Suppose you were having dreams of a previous life. Not just from someone who lived a generation or two ago, but an ancestor that lived thousands of years ago and who was not human. Written by Jack London in the early days of the 20th century, Before Adam was first published 1907 (serialized) in Everybody's Magazine then later, in book form, as a novel. The hero of the story is a modern day man with two personae; in the wake-a-day world the modern man, in the sleeping dream-world a kind of semi-arboreal proto-hominid that lived in the Mid- Pleistocene. The modern man is the narrator of the story and he explains how he pieced it all together from fragmented dreams over the corse of his lifetime. The story is one of hardship, danger, love and hate. It has all the elements that make up our lives but acted out in a very different world. The author makes it all come to life with his brutal, in your face, narrative. The characters are: Big Tooth, the dream-world persona, Swift One, his love interest and Lop Ear, his friend. They all live in caves with a band of other hominids, who call themselves the Folk. The band's leader is called Red Eye, an "Atavism", who rules the Folk with an iron-fisted brutality and seems to desire Swift One and hates Big Tooth with a passion. There are other, more primitive, kinds of hominids living in the surrounding woodlands. Some, called the Tree People, are more arboreal than the Folk and may be Red Eye's original people. As a general rule the Tree People are no threat to the Folk but the Fire People definitely are, and being a more advanced kind of human they often hunt the Folk with bows and arrows and they have also learned to use fire. These, then, are the players in this prehistoric drama. They face, not only threats from each other but dangers from animals and the environment. Part of the story deals with a kind of cultural shock that the modern-day persona must deal with. Why is he different? Who can he trust, what is real and what is dream? The first time I read this book, as a child, I was totally blown away by it's unique concept. I found my self drawn back to it time and again over the years and with each rereading I discovered a kind of reawakening of all my original feelings. London was one of a rare breed of writer that not only wrote about adventure but lived it as well. People like Zane Gray and Teddy Roosevelt (non-fiction), as well as London, spent time in the out-of-doors and often faced danger and hardship in their pursuit of the "vigorous life". In this book Jack London again proves himself as one of the best writers of action-adventure stories. As always, London's stories are infused with his fatalistic out look on life: man, standing alone, against a vast, uncaring universe. This is, of course, a work of fiction and not a paper meant for publication in a science journal so don't look for 21st century scientific accuracy. In 1907 not many people knew about genetic theory or human evolution so just set back and enjoy the action. If you're careful, and lucky, you just might make it through the night. This 2014 Kindle edition includes numerous sketches and paintings by Charles Livingston Bull that add real depth and clarity to the story. I had no technical or formatting problems with this edition but apparently Amazon no longer offers it. Too bad.
LastRanger
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Christina | One Mama To Another
Interesting Story
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A. Unsworth
would you adam n eve it?
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on February 17, 2012