A young man in modern America is terrorized by visions of an earlier, primitive life. Across the enormous chasm of thousands of centuries, his consciousness has become entwined with that of Big-Tooth, an ancestor living at the dawn of humanity. Big-Tooth makes his home in Pleistocene Africa, a ferocious, fascinating… (more)
A young man in modern America is terrorized by visions of an earlier, primitive life. Across the enormous chasm of thousands of centuries, his consciousness has become entwined with that of Big-Tooth, an ancestor living at the dawn of humanity. Big-Tooth makes his home in Pleistocene Africa, a ferocious, fascinating younger world torn by incessant conflict between early humans and protohumans. Before Adam is a remarkable and provocative tale that thrust evolution further into the public spotlight in the early twentieth century and has since become a milestone of speculative fiction. The brilliance of the book lies not only in its telling but also in its imaginative projection of a mindset for early humans. Capitalizing on his recognized ability to understand animals, Jack London paints an arresting and dark portrait of how our distant ancestors thought about themselves and their world.
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Wed, 23 Dec 2009 03:59:14 +0100
BEFORE ADAM by JACK LONDON is the story of a proto-human in the PLEISTOCENE AGE. The narrator tells us that he pieced the tale together from nightmares he has experienced his whole life, nightmares which he later recognized as ancestral memories after taking an evolution class in college. He names his alter-ego Bigtooth, because of his large incisors, and the assembled account tells of Bigtooth's struggle for survival in world filled with fierce predators and competing proto-humans in various… (more)
BEFORE ADAM by JACK LONDON is the story of a proto-human in the PLEISTOCENE AGE. The narrator tells us that he pieced the tale together from nightmares he has experienced his whole life, nightmares which he later recognized as ancestral memories after taking an evolution class in college. He names his alter-ego Bigtooth, because of his large incisors, and the assembled account tells of Bigtooth's struggle for survival in world filled with fierce predators and competing proto-humans in various states of evolutionary advancement.
I've got a lot to say about this book, so please bear with me. I'll try to keep each paragraph focused on a single topic, so you can easily skip the parts that don't interest you.
This was the second time I have read this book, and neither reading was "conventional." I first read it as a free PROJECT GUTENBERG file on a PDA, a PALM M505. (I used to love to reverse the text-ground colors on it and lower the intensity so I was reading light text on a dark background in low-light situations. It was a great way for me to read in bed at night without keeping my wife awake. For my money, it was a much better way to read electronically than the new KINDLE II, but I can see the advantages of that machine too.) This time I downloaded an audio book version from AUDIOBOOKSFORFREE.COM, a quirky site that definitely deserves its own write up at some point. I have been very pleased with every recording I have purchased from that site and this one was no exception. (FYI, I buy the 48kbps, separate-file, download versions for $7 per title.) The narration by SILAS HAWKINS was perfect. (Though I had to laugh when his polished voice was forced to utter prehistoric growls!)
The narrative frame of this story, the explanation that the writer gives for his freakish ability to access ancestral memories, frankly doesn't work. Even if the science behind his ancestral memories were plausible and logical, which they aren't, the pieced together account doesn't follow the rules he laid down for himself in the explanation. If you listen/read closely, you will note occasions in which the narrator knows things he should not, or with an unlikely preciseness. No matter, though, both the narrative frame and the tale are entertaining. If you just grin a little at the slightly-forced mechanism for delivering the story and the antiquated scientific notions, you will find plenty of interesting things this book. (Though some would argue, myself included, that London's popular science notions are in themselves an interesting artifact of his time. More on this in the paragraph on related literature.)
So what's good about the story? For one thing, it's an entertaining and short little adventure story. Beyond that, I kind of felt like I was watching MEERKAT MANOR or some fantasy penned by DIANE FOSSEY after a long day of peeping at mountain gorillas. At times, London does an admirable job of imagining what a very intelligent primate might be thinking, feeling, and doing. There are some sour notes, but generally I found London's writing to be an interesting take on a fairly challenging little writing exercise. London later wrote a book with a similar premise called The Star Rover, in which a condemned prisoner puts himself into a trance and experiences his past lives.
The novel is also remarkable as a literary object. There are other "LOST WORLD" novels written before this one, but I can't think of any that tries to scientifically tackle pre-humans from their own point-of-view. Related contemporary works to Before Adam that I have enjoyed include ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE's LOST WORLD (1912); EDGAR RICE BURROUGH's THE LAND THAT TIME FORGOT (1918), TARZAN OF THE APES (1912), and AT THE EARTH'S CORE (1914). More recently, CLAN OF THE CAVE BEAR (1980) by JEAN M. AUEL is an interesting comparison. Both Clan and Before Adam portray competing branches of proto-humans, for instance. According to modern anthropology, this conceit is scientifically accurate. I also enjoyed reading SUNSET OF THE SABERTOOTH, by MARY POPE OSBORNE, to my children. It's a book from the MAGIC TREEHOUSE series in which two children travel back in time and encounter ice-age humans. Finally, another similar book, though it is actually a post-apocalyptic novel, is ROBER SILVERBERG'S AT WINTER'S END (and its sequel NEW SPRINGTIME).
One final historical note of interest. In 1906 STANLEY WATERLOO, having also written a story of proto-humans in the ancient world, accused London of plagiarism after reading three installments of the serialized Before Adam. Waterloo's book was called THE STORY OF AB. There doesn't seem to be a lot of basis for his charge of plagiarism, but there are a few "odd" coincidences. London's response was pretty pointed, and you can read the dialogue between the two in this NEW YORK TIMES article, from November 24, 1906. The chief difference, according to London, is that his work takes a decidedly more scientific approach to the subject.
Oh, and I should mention that this book answers the timeless question, "What would you do if your best friend ate your new puppy?" :-)
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