This section contains 2,700 words (approx. 9 pages at 300 words per page) |
SOURCE: “‘To Build a Fire’: Physical Fiction and Metaphysical Critics,” in Studies in Short Fiction, Vol. 15, 1978, pp. 19–24.
In the following essay, May questions the critical perceptions of “To Build a Fire” as a metaphysical fiction.
Ten years ago Earle Labor and King Hendricks, perhaps the most avid partisans of Jack London, reproved critics for not giving London's fiction its “proper critical assessment” and urged that a “fine discrimination,” equal to London's own, be exercised in taking his measure as an artist.1 Labor's new book in the Twayne American Author Series and a recent Modern Fiction Studies special issue devoted to London may then be seen as steps toward reevaluating and rescuing a writer who has been considered too minor to merit serious attention. I have no major contribution to make toward this reassessment of London's fiction, but I do wish to express some reservations about the “discrimination” made...
This section contains 2,700 words (approx. 9 pages at 300 words per page) |