A Son of the Sun: The Adventures of Captain David Grief

by Jack London

Entertaining, atmospheric, and action-filled--yet difficult to obtain until now--the eight short stories in Jack London’s A Son of the Sun center on the thrilling exploits of Captain David Grief in the dangerous and exotic South Seas.

Captain Grief encounters the adventurers, scoundrels, pirates, and opportunists who followed the example of their colonial predecessors and exploited the islands and their resources early in the twentieth century. Inspired by London’s own voyage through the South Seas on board his self-made yacht, the Snark, these stories paint a colorful--and at times horrifying--picture of the remote South Pacific.

Thomas R. Tietze and Gary J. Riedl provide concise and illuminating introductions to each story as well as informative notes. The volume is enlivened by reproductions of London’s own photographs and maps, and by the illustrations that accompanied each story when first published.

Genres: Fiction, Classics, Adventure, Short Stories, American, Historical Fiction, Ebooks

288 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1912

About the author

John Griffith Chaney, better known as Jack London, was an American novelist, journalist and activist. A pioneer of commercial fiction and American magazines, he was one of the first American authors to become an international celebrity and earn a large fortune from writing. He was also an innovator in the genre that would later become known as science fiction.

London was part of the radical literary group "The Crowd" in San Francisco and a passionate advocate of animal rights, workers’ rights and socialism. London wrote several works dealing with these topics, such as his dystopian novel The Iron Heel, his non-fiction exposé The People of the Abyss, War of the Classes, and Before Adam.

His most famous works include The Call of the Wild and White Fang, both set in Alaska and the Yukon during the Klondike Gold Rush, as well as the short stories "To Build a Fire", "An Odyssey of the North", and "Love of Life". He also wrote about the South Pacific in stories such as "The Pearls of Parlay" and "The Heathen".

Reviews

[Evripidis Gousiaris · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 για την ακρίβεια.
Μικρές ιστορίες όπου πρωταγωνιστεί η ηρωική φιγούρα του Ντέιβιντ Γκρηφ, τοποθετημένες στις ακτές του Νότιου Ειρηνικού στις αρχές του 20ου αιώνα. Ευχάριστο αλλά όχι τίποτα ιδιαίτερο...

[Ashy Khaira · Rating 2 out of 5]

david grief is an interesting character to read.he is a captain and travels and with his wit and charm manages to escape from even the trickiest situations he finds himself in.its interesting to read of his adventures,how he goes about them,with a bit of humor and lots of entertainment.just didnt exactly like the writing style.overall was an interesting book,and fun to read.also a fast and easy read.

[Helen · Rating 3 out of 5]

(Not my edition which is a 1957 paperback, from when Charmian London still held the copyright)
There are no female characters except one Polynesian queen who is indistinguishable from any male character and the Polynesians are mostly relegated to decorative wallpaper and clumped into "Kanakas""half casts" and "villagers". The titular captain is a South Seas trader toward the end of that rampaging time who has managed to get money together, keep his ships off the rocks and find trustworthy employees so he has amassed a fortune. His business appears to be headquartered in Sidney and the paperwork must be left to his Australian staff because he is usually to be found on one of his schooners calling at one or another of the atolls.
The plots are various and interesting or, in the case of The Pearls of Parlay, terrifying. Despite the fact that there are no hurricanes in the Pacific (they have cyclones) the hurricane in this last adventure is vividly described and truly awesome. Imagine a wind that will fill your lungs and leave you unable to breathe out until you turn away. This story, published in 1911, marks the end to a period in history since it reveals the presence of marine engines in private ships and ends the time of sail.
That same story lets you see how racist the area was since Parlay's daughter was sent to France "where they don't mark a colour bar" and she goes into shock when white society in Papeete will not call on her or invite her. Papeete is French Polynesia so what happened between Paris and its colonial capital?
London needs a way to describe or explain various aspects of South Seas life and can't have Grief talking about it because those men didn't so most of the stories have an outsider passenger to ask what is going on and have Grief explain. All the ship stuff sounds right, but what would this modern landlubber know?
It's only reading this fifty years on that I see the racism and sexism in the book as well as the result of European exploitation of the region. I still enjoyed the adventures, though.

[Noah · Rating 4 out of 5]

Second-tier shorts by a master storyteller. Only "Pearls of Parlay" rises above mere adventure. The rest of the tales are good for a beach read, perhaps the airport or dentist office.

