#wolf larsen

Say he stayed on Ghost. Neither Humphrey nor Wolf want to examine why, but that does not mean Wolf is above deriding him for it. (Occurring as a backdrop to repairing their freshly broken ship, I imagine.) And all the while, Wolf's health is still deteriorating. In the book, Humphrey has the option of ignoring him to focus on fixing the boat. He also has Maud as a conversation partner. But if it were only the two of them? If Humphrey wants to speak, he must speak with Wolf, or else face a maddening social exile. And he must eventually pilot the boat with a partner whose efficacy to assist is degrading. Which would make Humphrey desperate and afraid. Did he make the wrong choice? It would make Wolf lash out all the same, his pride insulted by relying more and more on Humphrey. Very much the dying-animal-in-a-trap the novel wrote.

I personally believe a more interesting and fitting end for Wolf (instead of slipping away trapped in his body) might have involved a conversation in which he, having only the ability to squeeze Humphrey's hand, leads his mate to the demand that he be killed. Obviously, it is a means of being put out of his misery, and yet framed in such a way that murder is the end Wolf Larsen deserves, not illness. (To note, I do absolutely love and respect the ironic choice that a man who valued his strength and independence so much lost it so cruelly. I don't think it needed to be what killed him.) And after so much mention and temptation and foreshadowing that Humphrey will kill a man before novel's end— kill this man— anything else feels like shortsighted, cowardly writing, imo. London ignores the imminent, looming destiny he wrote for the character.

I feel the book should have ended with Humphrey (now alone on the ship but with rescue imminent) reflecting on his life and how Wolf challenged and changed him. How he cannot return mentally to a world where rescue takes him physically. In other words, an actual conclusion to reflect all themes. The notion of him beginning a relationship with Maud and that being his future (that he is changed only for the better in ways which will support her) is an ending that could have been plucked from anywhere, despite their unique introduction. The romance belonged in another book entirely. I simply can't help but feel London set up a plot with themes that he couldn't deliver on. There's no resolution for much of what he baited.

It's disappointing, but the first half was good and (as pondered above) I still appreciate the psychological horror which could have been written from its potential. A once passive, frail man standing on his feet to engineer his own salvation while his lone companion continues to berate/sabotage him. Even that, he grows to miss as Wolf deteriorates. He interacts with Wolf in what ways he can, simply to have someone with whom to interact. And finally, he surrenders to the demand that he kill this man. Leaving him alone on a ship to contemplate the unpredictable deviations of his life, how he is by no measure the man he was a year ago. How Wolf destroyed them both.