"at first, this earth, a stage so gloomed with woe you almost sicken at the shifting of the scenes. and yet be patient. our playwright may show in some fifth act what this wild drama means."contentsforward1 my eagle2 challenges3 johnson's arm4 slaves of the machine5 the philomaths6 adumbrations7 the bishop's vision8 the machine breakers9 the mathematics of a dream10 the vortex11 the great adventure12 the bishop13 the general strike14 the beginning of the end15 last days16 the end17 the scarlet livery18 in the shadow of sonoma19 transformation20 the last oligarch21 the roaring abysmal beast22 the chicago commune23 the people of the abyss24 nightmare25 the terroriststhe iron heel/forwardthis forward is written by anthony meredith, at? ardis, november 27, 419 b.o.m. first sentence: it cannot be said that the everhard manuscript is an important historical document. seven centuries have passed since avis everhard completed the manuscript...the time period between 1912-1932. the manuscript is about avis's husband ernest who 'devoted his life to the revolution. everhard was one of the 1st to use the term 'iron heel' to describe the oligarchy...the rise of the oligarchy will always remain a cause of secret wonder to the historian and philosopher.the manuscript was completed during the last days of preparation for the 2nd revolt (there is mention of a 3rd, 4th, 5th and so on)...avis had written the manuscript to glorify her husband...and when the revolt was failing, 'she hid the manuscript in the hollow oak at wake robin lodge,' a small bungalow in the sonoma hills of california. avis it is believed was executed.chapter 1, my eaglethis is the beginning of the 1st person account of avis everhard, the wife of ernest. there are asterisks that are editorial commentary by persons unknown in chapter one, unless it be anthony meredith, who wrote the forward. avis describes the quiet before the storm. ernest her husband is dead. she expects the labor of the world to rise. as she writes, avis says that it has been two months since 'he laid down his life'. they met february, 1912, at the family home in berkeley. it was 'preacher's night' at their house, as her father called it, and ernest was out of place. avis's father, john cunningham, was a professor at the state university at berkeley, physics...(sir oliver lodge)avis describes a prize-fighter man in ernest, while she was a product her environment, class instincts...ernest is contrasted to bishop orehouse, christ-like in appearance and goodness. ernest is bold. jesus was, as well, calling the leaders of day a den of vipers. etc and so forth.ernest was a superman, a blond beast such as nietzsche described. this is a hoot, hey, when was this published? 1907?the ministers talk of the working class and its relation to the church, etc. ernest listens. does not talk. bold? he is asked for an opinion...dr hammerfield encourages him. so, ernest tells them they know nothing about the working class. 'you are anarchists in the realm of thought.' 'you can prove everything and nothing.' 'each of you goes into his own consciousness to explain himself and the universe.'chapter 2 challengesin this chapter the reader learns that avis is unmarried and twenty-four. she likes ernest. telling of her father happening upon ernest addressing a crowd from a soapbox, inviting him to the house, as the father had become fired w/a passion to redress wrong. (padgett powell has a great line in mrs. hollingsworth's men about this kind of nature...it is one of my favorite quotes) ernest is at work on a book, philosophy and revolution.the challenges are to the bishop and to avis...ernest blames the church for enabling capitalism, for being blind to what happens to the flock, feels it should protest wrongs. ernest will show the bishop, will take him on a journey through hell, and the bishop says he will protest and ernest says he will be discharged (fired, let go).the challenge to avis is to give up money invested in sierra mills...a place that has caused harm, the example of mr jackson who lost an arm etc. ernest says colonel ingram, a lawyer for the mills, etc etc...avis believes there is more to the affair etc...they will seechapter 3 jackson's armjackson's story of the accident...,i>i'm willin' to bet that more accidents happens in the hour before whistle-blow than in all the rest of the day. jackson believed that the testimony of the foreman and the superintendent were the cause of the adverse decision of the court.avis visits w/jackson's lawyer...a whining fool...contrasted w/colonel ingram, corporation lawyer..."worth twenty thousand dollars a year to them." there is an asterisked note from teddy roosevelt, more or less saying that lawyers find a way for the wealthy to avoid the law.avis visits w/peter donnelly, one of the foremen who testified, with henry dallas, the superintendent who refused to talk, with the other foreman, james smith. they believe jackson should have gotten damages.after, avis goes to her father's office in the chemistry building, encounters ernest, "our boasted civilization is based upon blood, soaked in floor, and neither your not i nor any of us can escape the scarlet stain."there's a bit about insurance and that scheme. ernest tells her to look up mrs wickson and mrs pertonwaithe, whose husbands are principal stockholders.chapter 4 slaves of the machineavis is shaken by the story of jackson's arm. she worries about ernest, wondering if he too, like christ, is destined for a cross. she meets colonel ingram...and after the initial change in him, he fell back on being a lawyer. next, she tries the newspapers, but they won't print anything. she got hold of percy layton, a university graduate of journalism and he explains it to her.she sees mr wickson and mr pertonwaithe...they believed they are right and there is a quote