Jack London wrote 210 short stories, and one of the last was Kanaka Surf, probably written in Hawaii in the summer of 1916, just the year of his death. By this time, it was Charmian Kittredge London who revised, corrected and typed everything her husband put on paper. Probably she really authored some of them, including Kanaka Surf. Certainly, since the publication of Martin Eden (1909), a change in London's narrative style has already been noteworthy. The Marxist and Neo-Darwinist writer seemed a thing of the distant past when novels like The Call of the Wild and White Fang made him the highest-paid writer of his time. One of the most telling changes in Jack London's philosophy is in his concept of the feminine. Before knowing Charmian, the woman in his work was a mere object of greed, her value compared to those of dogs, rifles, furs and whisky. In that world which he depicted so well of soulless men seeking gold and power, the native woman is only worthwhile to cook and procreate. Charmian was just the antithesis of that kind of woman: very independent, a forerunner of feminism, a photographer and exceptional swimmer and Amazon. On top of that, she was an accomplished pianist and used to play Liszt and Chopin while London wrote his novels.
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On November 19, 1905, Jack and Charmian got married in Chicago. Charmian paid for all the expenses of the honeymoon in Jamaica and Cuba. In 1907, they were determined to go around the world in their yacht, Snark, but they only reached Australia after visiting Marquesas Islands, Tahiti, Bora Bora and Solomon Islands, Hawaii. It was during this long nautical pilgrimage, which lasted more than a year, when London finished Martin Eden (his best novel). A travel that changed his literary style and conception of the world. From being materialistic to becoming a theosophist.
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It is on the seaside of Waikiki, in Honolulu, where the plot of Kanaka Surf unfolds: Lee Barton (a projection of London himself) and Ida Barton (a projection of Charmian) are a superman and a superwoman happily married for twelve years, both exceptional swimmers and surfers who have decided to challenge the monstrous Kanaka Surf. Her revealing swimsuit shows daringly her naked legs, a spectacular body summoning the envious and frown-upon glances of holidaymakers, with the only exception of a married couple of sculptors, who take pleasure in moulding such a perfect body with the imagination. Both Lee and Ida take on the Kanaka Surf and succeed in riding it, leaving jaw-dropped to the expert natives that feared the worst. All was running smoothly in their lives until Sonny Grandison turned up. He was a swarthy and virile Hawaiian, educated at Harvard, a scientist and captain of a polo team. Every night party on the seaside, Ida chose Sonny as her dance partner, so Lee ended up suffering bouts of sheer jealousy. Dried out for a long time, only drinking orange juice, he was again off the waggon with a lot of whisky and opium, suffering all night long paranoid delusions wherein he asked himself if the woman, in truth, was an immoral creature, beholden to the Devil, as she is described by the German pessimists, that is, Nietzsche and Schopenhauer. One morning, the couple decided to challenge the Kanaka Surf again; however, this time, Lee wanted to prove if Ida really loved him, and, already on top of the gigantic and foamy crest, he pretended having cramps in the legs, floundering, struggling not to get sucked by the water and drown. If Ida doesn't love me, he thought, she will let me die. If she does, I will be safe, or we'll die together. Well, the ending does nothing to do with whatever the German pessimists did think... The true event that inspired Jack London to write this short story was to see, while surfing in Waikiki, that Charmian was capable of riding a big wave several times, whereas he was already done for, doomed, just turning 40 (Charmian was 45). Already seriously ill with uremia. dysentery, rheumatic feet, nephritic colic, terrible headaches and acute melancholy. "A splendid ruin of a man," so he defined himself, a far cry from being that superman Lee riding the waves, swimming like a dolphin and fucking like a satyr.
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Francis Scott Fitzgerald (another alcoholic and aquatic writer) believed that all the Americans were born with fins, or maybe they were born just as they are, so the money is a kind of fin. In the case of Jack London, he was striking rich but had lost his fins in Honolulu that last summer of his life. By then he only believed in reincarnation and in the mysterious power of myths and dreams, as a good reader of Blavatsky and Jung. The last words he said to Charmian, a little before his last breath: "Thanks, God, that you are not afraid of anything." That night he fell asleep reading a book by James W. Page about a trip to Cape Horn. He didn't wake up again, at least in this world.
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