Any one named Larsson should be reading the "Sea Wolf"

[Scott Chesnick]

 I caught the Swedish Larsson reference on the P-List
We just finished reading London's wonderful tale. "Sea Wolf"
   The grand anti-hero (the fallen Angel) Is "Wolf Larsson"
A Viking 's Viking. You will enjoy it. The unabridged book on tape version
is a work of art as well. 
Read by a American version of Richard Burton, wonderful voice.(His name
escapes me). See if your local public library can find it for you on
inter-library loan if they do not have it.

The complete book can be found at:

http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/London/Writings/SeaWolf/

Regards 

Scott Chesnick / Ingrid's father



PS P-list:The Pynchon canoe can be linked via this horrible limmerick 
"There once was a man named Pope"....
Which evolved from....
"There once was a man from Peru,
Who fell asleep in a canoe......"

  Any hyphenated Americans out there who will go out of the visible spectrum
because we mentioned 
Peru ? 
Obvious some reference to skin pigments.
Which come from melatonin, a complex molecule that evolved to present day as
a neuro- transmitter. Setting one's thresholds of perception and pain to the
amount of Ultra-violet radiation you have absorbed though the thin layer of
skin.


********************************************************

I looked into his face. It was a glow with light, as the sea itself, and the
eyes were flashing in the starshine. 

"It strikes me as remarkable, to say the least, that you should show
enthusiasm," I answered coldly. 

"Why, man, it's living! it's life!" he cried. 

"Which is a cheap thing and without value," I flung his words at him. 

He laughed, and it was the first time I had heard honest mirth in his voice. 

"Ah, I cannot get you to understand, cannot drive it into your head, what a
thing this life is. Of course life is valueless, except to itself. And I can
tell you that my life is
pretty valuable just now -- to myself. It is beyond price, which you will
acknowledge is a terrific overrating, but which I cannot help, for it is the
life that is in me that
makes the rating." 

He appeared waiting for the words with which to express the thought that was
in him, and finally went on. 

"Do you know, I am filled with a strange uplift; I feel as if all time were
echoing through me, as though all powers were mine. know truth, divine good
from evil, right
from wrong. My vision is clear and far. I could almost believe in God. But,"
-- and his voice changed and the light went out of his face, -- "what is
this condition in
which I find myself? this joy of living? this exultation of life? this
inspiration, I may well call it? It is what comes when there is nothing
wrong with one's digestion, when
his stomach is in trim and his appetite has an edge, and all goes well. It
is the bribe for living, the champagne of the blood, the effervescence of
the ferment -- that
makes some men think holy thoughts, and other men to see God or to create
him when they cannot see him. That is all, the drunkenness of life, the
stirring and
crawling of the yeast, the babbling of the life that is insane with
consciousness that it is alive. And -- bah! To- morrow I shall pay for it as
the drunkard pays. And I
shall know that must die, at sea most likely, cease crawling of myself to be
all acrawl with the corruption of the sea; to be fed upon, to be carrion, to
yield up all the
strength and movement of my muscles that it may become strength and movement
in fin and scale and the guts of fishes. Bah! And bah! again. The champagne is
already flat. The sparkle and bubble has gone out and it is a tasteless drink." 

He left me as suddenly as he had come, springing to the deck with the weight
and softness of a tiger. The Ghost ploughed on her way. I noted the gurgling
forefoot
was very like a snore, and as I listened to it the effect of Wolf Larsen's
swift rush from sublime exultation to despair slowly left me.

****************