from john stuart mill, from on liberty: wherever there is an ascendent class, a large portion of the morality emanates from is class interests and its class feelings of superiority.ernest says, "no man in the industrial machine is a free-will agent, except the large capitalist, and he isn't, if you'll pardon the irishism....one of the weaknesses of the human mind is that the wish is parent to the thought."society was the creation of the idle rich whotoiled not and who in this way played. perhaps...again, reminded of mrs. hollingsworth.carelessness is the root cause or reason for the denial of damages.chapter 5 the philomathsernest was often at avis's house. "he became my oracle." this chapter is a bit of a hoot, as it reminds me of some/many of the old black and white movies, the relationships between man and woman in those--the way the man gets what he wants, he takes it. his arms were around me before i knew. his lips were on mine before i could protest or resist.....he did not propose. he put his arms around me and kissed me and took it for granted that we should be married. there was no discussion about it.ernest in this chapter is like the character martin eden, in the novel of the same name...gentle and violent....awkward and ease...his behavior in our drawing-room reminded me of a careful bull in a china shop. read the first few pages of martin eden and you'll see what i mean. the philomaths: a group of people who meet once a month. no club house. london uses a neato tool here...a letter, a wrinkled letter, "written to me by ernest twenty years ago..." ernest was to receive a fee of $250 to speak. they gathered at the pertonwaithe house. 200 philomaths sat down to hear ernest.miss brentwood introduced him to colonel van gilbert---all the corporation lawyers have military appendages....heh! and this one is/was a will-breaker...a peculiar feature of the time. a dig at 'seaside library' novels, "a curious and amazzing literature that served to make the working class utterly misapprehend the nature of the leisure class."ernest speaks about his life...poverty, etc....the word "utopian" was used against him....and so there's this bitt about words...what's the one man say to denigrate your political opponent..."ridicule"? yeah...ridicule is the 1st response i believe..."utopian"...."the mere utterance of it could damn any scheme..." (and so it goes)ernest lambasts the ruling master class...there's a bitt about patent medicines...then he begins to describe the army of revolution....and this got the growls he predicted to avis...the $ threatened....there's a bitt about the census and the # in poverty....whether the number(s) is ever reported or given....the colonel gets some time...using ridicule..."jean jacques rosseau enunciated your socialistic theory nearly two centuries ago...." ernest and the colonel go back and forth a bit....but really, this is a vehicle for london to preach a sermon and it is a bore. there is at least one instance where the ole nugget show us don't tell us or some variation thereon is highly visible, and for that, we should thank london....treasure the bad as stephen king has said in on writing....on the kindle it is location 906-12....wtf kind of numbering is that? i've yet to figure it out...at the 27% read-point....footnote...okay then! i think we've all learned something here so far...recess...smoke em if you have them.or wait. a bit more...ernest repeats his charge: mismanagement.a mr wickson answers him...more or less...grapeshot...the answer to the million and a half man army that ernest spoke about. ernest ends with "it does not matter whether it is in one year, ten, or a thousand--your class shall be dragged down." the meek shall inherit the earth? i won't argue the philosophy...this is a story...but i'd hazard that ernest's time-table is less than idealistic...even if it is what...realistic...a thousand years?we'll see where it goes....chapter 6 adumbrations...warnings of coming events began to fall about us thick and fast...avis's father is getting leaned on by the upper-yucks....there is a shadow of something colossal and menacing...shadow of the oligarchy...quote from john c calhoun: a power has risen up in the government...bitt about the bishop...whose eyes have been opened...so...he takes in whores and beggars, and is taken himself..out of the equation. london uses the metaphor of "up in the air" for many..he uses this time and again..i believe he also uses it in martin eden will verify when i find it. i'm thinking against the daychapter 7 the bishop's visionthis is the chapter w/the bishop trying to be a christian and taken out of the equation.chapter 8 the machine breakersjust before ernest ran for congress on socialist ticket, avis's father gives the dinner of the machine breakers as ernest called it....ernest expounds theory politikal chapter 9 the mathematics of a dreammore expounding during the dinner of the machine breakers. (this idea, breakers is interesting in light of stephen king and his roland-story----breakers) has to do w/the people there wanting to break the trust, break this break that..get their profit back...more or less set them all back hundreds of years..neato, hey? tell wall street that. or they already know? i think not.ernest tells them they can't break the machines...there's all this theory expounded, marxist i take it, surpluses and whatnot. the death of capitalism. banks. railroads. yeehaw.chapter 10 the vortexavis's father is forced out of the university...he makes the most of it. a socialist paper, the appeal to reason, is forced out of business. there is a bitt about the black hundreds, reactionary mobs organized by the perishing autocracy in the russian revolution...echoed here. more of the same.chapter 11 the great adventureavis's father's wealth is stolen from him...legal theft