To Build a Fire, Jack London | Charles E. May (essay date 1978)
Charles E. May (essay date 1978)
SOURCE: “‘To Build a Fire’: Physical Fiction and Metaphysical Critics,” in Studies in Short Fiction, Vol. 15, 1978, pp. 19–24.
[In the following essay, May questions the critical perceptions of “To Build a Fire” as a metaphysical fiction.]
Ten years ago Earle Labor and King Hendricks, perhaps the most avid partisans of Jack London, reproved critics for not giving London's fiction its “proper critical assessment” and urged that a “fine discrimination,” equal to London's own, be exercised in taking his measure as an artist.1 Labor's new book in the Twayne American Author Series and a recent Modern Fiction Studies special issue devoted to London may then be seen as steps toward reevaluating and rescuing a writer who has been considered too minor to merit serious attention. I have no major contribution to make toward this reassessment of London's fiction, but I do wish...
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