El Vagabundo de las Estrellas

Written by Jack London

Narrated by Juan Guzman

FonoLibro se enorgullece en presentar el audiolibro El Vagabundo de las Estrellas De Jack London, mientras espera ser ejecutado, el convicto Darrell Standing nos relata su peculiar historia desde el corredor de la muerte de la cárcel de San Quintín.
Acuciado por la falta de tiempo, el protagonista describe el universo que se abrió ante él después de pasar por el suplicio de una celda de aislamiento en la oscuridad, soportando la tortura de una camisa de fuerza. El tormento físico actuando como una vía de escape, le da acceso a otros planos para recorrer sus vidas pasadas. Standing logra trascender su cuerpo y llevar de vuelta su mente hacia otras existencias anteriores: desde un cazador prehistórico hasta un noble medieval, pasando por un legionario romano o un chiquillo norteamericano, describiendo de manera excepcional los más vívidos detalles y las vicisitudes de los distintos personajes que ha encarnado.
Si bien es cierto que Darrell está abocado a un final terrorífico, sus “viajes” al pasado le proporcionan la libertad de transitar libremente por el tiempo y el espacio; en lugar de sucumbir a la tortura de sus carceleros, se evade no en cuerpo, pero sí en mente, llegando a comprender que “únicamente la carne muere y se transforma, pues el espíritu perdura y continúa evolucionando a través de encarnaciones infinitas y sucesivas en su eterno ascenso hacia la luz”.
Además de esta hermosa enseñanza que nos deja, El Vagabundo de las Estrellas, es un duro y espeluznante alegato contra la pena de muerte. Mientras Standing recrea su periplo universal, nos ofrece también un testimonio estremecedor sobre la ferocidad del ser humano ante los seres más desvalidos.
©(P) 2018 FonoLibro Inc. Todos los derechos reservados. Se prohíbe el reproducir, compartir, transmitir el contenido de este audiolibro por cualquier medio sin autorización expresa del editor y productor del audiolibro, FonoLibro Inc.

• Language: Español
• Publisher: Fonolibro Audiobooks
• Release date: Jun 1, 2018
• ISBN: 9781611541663

Jack London

Jack London (1876-1916) was an American novelist and journalist. Born in San Francisco to Florence Wellman, a spiritualist, and William Chaney, an astrologer, London was raised by his mother and her husband, John London, in Oakland. An intelligent boy, Jack went on to study at the University of California, Berkeley before leaving school to join the Klondike Gold Rush. His experiences in the Klondike—hard labor, life in a hostile environment, and bouts of scurvy—both shaped his sociopolitical outlook and served as powerful material for such works as “To Build a Fire” (1902), The Call of the Wild (1903), and White Fang (1906). When he returned to Oakland, London embarked on a career as a professional writer, finding success with novels and short fiction. In 1904, London worked as a war correspondent covering the Russo-Japanese War and was arrested several times by Japanese authorities. Upon returning to California, he joined the famous Bohemian Club, befriending such members as Ambrose Bierce and John Muir. London married Charmian Kittredge in 1905, the same year he purchased the thousand-acre Beauty Ranch in Sonoma County, California. London, who suffered from numerous illnesses throughout his life, died on his ranch at the age of 40. A lifelong advocate for socialism and animal rights, London is recognized as a pioneer of science fiction and an important figure in twentieth century American literature.

Reviews for El Vagabundo de las Estrellas

[Juvenal Araoz · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Un libro extraordinario y excelentemente relatado. es uno de los mejores libros de Jack London.

[Javier Horacio Camacho Xolalpa · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

"A veces creo que vivimos las cosas sólo para poder decir que sucedieron, que no le sucedió a otro, me sucedió a mí"

Llegué al libro por que me recomendaron la película "The Jacket" (2005), en español "Regresiones de un hombre muerto"; dirigida por John Maybury y protagonizada por Adrien Brody y Keira Knightley; no por que se basara en ella, sino por algo aún más curioso, te lo cuento: supuestamente, Massy Tadjedin, escribió el guion basándose en una historia de Tom Bleecker y Marc Rocco, quienes se basaron en la novela The jacket (1915), de Jack London. ¡Que tal!

El Vagabundo de las Estrellas son las memorias de Darrell Standing, un profesor de agronomía de la Universidad de California condenado a muerte por el asesinato de un colega académico. Enserio, tienes que leerla, es una descripción bastante decadente del sistema penitenciario de California, pero eso es apenas la superficie, porque también es un relato sobre la voluntad inquebrantable de un condenado a cadena perpetua que resiste al sufrimiento con un espíritu fuerte, con la plena voluntad de vivir apasionadamente el hoy, un "hoy" lleno de aventuras que mutaban a diario, que componen un relato fantásticamente crudo, real y agresivo, pero no nos equivoquemos, por que las historias que aquí nos cuentan son tan reales como la vida misma, esconden los defectos y las virtudes de la humanidad, y son el reflejo de lo que llevamos escrito en la piel y grabado en las pupilas.