[Dogan Gurer · Rating 5 out of 5]

Jack London bizi 19.yy'da Polinezya'da faaliyet gösteren ingiliz tüccarların dünyasına götürüyor.

[Charles · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is eight action filled tales of Captain Grief and his voyage through the South Seas. As he looked for wealth, he dealt with pirates, cannibals, hurricanes, sharks and scoundrels. It was an interesting book, but not all of the stories were quite up to the standards of London's other books. There are some passages that would be considered offensive in today's world. It provides a glimpse of the world as it was.

[Timothy Burbage · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the final book in my year of Jack London Challenge.

It is a series of short stories about David Grief's adventures in the Solomon Islands. We have stories of a Pearl auction gone wrong (which I had already read). A daring game of mixed identities and mexican stand-offs. A story of alcohol gone wrong. A story of a card game with different consequences. A story of a swindler getting caught

I enjoyed this much more than Adventure because the characters were more likeable, the action more exciting, and the indigenous people being described in much more palatable terms.

[Kira ♡ · Rating 4 out of 5]

I did enjoy this more than I expected. It's a good, short and fun read for a hot summer day.

3,5 - 4 stars

[Jim · Rating 4 out of 5]

Jack London does not disappoint. While his obvious admiration of calm, strong, self-collected men is omnipresent, he tells a good story and one with a punch to it. This is a collection of stories set in the South Seas, starring a millionaire merchant adventurer by the name of Captain David Grief. A paragraph from the Prologue contains an excellent description of the man:

At least forty years of age, he looked no more than thirty. Yet beachcombers remembered his advent among the islands a score of years before. Unlike other white men in the tropics, he was there because he liked it. His protective skin pigmentation was excellent. He had been born to the sun. One he was in ten thousand in the matter of sun-resistance. The invisible and high-velocity light waves failed to bore into him. Other white men were pervious. The sun drove through their skins, ripping and smashing tissues and nerves, till they became sick in mind and body, tossed most of the Decalogue overboard, went to pieces, drank themselves into quick graves, or survived so savagely that war vessels were sometimes sent to curb their license.

With this for starters, how can the rest be bad? This one is a quick read and a good example of its author's Darwinian proclivities.

[Matthew · Rating 4 out of 5]

Captain David Grief is a hero of the old school. Through courage and wits he defeats his rivals one after another, be they pirates, opportunists, debtors, storms, card sharps or braggarts. He is an expert sailor, wildly successful businessman, expert tactician, moderate drinker, and socialite. He possesses no perceptible defects, which is one of the few flaws in these tales of high seas adventures. Perhaps it is a post-modern bias, but I expect my heroes to have a dark past, internal conflicts, or fatal flaws, at least some bad habits, but Grief possesses none of these. The stories are clever and interesting and while the reader is pretty sure of the outcome after one or two of them, they complement each other nicely. The use of south-seas and sailor's jargon adds a certain flair and the other minor characters are nicely developed and make up for Grief's one-dimensional personality.

My knowledge of Jack London was limited to White Fang and other tales of the Yukon, but I was pleasantly surprised to find a fair number of writing set in the Pacific for a post-grad trip to Honolulu (all free on Kindle). Reading these stories out on the veranda with a cigar was one of the highlights of the trip.

[Matthew Howard · Rating 5 out of 5]

Some of these stories appear in other Jack London collections, but until this well-researched edition came out there was nowhere to get them all in one book. These David Grief stories are a pleasure to read: a truly heroic hero, exotic settings, well-crafted characters, language at once crisp and descriptive where every word defines a character, furthers the action, or draws the reader into the narrative.

The footnotes illuminate the historical and geographical references in the stories, but even on their own these stories encapsulate cultural views, historical settings, and philosophies with London's personal twist. Modern readers may cringe when London describes the original islanders in terms of monkeys; but as soon as you think London is racist for doing so, he takes island characters and portrays them heroically and sensitively - often in the same story.

If you want the best of the best of London this is indispensable. If you appreciate craft and literary substance in your action, romance, and adventure stories, this is a great collection in every way.

