141-1-660
CHILD LABOURER, deckhand, gold prospector, hobo, and then forever a writer. And what a writer. Jack London was a hack who knocked out 1,000 words a day. His unceasing output fell into several categories: potboilers, high-calibre adventure novels, journalism (he served as a foreign correspondent for William Randolph Hearst during the Russo-Japanese war of 1904-05), and political screeds. He was America’s first great West Coast writer and his love for the Pacific Ocean marked him out from the East Coast authors of his day.
But as James Haley recounts, London tempered the über-Western spirit of his work with a commitment to socialism. “London was a lifelong capitalist,” Mr Haley contends, but disapproved of “unrestrained capitalism”. He interspersed his commercial work with political writing. His shrill tone with the general public did not help the cause, nor did the fact that, as America’s most famous socialist, he travelled with an “obsequious Oriental valet” and bought yachts while claiming to speak for the working man. One of his books was an examination of poverty in the East End of London. “I never conceived such a mass of misery in the world before.” Yet he was also a “racialist” who believed in the superiority of the white race. It comes as no surprise that almost immediately after his death at the age of just 40 from a morphine overdose in 1916, the politics fell away and what remained were the best of the adventure novels. “The Call of the Wild”, “White Fang” and “The Sea-Wolf” are all still widely read today.

A. 어휘
lad 젊은이, 청년. deckhand 갑판선원, 극장 무대담당자.
prospector 探鑛者(탐광자), 투기자. hobo 뜨내기 노동자, 浮浪者(부랑자).
hack 마부, 고되게 일하는 사람, 난도질. knocked out 때려눕히다, 급히 해치우다.
unceasing output 중단 없는 생산. potboilers 돈벌이 위주의 조잡한 작품(자가).
calibre 품질, 口徑(구경), 직경. correspondent 특파원.
screeds 비공식 기사, 長廣舌(장광설). temper 섞다, 조절하다, 경감하다.
über ...에 관한(독일어). commitment 참가, 수행, 의무, 범죄.
contend 주장하다, 다투다. unrestrained 억제되지 않은, 무제한의.
intersperse 散在(산재)시키다, 흩뿌리다, 裝飾(장식)으로 박아 넣다.
shrill 날카로운. cause 대의명분, 목적. obsequious 아첨하는.
valet 侍從(시종), 從者(종자).
conceived 생각하다. mass 덩어리, 대중, 근로자 계급.
misery 비참, 빈곤, 불행. racialist 인종주의자.
superiority 우월성. overdose 過量(과량) 投藥(투약).
fang 엄니.