Volume sixteen of the “Complete Works” of the outstanding American writer Jack London (1876–1916) includes the famous novel “The Sea-Wolf,” about the captain of the schooner “The Ghost,” “the Wolf” Larsen—an unusual person: ruthless, crude, and strong—yet at the same time a peculiar philosopher… To people like that, the line from the song by the brilliant Vladimir Vysotsky fits best: “…I can simultaneously gnaw on glasses and read Schiller without a dictionary.”