or outright taking...home money etc. during this chapter, avis is married to ernest. they moved to san francisco, slum south of market street. ernest quotes a favorite poem..."joy upon you and gain upon gain...the unslaked thirst of an eden cursed shall harrow the earth for its fill...."chapter 12 the bishopavis happens to meet bishop morehouse, out and about, living the life of christ....what ernest wanted...gawd, wouldn't it be lovely to be able to ask those who clamor today, is this what you mean? surely not, for they have already placed god in the closet. topsy turvy all. in the end, they haul the bishop away to the asylum.chapter 13, the general strikeernest is elected to congress in a socialist landslide, as well as 49 others...grangers are elected in some dozen states, though the incumbents do not leave.there are some strange things happen in this chapter...prophetic? you decide. "the great german war-lord prepared, and so did the united states prepare." well, the prussian is a soldier, always had been...and the u.s.a. has never really prepared..we've gotten caught w/our pants down and out peckers in our hands. "that night a german fleet made a dash on honolulu, sinking three american cruisers and a revenue cutter...." next day germany and the united states declared war...but it failed since a general strike was called. did london not take into account nationalism? to think that a strike could stop war? i dunno...chapter 14, the beginning of the end...hmm...well...one thing in this chapter is that some big unions jump in bed w/the ruling elite...there's a bitt about "wonder cities"...and this anthony meredith, whose name ends the forward, lives in one, ardis..asgard is the name of another...."three centuries of the iron heel and four centuries of the brotherhood of man"...says meredith.chapter 15 last daysgrab-sharing...profit-grabbing..."arthurization" "the defection of the great unions had prevented out proletarian revolt..." in another month they send 50 men to congress....things look up, they believe.chapter 16 the endernest and avis go to washington....ernest has been earning money translating...avis's father is "slumming" my word...w/an "anthropologist's" (my word) view of those around him...(as london did?)mucho happens...lottsa death and destruction...told, not shown...not very interesting here and for much of the story give or take a chapter or three around this point.chapter 17 the scarlet liveryhubbub in congress...a [fake] bomb...smoke bomb...and that gets rid of all 50 socialists....avis was in the gallery that day. it'd be a real hoot to believe that wifes/husbands of representatives attend when congress is in session, wuudn't it? all 50 are placed in prisons scattered across the country....ernest is in alcatraz.chapter 18, in the shadow of sonomaavis spends six months in prison....there's a bitt about "fighting groups"...folk dedicated to the cause...a kind of special warfare person....there's much double-agent type stuff...people working both sides of the fence to get the goods. there's a bitt about "the passport system"....which sounds like 'papers' that all must carry.some bitts & pieces about members who, like james bond, both male and female, did daring deeds.avis is accompanied to a hideout--to the property of mr wickson, in the sonoma mountains...near the village of glen ellen.chapter 19, transformationernest tells avis, via letter, that she must make herself over...to avoid capture, execution by the oligarch. there's bitts & pieces about "the red virgin" and the "frisco reds"...spy-like folk, spec-war-like folk. some characters from earlier are revisited--the two colonels...jackson's lawyer is given a name here....joseph hurd...chapter 20 a lost oligarch...earlier, it says the last oligarch?avis becomes "mary holmes"...when ernest arrives, there is a scene played out where he does not recognize her. this, unfortunately, is not believable...we are, alas, told too much, rather than being shown this. but remember, treasure the badchapter 21, the roaring abysmal beastthe oligarchs had succeeded in devising a governmental machine, as intricate as it was vast, that worked--and this despite all our efforts to clog and hamper this is interesting. so? what's the point? clogging for clogging's sake? let's dance?in a nut shell...ernest and avis in this manuscript are opposed to the idea that jackson lost his arm and wasn't taken care of...and for that reason, we need to turn the country on its head and institute new forms of gov't? getting up on the soapbox and condemning the christian for failing to take care of his fellow man didn't work, so...so what's the point?there's a bitt about 'mercenaries' a real interesting idea as this is something that happens now and here it happens on a large scale...could it, yes it could happen on a large scale here and now....while the 'helpless mass of the population, the people of the abyss, as sinking into a brutish apathy of content w/misery.' as jefferson wrote in the declaration, all experience has shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, etc etc.there's bitts about the building of ardis, a wonder city....the building of asgard...ardis completed in 1942, asgard not until 1984.chapter 22 the chicago commune'ernest had largely planned the first revolt, and the date set had been somewhere early in the spring of 1918.' (this is the fall of 1917 here now) and this is another interesting piece, like the germans attacking honolulu in the earlier chapter...this is what? a year off from the russian revolution?chicago will be the epicenter, my word, not london's....'the people of the abyss were tormented out of their apathy.' avis and others are sent to chicago as the oligarch has learned of the plans for the revolt and will use agent-provocateur to hinder the revolt.lots of bloodshed.chapter 