Robert Service: A biography [Hardcover]

The Hobo Philosopher

Book Review/Commentary

Robert Service

A Biography by Carl F. Klinck

By Richard E. Noble

Robert Service has always been my favorite poet - the poet of the Yukon and the Alaska gold rush. My favorite volume of Robert Service poems is "The Collected works of Robert Service" published by Dodd, Mead & Company. I have the 1952 version. I was especially impressed by the section entitled "Ballads of a Bohemian." In this section Robert Service introduces each poem with a bit of prose. The prose informs the reader of the poet's thoughts and inspiration for the poem to come. I have always considered this section as a primer on how to write poetry. In my first published volume of poetry, "A Little Something," I "steal" a touch of this technique.

There are two books by Robert Service that are said to be autobiographies, "Harper of Heaven" and "Ploughman of the Moon." I really wanted to buy one of these. I wanted to read how a great writer and poet like Mr. Service would describe himself. But both of these books seem to be collector's items. I have yet to find a volume that I can afford. So I settled for this book by Mr. Klinck.

Of course, I enjoyed reading about my favorite poet and I was informed, but I was not spell-bound as I am prone to think that I would be by reading an autobiography by as skilled a wordsmith as Robert Service.

When I first started reading Robert Service, I thought that he must have been a wild and risk-loving adventurer. When I found out that he was a bank clerk in Alaska and not a gold miner, I was even more fascinated - just as I was when I discovered that Robert Louis Stephenson was not a pirate or even a sailor before the mast. How men like this could write such wonderful tales and not have lived them themselves seemed impossible to me. How could anybody make up such things? But Daniel Defoe was not stranded on a desert island, either. He heard the story from another man in a barroom. And many of Robert Service's stories were gained in the same way. I have spent a lot of time in barrooms myself but as of yet I have heard nothing note worthy.

But I knew Robert was a brave adventurer from reading his "Rhymes of a Red Cross Man." This was a book of poems written about his experiences as a Red Cross driver during World War I. I enjoyed those poems so much that I read them into a recorder and put them on tape. Sometimes I listen to them to put myself to sleep at night. I didn't know that Mr. Service was married when he went off to drive an ambulance in World War I. I knew that he lived in France but I didn't know that he spent so much of his life there.

According to Mr. Klinck Robert Service is much the type man that I thought he would be. He was a good husband and farther, a man with an interesting but unconventional spiritual philosophy, and, of course, thoughtful and compassionate. He associated himself with the working class - much like Carl Sandburg but with considerably more rhyme and rhythm.

I also admired Robert Service because he was one of the few poets that I know of who actually made a living writing poetry. He not only made a living but was just about a millionaire at one time, says Mr. Klinck. He just escaped the Nazis shortly before their invasion of France in World War II. He died of a heart attack in 1958. I was a freshman in high school in 1958 and I am sad to say that at that time I wouldn't have known Robert Service from Carl Sandburg or Edgar Allen Poe for that matter.

I enjoyed this biography but I am not satiated. I am going to continue hunting for one of those autobiographies.

Oh, Robert Service also wrote a few novels. I didn't know that either. One of those might be interesting also.

Richard Edward Noble - The Hobo Philosopher - Author of:

"Hobo-ing America: A Workingman's Tour of the U.S.A.."

I have had a long interest in Robert Service. This book has only served to wet my appetite. Robert was obviously quite a daring guy. I knew that he was more than a simple bank teller. But I think that I would rather be reading Mr. Service write about himself than get the story secondhand. I've got to get one of his autobiographies next.

Richard Noble - The Hobo Philosopher - Author of:

"A Little Something: Poetry and Prose"

› Go to Amazon.com to see both reviews  4.5 out of 5 stars