Why You Should Read... The Unexpected by Jack London Short review by Evan C. Lewis “The Unexpected is true to its name, full of twists and turns.” The Unexpected is true to its name, full of twists and turns. But these surprises don’t just come in the form of dramatic plot events, they also come in an unexpected change of tone. Because, while in the beginning, the story seems set to become a thriller, it instead becomes a literary piece on morality and willpower.

This is the best of Jack London using hardship to test his protagonist. Rather than the central tension revolving around the protagonist fighting her adversity, it revolves around her struggle to keep to her morals while doing so. She makes an ethical decision to do something the right way, despite everything pushing her to take the easy way out. It’s interesting, perhaps not very surprising, that this narrative choice would occur in one of the very few stories of the earliest 20th century with a female protagonist.

Similar to Jack London’s survival adventures such as To Build a Fire and Love of Life, the story is filled with exhaustion, hunger, cold and pain. But in The Unexpected, it mostly takes place inside of a cabin with the forces behind the suffering, rather than being wind, snow, and sickness; being other people.

The unexpected pushes forward an idea that life should be a struggle. As tumultuous and traumatising as the protagonist Edith’s life is shown to be, the introduction philosophises that it is a much more human, much more worthwhile life to lead than one of complacency.

But the ending paints no clear picture, with no sign of heroic triumph or a return to safety. Life goes on, it seems to say. Whether you like it or not.

“The effect of civilization is to impose human law upon environment until it becomes machine-like in its regularity.” - The Narrator  

But the Great Unexpected was yet to come into her life and put its test upon her.