23 the people of the abysspandemonium all around...some interesting scenes...skyscraper fighting....from building to building...reading it w/the benefit/hindrance of our modern age, tee-vee, etc etc...i wonder if the images i see--based on teevee images of war--are what london saw? lots of bloodshed.chapter 24 nightmarecont'd riot, pandemonium, bloodshed, ethnic cleansing, killing of wounded, bodies heaped togetheravis is eventually rescued from it all. she finds herself w/ernest again.chapter 25 the terroristsback in new york...this chapter deals with the continued disaster that had befallen the cause with a capital c. ...there is added info from meredith, as there has been throughout the read, bitts about groups that sound like gangs...the danites...the widows of war...berserkers, valkyries....etc.the manuscript breaks off in the middle of a sentence...avis either fled or was captured...ernest it was known was executed...seven centuries have passed since these events described by avis in the manuscript, commented upon by meredith from ardis.5-stars? meh...5-stars for effort. there is some good narration here, as well as some bad...the places where london told us, instead of showing us...that 1st obvious one where ernest is arguing with the other and the other side is not really given voice...we're told he said this or that, but the colonel does not say it...we are told...we are not shown.as the other place mentioned above, told not shown.there are large sections of preaching, ernest/london telling the world what's wrong with the world, the answer, socialism. and what would be the point of arguing the story? that is what ernest believed, what, i take it? that london believed? or a fraction of it? perhaps.and i am out of room!
A dystopian novel, the precursor to Orwell’s 1984, that has echoes of today’s ascendance of the “One Percent,” or the Oligarchy as London called it during his day.The device used to convey the story is an interesting one: a historical record kept by the wife, Avis Everhard, of the founder of the Revolution, Ernest Everhard, of an uprising that raged against the Oligarchy for 300 years before Socialism finally took hold in the form of the Brotherhood of Man (BOM); this manuscript has been found 700 years after it was written in the early 1900s, and 400 years into the development of BOM. The curator of the manuscript, one Anthony Meredith, is able to add footnotes to explain historical details that have occurred between then and now (circa 2600AD) without taking away from the pace of the main story line. Anthony also gives us glimpses of his world of BOM where there are no more strikes, no quarrels, no cream or butter (what do they eat?), no pedlars, no thievery, no poor housing, no bankruptcies, no corporate lawyers, and no insurance - a veritable utopia after years of struggle by the proletariat.Despite the enormous wealth that Jack London garnered in his short life as a writer, he was an avowed socialist, and this novel, written towards the end of his life, is his manifesto, and it reads like one, for the book is full of speeches (Ernest is a stand-in for Jack) and the narrative creates a horrifying picture of a dystopia without telling a story as a novel should. Political ideologies are bandied about blatantly. The premise is simply that the Oligarchy is slowly gaining ascendance in the early 1900’s (isn’t that true of today as well?) at the expense of the free market, and is amassing surpluses while the proletariat is getting poorer. By using its vast financial resources, the Oligarchy divides and conquers by funding professionals, trade unions, the military, and other organizations that are vital to its growth, at the expense of the downtrodden masses. The philosophy of the Oligarchy is “Combination is better than Competition.” The Socialists, who are pitted against the Oligarchy, espouse “Meeting Combination with Greater Combination.” The mounting confrontation between the Oligarchy and the Socialists finally breaks out into open warfare that lasts 300 years, but we are spared the whole episode. We just get a taste of the Revolution’s start in 1913 and its first few years when the Socialists are on the defensive, and the narrative ends in mid sentence (another good device to show the authenticity of Avis’s manuscript) as if its writer had to suddenly drop everything and run into hiding. There are some flaws in London’s plot. I fail to see how the Oligarchy could wipe out the middle class at home and abroad and survive if there is no one left to buy it’s “surpluses.” “Greed” is another un-factored element in the Socialist cause; just as it led to the downfall of various socialist regimes in the 1990’s and fueled countless boom-bust cycles in the capitalist stock market, greed is also likely penetrate BOM at some point and lead to its eventual downfall.The characters come across as wooden and we don’t really get a sense of how they feel even though we know how they think. And the adulation that Avis showers upon her husband is a bit nauseating at times - did London seek such reverence? And yet the final scene, the battle for Chicago is well painted from Avis’s viewpoint, where chaos reigns and it is hard to say who is winning or losing, all that is evident is the destruction of war that leaves its cruel mark all over the landscape. It is left to Anthony Meredith, 700 years later, to shed light on what really happened during that seminal event and how it served as the genesis for a 300-year struggle of many such uprisings before the evil Oligarchy was finally brought to heel.A different kind of London book, not one capturing his experiences in the wild, but one showcasing his beliefs about the world and its future. We, of course, do not have to agree with him, although he pushes some buttons that make us stop and think.
