John Griffith London, born John Griffith Chaney, was an American novelist, journalist, and social activist. During his adolescence, London held a variety of manual jobs, dropped out of high school, shipped out on a sealing vessel, apprenticed himself as an electrician, and became a tramp. While he was on the road, he was imprisoned in the Erie County Penitentiary for vagrancy. The "unspeakable" brutalities he witnessed in his thirty days in prison awakened him to the reality of his downward class mobility. He saw a vision of the "Social Pit," and of himself slipping further and further into it. The contradictions of his life and writings are suggested in his responses: in rapid succession, he returned to high school, fled to the Alaskan Gold Rush, embraced socialism, and determined to become a writer. The Kanaka Surf was first published in August 1916. Ida and Lee Barton are both lithe and athletic, remarkable swimmers and surfers, as handsome as can be, the envy of all Hawaii. They are the centre of a very lively social whirl, but there is a “but” in the form of a dashing Harvard-educated forty-year-old scientist and scion of Hawaiian society who has become a favourite dancing partner of Ida’s. Will this be her first affair, wonders her bemused husband? When he sees her in the arms of the other man, he contrives a cathartic and very dangerous confrontation to test her feelings to the limit and almost beyond. You can listen online to free English audiobook “The Kanaka Surf” by Jack London on our website. Enjoy it!