[Đào Kiên · Rating 2 out of 5]

Quyển này đã có bản dịch tiếng việt là "Đứa con của mặt trời"

Về nội dung thì về những chuyến phiêu lưu trên biển của một gã tên David Grief. Cuốn này Jack London chỉ tập trung tả cảnh các vùng đất mà David Grief đi qua, còn tình tiết, cốt truyện khá ít và không đặc sắc lắm. Hơi khác phong cách thường thấy của ông. Đọc xong thấy xoàng xoàng chứ không ấn tượng bằng những cuốn trước. Lần đầu đọc 1 cuốn của Jack London mà không đọng lại cảm xúc gì.

[Miro Nguyen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some of the stories are very good, but most of them are similar to a pirate movie. I don't find this type of writing or adventure interesting but a lot of people might. I adore Jack London for his forward thinking though, the fight against racism was put up ever since 1900s

[Charles Sheard · Rating 4 out of 5]

Although one has to grit one's teeth over the occasionally overt racism (not that it wasn't rampant in that world and time, of course), this cycle of stories revolving around the character David Grief are all engaging, and given my recent focus on London's Yukon works represent a please change of climate and genre. While not plumbing the depths of humanity and psychology as Joseph Conrad, or even London's own The Sea-Wolf: 100th Anniversary Collection, the tales are entertaining, often exciting, and have the authentic sound of the south seas in their descriptions.

[Bill Jenkins · Rating 2 out of 5]

This novel is a collection of eight short stories about David Grief, an English adventurer.

The stories themselves were not too bad. I would have given this novel a three if the stories weren't filled with racism. I'm not sure London did a great job doing the necessary research to make the stories believable. The type of dialog between white Anglos and the islanders was probably never spoken and difficult to follow. I made note in an earlier novel by London that he mistakenly used the work Kai Kai to mean "to behead". Here he correctly uses it to mean food; so at least he got this right. But other things he describes are inaccurate, case in point: islander dialog. The main turn off for me is how David Grief treats the islanders. He cheats them, he abuses them, he kills them, anything is OK because they aren't white Anglo-Saxons. The whites he treats like gentlemen although they are far from being gentlemen.

[Al Capwned · Rating 3 out of 5]

A collection of short stories taking place in the South Pacific. Nothing so special if you ask me but it's always interesting to see how an American author of that era depicts (and perceives?) colonialism and the relations between the white man and the indigenous peoples of the South Seas.

[Jason McCracken · Rating 3 out of 5]

Definitely not Jack London's best stuff but the stories are all pretty brief and can be read quickly... it felt more like a "stories for boys..." book at times and it would've appealed a lot more to 12-year-old me instead of 47-yer-old Jason.

[Hakan Sipahioğlu · Rating 4 out of 5]

Kitabı oluşturan birbiriyle bağlantılı iki öyküden ilki tasvirleri epey canlı olmakla beraber karakter gelişimine ayrılmış, asıl kroşe "beyaz adamın yükü" mitinin çok ustalıklı bir ironisi olarak işlenmiş ikinci öyküde vuruluyor. Bir günde bitirmelik iyi bir kitap arayanlar mutlaka edinmeli.

[Eena · Rating 4 out of 5]

Zanimljiva zbirka kraćih priča o jedrenju..

[Marie · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5

[Eren Yaşaran · Rating 4 out of 5]

Özellikle 3. Bölümü olan aşk adasına bayıldım kitabın jack london’un hayal gücüne diyecek hiçbir şeyim yok. Ama ara ara durgunlaşıyordu yine de tavsiye ederim.

[pınar ⠀ོ · Rating 3 out of 5]

"Kargaşadan nefret ederdi. Vebadan kaçar gibi bundan da kaçınırdı..."

[Iqbatull Muhlisin · Rating 5 out of 5]

good

[samet]

başrolün karizma şaka mı bayıldımm

[Virago · Rating 3 out of 5]

3,5⭐️

[Kathy Hyde · Rating 2 out of 5]

I know why this is not one of Jack London’s more known books. It is quite dated, racist and misogynistic,

[ZN · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.75 hiç sarmadı

[Iulia Gheorghe · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Tot ce atingea se transforma în aur, dar intrase în joc nu de dragul aurului, ci de dragul jocului."

[Matt Kelland · Rating 2 out of 5]

DNF. I think I've just had enough of London now. These felt very formulaic and dashed out, filled with dated language and attitudes, and I wasn't enjoying them, so I stopped.

[Mary · Rating 2 out of 5]

Editing problems?

This had a lot of improperly transposed words. The last chapter seems to end in the middle of the story. I would like to read a proper version of this book.