Jack London

Dobrodružná literatura musí mít především spád. Správný autor tohoto žánru se nezdržuje dlouhými popisy a jde přímo k věci. To ovšem neznamená, že by jeho text byl méně bohatý! Jen využívá např. k charakteristice postav jiných literárních prostředků.

Jack London byl mistrem dobrodružné literatury; jeho texty jsou dramatické, dynamické, úsporné a přitom barvité.
Máte před sebou ukázku z knihy "Smoke Bellew", která dvakrát vyšla česky (Mezi zlatokopy: Praha, Albatros 1974, přel. Milan Rejl; Praha, Svoboda 1988, přel. Milan Rejl a Vladimír Svoboda); dokonce byla zdramatizována jako rozhlasová hra pro děti ("Ten kouř kolem tebe" - napsal Viktorín Šulc). Literární rozcestník ji uvádí jako "povídkový cyklus o znuděném intelektuálovi, který najde sám sebe mezi zlatokopy na Aljašce" (ref)

Plný text je volně k dispozici díky projektu Guttenberg.

1. Nejprve si přečtěte/prolistujte začátek románu; proč se hlavní hrdina vydal na Aljašku? Nemyslete na překládání, čtěte rychle, bavte se a hledejte dobrodružství :)
2. Soustředěně si několikrát pročtete následující odstavec. Co se z něho o Kitovi dozvíte? Jakých prostředků London používá k tomu, aby měl text rychlý spád?
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On his way back to the beach, Kit turned the phrase over and over. It
rankled to be called tenderfoot by a slender chit of a woman.
Going into a corner among the heaps of freight, his mind still filled
with the vision of the Indian with the redoubtable pack, Kit essayed
to learn his own strength. He picked out a sack of flour which he knew
weighed an even hundred pounds. He stepped astride it, reached down,
and strove to get it on his shoulder. His first conclusion was that one
hundred pounds were real heavy. His next was that his back was weak. His
third was an oath, and it occurred at the end of five futile minutes,
when he collapsed on top of the burden with which he was wrestling. He
mopped his forehead, and across a heap of grub-sacks saw John Bellew
gazing at him, wintry amusement in his eyes.
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3. Přeložte následující úryvek (nejprve si ho najděte v kontextu):

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"What other men can do, we can do," Kit told Robbie, though down in his
heart he wondered whether or not he was bluffing.

"And I am twenty-seven years old and a man," he privately assured
himself many times in the days that followed. There was need for it. At
the end of a week, though he had succeeded in moving his eight hundred
pounds forward a mile a day, he had lost fifteen pounds of his own
weight. His face was lean and haggard. All resilience had gone out
of his body and mind. He no longer walked, but plodded. And on the
back-trips, travelling light, his feet dragged almost as much as when he
was loaded.

He had become a work animal. He fell asleep over his food, and his sleep
was heavy and beastly, save when he was aroused, screaming with agony,
by the cramps in his legs. Every part of him ached. He tramped on raw
blisters; yet even this was easier than the fearful bruising his feet
received on the water-rounded rocks of the Dyea Flats, across which the
trail led for two miles. These two miles represented thirty-eight miles
of travelling. He washed his face once a day. His nails, torn and broken
and afflicted with hangnails, were never cleaned. His shoulders and
chest, galled by the pack-straps, made him think, and for the first time
with understanding, of the horses he had seen on city streets.