Riassunto
Riassunto di La strada
A chi è rivolto
For readers who love first-person adventure, American history from below, and the early life of a famous author. It suits anyone curious about freight trains, tramp life, and the danger and freedom of the rails.
Che cos’è questo libro
The Road is Jack London's account of the months he spent as a young tramp in North America. It was published in 1907, when he was already a famous writer, and it looks back to 1894, when he was eighteen. He had joined a march of unemployed men heading east, left it, and spent the following months riding freight trains, begging at back doors and dodging railroad police. Then came a month in a county jail.
The book is a series of sketches rather than a single chase. London explains how a boy learns to ride under a moving carriage, how a tramp talks his way into a meal, and what the men of the road call each other. He also tells what jail does to a man. He wrote it with a double purpose. He wanted to entertain, and he wanted you to see how the road had shaped him. In the pages that follow you will meet the rules of the rails, the people who enforce and break them, and the lessons London drew. First, the setting that sent him on the road.
In questo riassunto
- 1A hard decade sends a boy rollingFree
- 2Learn the craft of riding the rails
- 3Beg with wit and you will eat
- 4The law and the bull stand in the way
- 5What the road teaches a young man
- 6A book of sketches with a storyteller's voice
Punto chiave 1 di 6
A hard decade sends a boy rolling
The book belongs to the 1890s in the United States. A severe economic depression had left hundreds of thousands of men without work. Many drifted toward the railways, because a freight car cost nothing and led somewhere else. London was one of them, a working-class boy from Oakland, California, who had already held rough jobs and read widely.
In 1894 he took part in the march of the unemployed that history calls Coxey's Army. London joined one of its western divisions, led by a man named Kelly. The idea was to travel east and press the government to help the jobless. London liked the adventure more than the cause, and he soon went off on his own.
That choice matters for the whole book. He does not write as a victim of the depression, though the hunger he describes is real. He writes as a young man who wanted to see the country and who trusted his own quickness to get him through. He treats the road as a school that took him away from the factory floor and into the wider world.
He also tells you plainly that he was not an outsider looking in. He became a tramp, learned the language, and took the risks. That gives the book its edge. The reader gets the view from a boxcar floor, told years later by a man who knows how far the road has taken him.
That’s 1 of 6 key points.
The rest of the summary, written and spoken, and the whole book: free to start.
- Nothing to pay today · Renews every year
- We email you before you pay
- Cancel online in two clicks
Questions about La strada
What is The Road by Jack London about?
It is London's memoir of his time as a young tramp in 1894. He rides freight trains, begs for food, avoids railroad police and serves a month in jail, and he explains the habits and language of life on the road.
Is The Road by Jack London a true story?
Yes, it is a memoir based on his own experiences, published in 1907. Like many memoirs it is shaped for storytelling, so some details may be polished, but the outline of his travels and jail term is real.
What does holding her down mean in The Road?
It is tramp slang for staying aboard a moving train despite the efforts of crews and police to remove you. London uses it to show the skill and nerve needed to ride freight cars without paying.
Who are the bulls in The Road?
Bulls are the railroad police and guards who patrol yards and trains looking for tramps. London shows them as the main danger on the rails, men who might beat, arrest or throw off any stowaway.
Is The Road by Jack London hard to read?
No. It is short, lively and told in a direct first-person voice. The road slang may be new at first, but London explains most terms as he goes, and the chapters can be read separately.