Leí en una opinión que "es una de sus novelas más personales", si esta novela fue una especie de terapia para London, acertó. Es un libro apasionante y está muy bien escrito, tiene una prosa llena de energía y empatía con el sufrimiento de los presos y los lazos de camaradería que se crean entre ellos; es un péndulo entre la brutalidad y la belleza, entre la horrible pesadilla de la camisa de fuerza y el aislamiento del calabozo y los vívidos y brillantes sueños de otros tiempos. Quizás, como reflexiona Darrell: "A veces la vida sólo puede comenzar de verdad al saber que todo puede terminar aun cuando menos lo quieras."

[thecrow2 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Jack London`s book is a so called reincarnation story which was a popular genre at the beginning of the 20th century. The main character in the prison `fleeing` from the torture of the sadistic director, in a deep catatonic state relives his previous lives. A wouldn`t call it fantasy in a modern way but a very interesting read if one wants to discover the origins of the genre.And not like lots of others really enjoyed that the main character is an antipathic and arrogant man.

[lorifox · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Jack London’s last book written before he died, it’s well written and easy to get absorbed into the story. Based on interviews with an actual San Quentin inmate, it wavers in between reality and imagination. Each character is very believable, and London’s descriptions are perfect: not too detailed, but detailed enough to make every part seem more real than fantasy. I loved it.

[drardavis · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I read this as an alternate reality, sci-fi novel. Not many non-sci-fi novels would mention squaring the circle and other mathematical concepts. The main character is a prisoner in solitary about to be hanged. He escapes. Well, he escapes into past lives, because, “the spirit is the reality that endures.” And these alternate realities are perhaps the best parts of the book. They are great adventure stories with lots of action, as one would expect of London. Back in solitary, inside a straight jacket, you can’t expect much action. This is where London provides plausible philosophical and scientific explanations for how the hero manages to separate his consciousness from his body. It is also where he makes his case against society and the brutality of the prisons of the day.

[toddsherman · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Warden Atherton, after a hard struggle, managed to insert his forefinger between the lacing and my back. He brought his foot to bear upon me, with the weight of his body added to his foot, and pulled, but failed to get any fraction of an inch of slack.“I take my hat off to you, Hutchins,” he said. “You know your job. Now roll him over and let’s look at him.”They rolled me over on my back. I stared up at them with bulging eyes. This I know: Had they laced me in such fashion the first time I went into the jacket, I should surely have died in the first ten minutes. But I was well trained. I had behind me the thousands of hours in the jacket and, plus that, I had faith in what Morrell had told me.“Now, laugh, damn you, laugh,” said the warden to me. “Start that smile you’ve been bragging about.”So, while my lungs panted for a little air, while my heart threatened to burst, while my mind reeled, nevertheless I was able to smile up into the warden’s face.—The Star Rover by Jack LondonAfter over three weeks I was able to run for thirty-five minutes on that oh-so-freshly healed (heeled—Ha!) left calf muscle; if run it could be called. A new coat of paint applied to the shady side of a garage midwinter dries quicker. However, since mind and body are so inextricably tied to my human persona (oh, you know alien flesh wriggles beneath such thin skin, to be sure), that bloated half hour felt like a major victory. Honestly, I can’t believe the paint dried in that blizzard.This miniature masterpiece by Jack London helped me get through. My job, too, since sometimes I feel straight-jacketed to the VPN and constant need upon need upon need. I’d lost ultimate faith in humanity back when I’d read Orwell’s “1984” (as if there’s another). “The Star Rover” has given me back my belief in the indomitability of the human spirit. And written over one-hundred years ago. Quite a feat. Kind of like astral projecting, beating on globes of gas with sticks, zipping through past lives like most people churn through whatever steaming plate of pabulum prime time is currently serving. And I’ll keep limping behind that whizzing soul until I catch up with him.

