The sea wolf
The Sea Wolf ( English original title The Sea-Wolf ) is a novel first published in 1904 by the American writer Jack London (1876-1916). The book immediately became a bestseller.
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The sea wolf tells the story of the esthete Humphrey van Weyden, who went overboard in a shipwreck on the way from Sausalito to San Francisco and was rescued by the seal schooner "Ghost". Wolf Larsen, the captain, a man of great physical strength and brutality, terrorizes the crew. At the same time, he is also highly intelligent and has created his own philosophy based on social Darwinian principles. For him people are “pieces of a fermentation” of no value, whose struggle for survival he likes to watch; The pursuit of immortality is sentimental nonsense, altruism a stupidity that only someone who, like van Weyden, was born into prosperity can afford.
Wolf Larsen plays with van Weyden by humiliating him, letting him work as a kitchen boy and later making him a helmsman without his knowledge of seafaring. Van Weyden learns to assert himself in this world and, as Larsen states, "to finally stand on his own two feet."
Over time, van Weyden managed to rise in the reputation of the team and the captain. In the latter he finds a profound interlocutor, and even if he never completely sheds his suspicions about Larsen, something like a relationship of trust develops between the two men. Their relationship is put to the test when the "Ghost" saves the shipwrecked Maud Brewster. Like van Weyden, Larsen is now holding her, a humanistically educated author, on board against her will.
Van Weyden finally falls in love with Maud Brewster, and when Wolf Larsen sexually harasses her one night, he stabs the captain with a knife. The two manage to escape in a lifeboat, and after wandering for weeks they end up on an uninhabited island. Weeks later, the "Ghost" also runs up on the island. There is only one crew member on board: Wolf Larsen. His crew was lured away from him by his rival brother Tod Larsen - also a seal hunter - and he was left alone on his no longer seaworthy ship.
Larsen is now blind, probably due to a brain tumor . It is no longer a real threat. Van Weyden and Maud Brewster decide to repair the ship, but Larsen, who wants to die on the island, sabotages all repairs. After an attempt to murder van Weyden, he remains paralyzed on the right side. Van Weyden and Maud Brewster take care of him even when he tries to set the ship on fire. His condition worsens more and more, he loses mobility on the left side. During this time there are repeated discussions about the physical strength and the value of the soul. The last conversation between the two men also revolves around this topic. Again van Weyden asks Larsen for his opinion on immortality. Wolf Larsen, who can hardly speak anymore after another stroke, formulates his answer with the last of his strength "Nonsense."
Van Weyden succeeds in making the "Ghost" seaworthy and they leave the island. Wolf Larsen dies during a severe storm. Van Weyden hands it over to the sea and continues the journey. The moment a steamer finds Van Weyden and Maud Brewster and their adventure is over happily, they confess their love and kiss for the first time.
background
In a letter dated November 5, 1915 to the writer Mary Hunter Austin , London wrote:
“Long years ago, at the very beginning of my writing career, I attacked Nietzsche and his super-man idea. This was in The Sea Wolf . Lots of people read The Sea Wolf , no one discovered that it was an attack upon the super-man philosophy ”
“ Many years ago, at the very beginning of my writing career, I attacked Nietzsche and his idea of the superman. That was in the sea wolf . Many people have read the sea wolf , but none have discovered that it was an attack on the superman philosophy. "
According to this, Wolf Larsen would be an embodiment of the Nietzsche superman , whom London portrays in the course of the story as impressive, but above all as mean, only to dismantle him in the end.
role models
The model for the character of Wolf Larsen was the American captain Alexander McLean, whom Jack London met in the pub Heinold's First and Last Chance in Oakland .
Film adaptations
The novel has been filmed several times since 1920, but with different focuses in the film plot.
- The Sea Wolf (USA, 1920), with Noah Beery as Wolf Larsen and Tom Forman as Humphrey van Weyden.
- The Sea Wolf (USA, 1941) with Edward G. Robinson as Wolf Larsen and Alexander Knox as Humphrey van Weyden directed by Michael Curtiz .
- Wolf Larsen (USA, 1958), with Barry Sullivan as Wolf Larsen and Peter Graves as Humphrey van Weyden.
- Der Seewolf , 1971 - Four-part adventure game in a German / Romanian / French coproduction with Raimund Harmstorf as Wolf Larsen and Edward Meeks as Humphrey van Weyden for the German TV station ZDF, among others. The film was shot under the direction of Wolfgang Staudte in the Danube Delta in Romania .
- Il lupo dei mari (Italy, 1975), with Chuck Connors as Wolf Larsen and Giuseppe Pambieri as Humphrey van Weyden.
- Morskoj volk (Russia, 1991, TV), with Liubomiras Lauciavicius as Wolf Larsen and Andrei Rudensky as Humphrey van Weyden.
- The Sea Wolf (US, 1993, TV-movie), with Charles Bronson as Wolf Larsen and Christopher Reeve as Humphrey van Weyden.
- The Sea Wolf (US, 1997), with Stacy Keach .
- Der Seewolf (Germany, 2008), with Thomas Kretschmann as Wolf Larsen and Florian Stetter as Humphrey van Weyden. Broadcast as a two-part TV series on ProSieben .
- Der Seewolf (Germany / Canada, 2009), with Sebastian Koch as Wolf Larsen and Stephen Campbell Moore as Humphrey van Weyden. Broadcast as a two-part TV series on ZDF.
Stage version
The Bielefeld Theater showed the first stage version in April 2016.
media
Literature (selection)
The novel has been published by various publishers.
- Der Seewolf (paperback, translation Lutz-W. Wolff 2014) dtv (2014) ISBN 978-3-423-14364-6
- Der Seewolf (paperback, translation by Erwin Magnus 1926), dtv (2009) ISBN 978-3-423-08620-2
- Der Seewolf GEOlino -Edition (hardback edition, German edition Barbara Dieck, from 10 years), cbj (2006) ISBN 3-570-13254-4
- Der Seewolf (hardback edition, German edition Barbara Dieck, from 10 years), Ueberreuter (2002) ISBN 3-8000-2978-2
- Der Seewolf (paperback, translation Christine Hoeppener), Diogenes (2001) ISBN 3-257-21509-6
- Der Seewolf (Hardcover, translation Ulrich Horstmann ), Artemis & Winkler (2001) ISBN 3-538-06898-4
Secondary literature
- Oliver Kellner, Ulf Marek: "Sea Wolf & Co. - The great adventure four-parters of the ZDF", Schwarzkopf & Schwarzkopf (2005) - ISBN 3-89602-632-1
Audio book
- The Sea-Wolf / Der Seewolf. The English original version unabridged as MP3-CD, Bertz + Fischer (2006) - ISBN 3-86505-502-8
- Der Seewolf, 3 CDs, read by Ben Becker , Eichborn (2005) - ISBN 3-938943-00-9
- Der Seewolf, 2 CDs, read by Ben Becker, Ueberreuter (2005) - ISBN 3-8000-8012-5
- Der Seewolf, 8 audio CDs, Cine Plus Home Entertainment (2006) - ISBN 3-938339-35-7
- Der Seewolf, 4 CDs, read by Sebastian Koch , Random House Audio (2009) - ISBN 978-3-8371-0137-9
Web links
- Editions of Der Seewolf in LibraryThing
Individual evidence
- ↑ Jack London, Letter to Mary Austin, November 5, 1915, cited in No Mentor But Myself , Jack London, Dale Walker, Jeanne Reesman, Second Edition 1999, p. 159
- ^ Antje Doßmann: Theater Bielefeld succeeds in an exciting adaptation of "Der Seewolf" Neue Westfälische , April 5, 2016