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b'The literature of Jack London has long been given the short shrift by scholars. They say he wrote some good dog stories for boys, but beyond that didn\'t showcase any literary genius or high-level craftsmanship. Well, my guest today begs to differ with this assessment.\\xa0\\n\\nHis name is Earle\\xa0Labor. He\'s the preeminent Jack London scholar and 91 years young. I\'ve had Earle on the podcast two previous times: the first to discuss his landmark Jack London biography, and the second to discuss his own memoir,\\xa0The Far Music. For this episode, I drove down to Earle\'s home in Shreveport, Louisiana to talk to Earle about the overlooked literary genius\\xa0of Jack London and the big themes that London wrote about in his novels and short stories. We begin our discussion\\xa0with Earle\'s story of how he became a Jack London scholar and why London\'s work was historically neglected by academics. We then dig into London\'s literary themes by first discussing how he used the Klondike as a symbolic proving ground for men and how success in this wilderness depended on one\'s ability to mold oneself to Jack\'s "Northland Code." Earle uses excerpts from my favorite London story, "In A Far Country," as well as "To Build a Fire" and\\xa0The Call of the Wild, to showcase the tenets of this code, and well as London\'s literary artistry.\\xa0\\n\\nEarle then explains how London shifted his themes later in his career with his agrarian\\xa0writing, how his wife Charmian changed his perception of real women and his female characters, and the influence that psychiatrist Carl Jung had on London\'s last works.\\n\\nConsider this episode a masterclass on the literature of Jack London.\\xa0\\n\\nGet the show notes at aom.is/london.'