What do You think about The Iron Heel (2010)?
I give this book 5 stars for being revolutionary, in more ways than one. When it was written, I think the closest there was to the dystopian genre was H.G. Well's Time Machine. It was a leader in that sense, but it was also incredibly predictive and insightful to many future events. I had to stop reading several times to check the original copyright of the book. Was it really only written in 1908? How on earth did Jack London, the author best known for books like Call of the Wild and White Fang, with frightening accuracy, predict the events of WWI, the Japanese military aggresive society, and more?Now, I'm not a Socialist, and I don't consider myself very political in general. So when this book began to sound more and more like Socialist propoganda, I was a little turned off. But I still rate this 5 stars for the way the author expressed his political views. I'd never heard things described so simplistically and logically. It was very impressive.I was also impressed by the creative format of the book, which is penned several centuries in the future (2600 A.D.) by scholar Anthony Meredith. The narrator (Meredith) reads to us from the "Everhard Manuscript", which was written by Avis Everhard who lived during the turn of the 20th century. The manuscript covers the period of 1912 through 1932 and centers around Avis' experiences with the young revolutionary Ernest Everhard.I don't want to give too much of the novel away, because I really think that a lot of my friends would enjoy this book. It's an easy compelling read and it's oddly relavent to today's political atmosphere.
—Edie
London's novel is written with an interesting narrative stucture. It is in the first person perspective of a character who is not intitially the novel's hero, and is introduced and annotated by a fictional historian supposedly 700 years in the future. Avis Everhard (nee Cunningham) is a somewhat frustrating character. Scratch that. She is irritating. She is the narrator of the novel, which is meant to be her journal. The biggest issue that I take with Avis is how blinded she is by her awe for her husband. A lot of her descriptions of him are like hero-worship. She finds no fault in anything that he does, he is the ultimate perfection in her eyes in all ways. There are probably thirty or forty pages in the book that are just Avis recording the conversations/debates that Ernest has with other people, ultimately resulting in an intellectual smack down because Ernest is just so super mega awesome and intelligent and nobody is stronger or smarter or has better features or is more kingly and did I mention how aweesome and smart he is and how he is massive and his muscles ripple as he gave that fuckin incredible lecture about socailism and he is going to rock the world of the proletariat...The story starts to pick up in the second half as Avis becomes more of a rebel and an actor in the socialist revolution. It is interesting to see how it really develops into a dystopia, with the Oligarchy crushing down on the population. The footnotes from the fictional historian are interesting as well, because they represent the hope for the future. The future society is run by socialism. Everyone is happy, and the concept of poverty or strikes or any of the negative aspects of early twentieth century life are completely foreign to these people. It's a nice touch, because even though things go to hell, you know that in the end, it will get better.
—Lucille
My old 1970ish paperback has an introduction by Howard Zinn that's very well done. My only prior reading of Zinn was his A People's History of the United States: 1492-Present by Howard Zinn. I don't care for him too much as a historian due to his bias, but he is readable. He seems to like "Iron Heel" a lot, too.My first impression was a weird one. It kind of reminds me of Atlas Shrugged for some reason. I don't think London & Rand could be further apart politically, though. Every comparison I make just proves out the differences, yet I still have the impression. The story didn't do a lot for me. I don't care for the style or anything else about it. Moving on.
—Jim
