The Game (Dodo Press)

The Game is a short story in two halves, the first of which shows us a young couple on the day before their wedding, picking out carpets for their new home together, and the second half describes a boxing match in pretty vicious detail. The story itself is only about 40 pages, but padded out in the edition I read with lots of line drawn illustrations so the whole book is double the length it needs to be. I don't mind illustrated works, but this felt overdone. London doesn't help the sense of the book being strung out with his frequently repetitive prose either!

I remember being impressed with London's writing about a decade ago when I went through a phase of listening to lots of his short stories. The Game wasn't one of them then which was why I picked it up now, but I'm wondering if my reading observations have changed a lot over those years or if this is just a weak story. The lead characters, Joe and Genevieve, are more caricature than authentic-feeling people and I was shocked at the blatancy of London's racism. Genevieve lives with an older Jewish couple whose speech is written entirely phonetically with, at one point, a long argument recounted purely to point fun at them for their use of English language. London also really labours the cleanliness and whiteness of his young paramours as positive traits to which readers should aspire, before contrasting their appearance with Joe's opponent in the boxing ring, John, a swarthy man who he frequently describes as an animal.

The underlying narrative is an interesting story and I did like London's evocations of a certain time and place. The dingy boxing club is memorably portrayed and I even enjoyed watching the fight through Genevieve's eyes which surprised me as I don't watch the sport in real life. However, overall, The Game left me with a rather sour opinion of London now so I don't know if I would attempt reading his work again.