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CHICAGO • If you've never read it, it's difficult to grasp the excellence of Jack London's "Martin Eden." For many readers, the 1909 novel has had a far greater personal impact than the author's more celebrated works, like "The Call of the Wild," "White Fang" and "The Sea-Wolf."
The title doesn't do it justice.
"Martin Eden" certainly pales in comparison to London's other, more catchy titles like "The Iron Heel," "John Barleycorn" or "The Valley of the Moon." This is likely why, during my decade-long tradition of taking to London once the leaves start turning, I've consistently passed it by.
But having already delved into a good chunk of the author's 50-plus legacy of books spanning not only adventure and suspense, but also such weighty topics as worker justice, sustainable food movements, capitalist greed and the terrors colonialism wrought on vulnerable communities of color, I simply picked "Martin Eden" at random.
The book opens on a dirty, semi-literate sailor who is invited into the house of an upper-class family in Oakland, California, for dinner and eventually transforms himself into a rich international literary sensation. But the novel is also a devastating look at how self-determination and hard work — even when combined with the essential foundation of a brilliant mind — often fall short in the face of the class and socioeconomic barriers facing people who grow up in poverty.
Though the title character is encouraged and assisted to attain his basic education by the prominent Morse family, when he falls in love with a daughter of the clan, he struggles to meet their earning expectations as he tries to make it as a writer. So painful is this realization that even when he finally succeeds, and wins the Morses' approval, his spirit is broken.
As soon as I finished reading the story, I went back to a recent biography of London to re-learn how the author, journalist and activist's own rags-to-riches life contributed to this vibrant tale.
And there, in the preface of Earle Labor's enthralling "Jack London: An American Life," I was reminded that "Martin Eden" had changed this particular biographer's life, too.
After having fallen in love with London's adventure stories as a seventh-grader, Labor had dropped the author for years until a college friend told him he just had to read "Martin Eden."
But Labor didn't listen.
Four years later, while on break from military training, he happened upon a copy of "Martin Eden" at a newsstand. "Once I started reading the book on the bus back to the base, I couldn't put it down. I finished it with a flashlight in my bunk that night and decided that when I returned to graduate school, Jack London would be the project for my dissertation," Labor wrote.
That was in 1952. But, Labor told me during a recent phone conversation, "'Martin Eden' was a major epiphany for me. I've often wondered what my life and career would have been if I hadn't encountered Jack London's most intensely personal book at the age of 24."
Today, Labor — the world's pre-eminent Jack London scholar — still marvels that mainstream audiences have never flocked to "Martin Eden" even as it has influenced great thinkers throughout the years.
Labor says that London's heavy emphasis on humanizing the "lower classes," a main theme of "Martin Eden," influenced World War II novelist James Jones. And writer and filmmaker Susan Sontag cited "Martin Eden," with its story of individual aspiration to excellence, as a major influence in her own path to becoming an artist.
Labor told me, "The No. 1 misperception about London is that he was a popular hack who wrote some entertaining stories about dogs and wolves in the Northland — mostly for kids. But he is still popular today and he will always be popular because there is something in his work that is universal. It speaks to people of all ages and experiences."
This space is too small to provide an adequate description of "Martin Eden," but you'll fall in love if you like this entry point: "He glanced around at his friend reading the letter and saw the books on the table. Into his eyes leaped a wistfulness and a yearning as promptly as the yearning leaps into the eyes of a starving man at the sight of food."
Pick up "Martin Eden," the best novel you've probably never heard of, or try any of London's other brilliant works. You won't regret it.
Twitter, @estherjcepeda