[isabelx_21 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Ah, what royal memories are mine, as I flutter through the aeons of the long ago. In single jacket trances I have lived the many lives involved in the thousand-years-long Odysseys of the early drifts of men. Heavens, before I was of the flaxen-haired Aesir, who dwelt in Asgard, and before I was of the red-haired Vanir, who dwelt in Vanaheim, long before those times I have memories (living memories) of earlier drifts, when, like thistledown before the breeze, we drifted south before the face of the descending polar ice-cap.I have died of frost and famine, fight and flood. I have picked berries on the bleak backbone of the world, and I have dug roots to eat from the fat-soiled fens and meadows. I have scratched the reindeer’s semblance and the semblance of the hairy mammoth on ivory tusks gotten of the chase and on the rock walls of cave shelters when the winter storms moaned outside. I have cracked marrow-bones on the sites of kingly cities that had perished centuries before my time or that were destined to be builded centuries after my passing. And I have left the bones of my transient carcasses in pond bottoms, and glacial gravels, and asphaltum lakes.I have lived through the ages known to-day among the scientists as the Paleolithic, the Neolithic, and the Bronze. I remember when with our domesticated wolves we herded our reindeer to pasture on the north shore of the Mediterranean where now are France and Italy and Spain. This was before the ice-sheet melted backward toward the pole. Many processions of the equinoxes have I lived through and died in, my reader . . . only that I remember and that you do not.This story is supposedly a biographical tale written by Darrell Standing, a prisoner on death row who will shortly be hanged. It tells the story of his time in prison and what happened in many of his previous lives, which he has experienced via a type of astral projection during his time in solitary confinement where he was punished for his intransigence by spending long periods of time in a strait-jacket. To start with I was finding it quite hard-going as prison stories aren't really my cup of tea, but one it got past his description of a past life that ended in him fighting three duels in one night in Mediaeval France, and on to more interesting lives, I started to enjoy it much more. The British title for this book is "The Jacket" and that title makes sense as it is the story of a prisoner in solitary confinement who is punished by longer and longer times spent in a strait-jacket, but I for most of the book I was wondering why the American title is "The Star Rover", since Darryl Standing's journeys are back into his previous lives rather than into the stars, and it is only near the end, while discussing man's eternal need of woman that it becomes clear: Always has woman crouched close to earth like a partridge hen mothering her young; always has my wantonness of roving led me out on the shining ways; and always have my star-paths returned me to her, the figure everlasting, the woman, the one woman, for whose arms I had such need that clasped in them I have forgotten the stars.

[bayardus-1 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

The main character Darrell Standing either A) hallucinates a whole lot while awaiting his execution, or B) actually experiences a series of his past lives. Either way, London presents the idea in the most boring way possible.

Let's get option A out of the way first, because there's definitely a dismissive tone toward this possibility in the book. Could this be a case of unreliable narrator? Sure, but London does nothing to emphasize this point or explore it in any interesting way, so I'd say the tired "unreliable narrator" angle, while not falsifiable, is definitely less favored by the text. If it is supposed to be what was happening in this book then London fails because Standing's hallucinations tell us nothing about him. Hallucinations are necessarily representative of the character who has them, but yet after reading a book of Standing's hallucinations he's just as much of an uninteresting standard male narrator as ever. If London wanted to give us an interesting story of hallucinations brought on by extended confinement he should have written a less bland protagonist.

The other option more favored by the text (albeit this comes from the text being narrated by the character) is that the visions he has are of real past lives. If this is the case, London's error was in giving the narrator some terribly boring past lives. Standing basically has been a Western European male for the majority of his past lives, even when his past self makes his way to Asia it's in the form of a shipwrecked white guy. There's one throwaway line where Standing mentions one of his past lives being a woman, but otherwise the past lives of Standing are strikingly similar to him. The result is that, instead of these visions forcing Standing to have a deeper understanding of the existence of all people and the roles in society we have Standing use the visions as basically a really immersive television that he can use to entertain himself in prison. In the end he doesn't fear execution since he'll just get another life after this one, but that's such a basic and boring realization to get- he could have figured that out from the very first time he experienced a past life, so having lived dozens of lives seemingly caused absolutely no growth as a human being.

It's a potentially interesting concept that Jack London does absolutely nothing of interest with, and Jack's writing ability is far too weak to save it. The Star Rover is decidedly below average.

[knownever · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Jack London is a master of creating homosocial worlds. The book's got all the inevitable drawbacks of something bathed in Western, patriarchal, hetero centrism, but it's also real weird. Clearly, the book's strange narrative conceit (a prisoner in solitary regressing back through past lives and then making sweeping religious, scientific, and philosophical claims) and uneven pacing explain why it's fallen out of favor. Still, if you like Jack London here's further proof that he's a little gay* and a little kinky**.*as all men in a world where only men are people must be**as everyone who glories in rugged, masochistic masculinities is likely to be

[polaris4_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

An unusual book, and not like London's other work. The 'stories within the story' setup is both great fun and the whole thing is quite a memorable read.

[bzedan_2 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Friggin' trip. The guy examines his previous lives via meditation/hypnosis during horrifically long periods in a sort of straight jacket. Kind of a bunch of short stories put together, which I guess was London's thing? Interesting tie-together at the end, which I don't know how I feel about. I get the feeling that London didn't like making endings, or couldn't do it well, so did what he could. There is a way that short fiction ends that can be less—secure? Something like that. His endings have that flavour.