Martin Eden is a very special book; multi-layered and rich, it can be read in various ways: as an american-dream book with a twist, as a coming-of-age story, as an attack against bourgeoisie and its superficiality, as a pro-socialism book, as an essay on love and relationships etc.
Most of all though it's a book that ponders on the world of a budding writer, on the whats and the hows of the whole process that starts with the desire to write literature and the motives behind it, continues with the mastering of the craft, along with the many disappointments towards success, what success itself means and how the writer himself/herself handles it.
Jack London's prose is magnificent in giving a very vivid picture of all these through a narrative aspect that follows his young hero without judging him.