Talk:The Iron Heel

Analysis section - Entirely original research?

How did this section survive this long; why is it here; and where is its source(s)? WildElf (talk) 05:34, 29 December 2013 (UTC)

Sentence edit

I think it's much too strong to say that any of his stories actually take place in "the dystopic universe of The Iron Heel." There is no continuity of characters or institutions that I'm aware of. (If I'm wrong, please mention some titles). Some of them could be fairly said to take place in dystopic futures. (Of course in Jack London's writing the present is fairly dystopic too!). Dpbsmith 17:30, 8 Jan 2004 (UTC)

I have read at least two of his short stories which take place in the ruthless capitalist dominated world of the "Iron Heel" or its aftermath. The most interesting one takes place in a future where all of the planet has relapsed into barbarism as a result of a world wide plague. And the plague took place in a world which seems to be identical to that described in the "Iron Heel". But you are right, there is no continuity of characters and institutions are not named. Also, in "Iron heel" we are told that eventually the workers will revolt and triumph against their opressors. This would be impossible in a universe were workers and capitalists all disappear and only savages remain.

There is also a very short short story which takes place mostly as a dialogue between temporarily shipwrecked capitalist opressors of the people and explores the links between truth, beauty, poetry and political activism. I have the titles for none of the two and no easy way (for at least a few months)to get to them so I leave to other better endowed individuals the duty to check this and make corrections as needed, or not. AlainV. January 10th 2004

The first one would be The Scarlet Plague. To my great chagrin, I find that this story is not included in my three-volume set of "The Complete Short Stories of Jack London" and I have long since given away the anthology that did include it, but have adjusted the wording in the article. I can't identify the second story. Certainly does sound like typical Jack London, though! "A Curious Fragment" does take place in 2734 and refers to the "industrial oligarchs." You couldn't say that Jack London constructed a future history a la Heinlein, or a closely interrelated set of stories like Asimov's robot stories.

I wonder if you have any quotations from any sources to support your statement "Serious fans of Science Fiction also consider this novel to be a masterpiece?" I didn't think Jack London was very well known in the SF world. Dpbsmith 12:26, 11 Jan 2004 (UTC)

London's SF is known and respected in the science-fiction community, as being more energetic and less bourgie than Verne or even Wells among the well-known predecessors to SF as a recognized genre. This book is best known (unsurprisingly) among science fiction fans, historians and critics of a leftist bent (I'm a dues-paying Wobbly myself). --Orange Mike | Talk 21:39, 17 May 2020 (UTC)

Well with regard to WP such assessments need to be based on external sources. Assessments by Wikipedians on popularity, style. literary quality ans style are usually considered original research and as such not appropriate, no matter how convincing or correct they might seem.

As for London as SF writer, I don't think he is perceived as such by almost anybody nevermind larger audiences larger audiences probably know London primarily as an adventure writer and illustrator of the Alaska gold rush (and the later disneyfication of it). People more familiar with his work and his times, see him primarily as socialist writer, next to the adventure writer with much broader set of themes, but even for them the SF is minor sideshow imho. Having written one or two dystopias (or novels set in the future) don't necessarily turn you into an SF writer and compared to the entirety of his works, those 2 novels and maybe a few short stories represent only a tiny fraction of it.--Kmhkmh (talk) 00:26, 18 May 2020 (UTC)

My personal perception aside, some literary scholars apparently view him as a SF writer as well and I must admit the number of his works that theoretically could be categorized as SF or SyFy is a bit bigger than I was aware of. A List of all those works and a description of London seen as a SF writer can be found here: [1]--Kmhkmh (talk) 00:54, 18 May 2020 (UTC)

Literary present

This should probably use literary present. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.184.223.79 (talk • contribs) 2005-10-22T11:59:27

Typo

I assume from the context that the use of "immanent" was meant to be "imminent" (e.g. impending, soon), rather than "immanent" (e.g. subjective, existing within the mind, etc.). SchrödingersRoot 20:52, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

Cover

If the book is from 1908, how can the cover say "Viva Allende"? 1ne 16:58, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

That cover is from a much newer (re)printing of the novel. 4.159.113.151 04:44, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

1st edition image now provided GrahamHardy (talk) 17:58, 6 June 2011 (UTC)

happy end ?

German students of English learn that "happy end" is not correct. The correct form is: happy ending.217.251.180.195 (talk) 17:50, 20 January 2013 (UTC)

Well the common idiom in english refering to a story's end is "happy ending". However happy end is nevertheless a grammatically correct form which is perfectly fine to be used as a general desctiption (of some end).--Kmhkmh (talk) 19:36, 20 January 2013 (UTC)

Exactly so. Both end and ending can be used as nouns. Although the original remark is on target. More common -- and probably preferable, as it's a gerund, implying action -- would be ending. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 117.143.101.163 (talk) 22:00, 28 September 2013 (UTC)

Is this the correct James Farley?

"1906 – James Farley leads an Army of strike breakers from New York to San Francisco, to break a strike by street car men" -- the link as is refers to a political boss who would have been 18 at that time (based on his wikipedia article) and the guy's bio (again wikipedia) mentions nothing about it. If it's the same guy, it should be mentioned here and in his own article. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 180.210.205.236 (talk) 21:39, 28 September 2013 (UTC)

Plagiarism

The first part of the article is pulled word for word from the Amazon synopsis of the book. 66.195.161.210 (talk) 12:55, 10 April 2014 (UTC)

I pretty sure it's the other way around. If you check the article's history, you'll see that the lead slowly evolved from its first version, with a couple of fragments surving until today. The description published on Amazon on 16 April 2013 is identical to the lead version from the day before. The same text pops up on Google Books and AbeBooks.com. It seems that "CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform" plagiarized the article. Paradoctor (talk) 14:35, 10 April 2014 (UTC)

"Asgard(City)" listed at Redirects for discussion

An editor has asked for a discussion to address the redirect Asgard(City). Please participate in the redirect discussion if you wish to do so. Shhhnotsoloud (talk) 08:49, 26 October 2019 (UTC)