"John Barleycorn proved the strongest man at last."

 “John Barleycorn or Alcoholic Memoirs”by Jack London, 1913, re-pub. 1990

This is the story of London's great drunks, starting at 5, 7, 15 and 17 years old, which begins a tale told in rot-gut and later, cocktails. Beer, wine and whiskey, saloons and men, toil and the sea-life. He never had a child-hood from this narrative. At the age of 5 while hauling a pail of beer out to his father in the field he dipped his beak and passed out. At 7 he fearfully drank wine at the urging of swarthy Italian desperadoes and nearly died of alcohol poisoning. At 15 he communed with sailors on board a sloop and was sick for days. At 17 he participated in an electoral parade drunk fest and was again on the brink of death.

This was all in the pursuit of adventure, romance and the lure of growing up a real man, not, according to him, the physical taste for booze. Later the seamen of San Francisco Bay were his idols and their life, his. The real turning point towards drink came when he stood at the bar of one of Oakland's waterfront saloons with the most daring oyster pirate on the Bay, Nelson. Nelson stood him to 6 rounds of drinks as a gesture of companionship, but really as a test to see if he would reciprocate. He didn't due to his general and long run of poverty, then felt ashamed. He dug into the stash on his boat and returned to the saloon where he treated the pirate to drinks too, lying that he'd not had money on him. The lesson he learned is that these men drink to socialize and that if you don't respond, you are cast out and are a no-good fellow. As a 'prince' of this realm, the daring ship-master of the Razzle-Dazzle, he had to follow. The sorry result was that the whalers, sealers, oystermen and sailors all drank their earnings away toasting each other and never saved a dime. As he recounts, many Oakland rowdies and seamen he knew died, went to prison or disappeared due to demon alcohol.

These are the lessons of John Barleycorn in the late 1800s. It's a riveting read. The soon-to-be socialist writes a proletarian saga alternating between the Bay, the sea and boring, grueling jobs in jute mills and canneries that paid squat, hinging on drinking episodes. Saloon life is at it's center. The bar bolt-hole was a warm and welcoming refuge everywhere he goes in San Pedro Bay bucket shops, Japanese fishing villages and railroad tramps, full of companionship, drama and I guess you could call it 'love.' Saloon keepers were even bankers of sorts for the likes of him, loaning money at no interest. London went for long periods of time dry onboard or at land-side factory labor, as he insists he was a social drunk at first, not a real alcoholic. His wife thought otherwise. His real love was candy and reading.

A bar in Oakland mentioned many times in the book.

As you can see, women are missing in this tale. While working on-shore London discovers girls and a buddy who knows how to talk to girls. He experiences his first love, this hardened boy-man. And yet both friends end up in saloons to escape the cold and rain, pinching their pennies to stay warm in short bouts with John Barleycorn. London turns away from the sea and grueling factories to a 'career.' He's manipulated by a boss to do the exhausting work of two men for less pay at an electrical facility because he believes in the fairy tale of working his way up from the bottom. Finally he is told the truth, quits and takes another 'adventure path' on the train rails as a hobo, a familiar, liquored-up dead end. He resolves never to be destroyed by manual labor and starts on the 'brain path,' ignoring drink. He joins socialist clubs, debating societies, goes to high school and attends some University. He is becoming the Jack London we know - 'intellectually intoxicated' this time.

Punctuated by one drunk in the Bay town of Benicia due to his drained mental fatigue, he starts on a writing career. London tries to sell his fevered stories and thoughts, but has no takers. So he gets a job at a hot steam laundry, where he again experiences the desire for drink, a siren song now, the lady of the lake beckoning, yet he still resists. At 21 he throws it all up for the Klondike and the chesty adventurers of the barrooms. After a year and a half he brought nothing back from there but scurvy … and stories of course. Unemployed and in desperation he started sending short adventure stories to boy's magazines, journals and newspapers for $5 here and $10 there. This hard-luck memoir becomes a Horatio 'Hornblower' Alger story, which it was all along. He becomes the real Martin Eden.

London's circle of friends and acquaintances rose into the middle-class as he gained success as a writer and a socialist. They drank unknown, exotic liquors and 'cocktails' at home and expected him to do the same. The social bonding of the house parlor and then the ranch house replaced the working-man's saloon. He once got into a drinking bout with youngster 'revolutionaries' in London due to what he calls his 'man-pride.' As he says, he 'outswined the swine,' but he never did it again, as part of being a 'seasoned drinker.' He claimed he never drank when he was alone. Yet to fortify himself from increasingly boring social interactions, he called on John Barleycorn and grew to anticipate the enjoyment of the rush in company. He then descended to regular, heavy cocktail inebriation while drinking solo at his ranch – his extremist way of really 'living.' Even a long 'dry' trip on his ship the Snark ended in port-side rummies. What he calls the “White Logic” of depression and death raised its head.

It's a somewhat tragic story. London died at 40 of dysentery, late-stage alcoholism, renal colic and uremia, while using both morphine and opium for pain. He ends the book with support for Prohibition.  As the English rock band Traffic put it: “And little Sir John and the nut-brown bowl proved the strongest man at last.”

On a political note, a lot of leftists drink, but not quite to stupefaction. Some have become teetotalers because of that. One organization I was around had a bar in the headquarters, while the branch leader was a well-known 'dipsomaniac.' Marx distrusted anyone who wouldn't have a round, but that was in the mid-1800s. Some Austrian Marxists distrusted booze due to its debilitating effects on so many workers. The sodden trail of vodka among the Russian proletariat was evident too. John Barleycorn, indeed. Now drugs have replaced or accompanied booze in many a place. What to do?

Prior blogspot reviews on this subject, us blog search box, upper left, to investigate our 17 year archive, using these terms: “Quick Fixes,” “Antifascism, Sports, Sobriety,” “Red Baker,” “Indian Country Noir,” “The Marijuana Manifesto” (Ventura); “Hillybilly Elegy” (Vance); “Hollywood” and “Post Office” (both by Bukowski); “Bar None Rescue.”

Red Frog / December 28, 2024 / Happy New Year's!