Jack London certainly has his own views on alcohol and words to explain it. At times, I think he overexplains it all until I've read paragraphs of the same stuff again and again throughout. Funny how he continuously affirms that he is not an alcoholic, when all signs say otherwise, just like how an alcoholic would do. In this way, this book is an excellent example of how alcohol can slowly and assuredly take over all parts of someone's life. He lived an adventurous life! No wonder he was able to write such excellent stories. Certainly he had a lot of personal experience to draw from.

This isn't a book to read with a drink in your hand, that's for sure. London is always a great read for me, though this is a sad story. It reminded me of Kerouac's detailed descent into alcoholic hell in Big Sur. Both guys lived their reputation and paid the price for glory in death. And both memoirs go to great poetic lengths to inform the reader how subtly an alcohol habit can take hold of and destroy your life.

Sehr persönlicher Lebensbericht, fokussiert auf den eigenen Alkoholismus.
Kann mich persönlich nicht identifizieren, kann mich deswegen wohl nur mäßig für das Werk an sich begeistern.

Jack London ha sempre un posto speciale nel mio cuore, e anche in questo titolo non posso che apprezzare il suo genio, perso troppo presto.
La prosa è sempre vivace, animata anche dalla versione interpretata da Alessandro Balducci, l'autoironia e la sincerità fanno da padrone nella storia della sua vita, vista attraverso il vetro di una bottiglia di whisky, in perenne lotta con John Barleycorn, che in realtà è il nome di un personaggio di fantasia del folclore inglese che rappresenta l'alcol e il bere. Devastante e nichilista il colloquio finale con la "ragione pura".

A bit of an exhausting read, perhaps cause most of it was so recognizably alcoholic but his relentless denial of it being so made my heart break. He almost gets there in the end; never quite does. The third to last chapter, or whichever one it was, where he's off on a tirade against the "White Logic" and the pseudo-memoir narrative of the story dissolves into a dissertation on metaphysics. Some of the most gorgeous writing I've read in a long time (that chapter), the rest– I could take it or leave it. Personally enjoyed Call of the Wild much more, call me cliche.

john barleycorn was blunting me.

I'm not really sure what to think of this book anymore. Reading it for class was a surreal experience as I too just want to quit studying and gallivant before deciding that was a mistake and going back and trying to get a stable career.

A strange memoir - he keeps on claiming he is not an alcoholic as he drinks huge amounts of liquor. Hardly an effective Prohibition tract, since his stories of drunken adventure in his youth (and he started drinking when he was *very* young) are more exciting than cautionary. Some of this volume also went into his autobiographic novel "Martin Eden".

Some stretches, like the last 25 pages, are now near unreadable - inflated prose, meandering about late 19th C Materialist/Pessimist philosophy, edged w/ a bit of Social Darwinism.

But, when he sticks to the story of his life, his life of drinking and adventure (he does not need alcohol or a drink - honest! It reminds me of Billie Holiday writing "The Lady Sings the Blues" - telling us how she kicked heroin, and using it the whole time she wrote the book.) the memoir keeps the reader's interest.