergrowth on either side. And as he watched, so did he listen, though he rode on in silence, save for the boom of heavy guns from far to the west. This had been sounding monotonously in his ears for hours, and only its cessation would have aroused his notice. For he had business closer to hand. Across his saddle-bow was balanced a carbine. . . . If you don't see the full story below, click the right button at the top of the reader to view the story in Google Docs or click here (PDF) to read it—free!