The Call of the Wild

Far more brutal than I expected.

I'd known that Call of the Wild (and White Fang) were firm favourites of friends, and I knew they were books held in high regard - and I kind of assumed it was good for dog lovers.

I had originally thought of reading this aloud to my daughter (absolutely a dog lover) but I'm glad I didn't.

This story quickly gets to Buck being beaten, and beaten and then beaten some more. I guess the story is about finding strength when pushed to your limits, but I'm no English scholar so I could have totally missed the point!

Buck is certainly heroic (or perhaps stoic) in the face of insurmountable hardship, and perhaps this is representative of the times that London lived in?

What amazed me was, apparently, the Kindle version of the book is 45 pages - and it took me a week to read - either my page numbers are wrong or I stumbled through this book!!!

I was just in Skagway for work and figured it would be fun to read a contemporary description of the Klondike Gold Rush, in the form of this high-school-summer-reading-list-staple of a dog coming of age and discovering his wild, primordial self through kidnapping, abuse, enforced labor, and eventual freedom in the arctic wilderness. The politics of this book are... interesting? And much of the dog's-eye-view philosophizing is... verbose? But it is a fun glimpse into the crazy world, characters, and brutal exploitation of the gold rush, and what “the last great adventure” in “the last Frontier” meant for a rapidly industrializing Victorian public.

I have forgotten the last time I read a book so beautiful. It's a cliché adjective, but it is appropriate.

Call of the Wild is a short novel set in the 1890s during the Klondike Gold Rush. Since it involved climbing through a lot of snow, people needed dogs, for transportation of goods as well as themselves. Dogs that were sold, abducted and stolen were subjected to months of toil and cruelty. And one of those poor souls was the main character of the story, Buck.

I have no particular liking or dislike for animals. I don't mind them being around me, but I don't go around petting them. I expected this to be a story heavily revolving around the dog's perspective and picked up this book just to see how this guy could fill so many pages, with the story of a dog; the content was bound to get repetitive. This is one of the books, I thought I wouldn't like, but ended up loving. It is very unusual.

The author often went outside the perspective of the dog - you wouldn't realize the pages turning, and there's a certain freshness and energy to the story throughout.

After the sudden change of circumstances in Buck's life, in the first chapter which heralds the transformation of a pampered pet into a beast; there is a disillusionment - and the new reality filled with a chain of transient, cruel, owners(with clubs as a means of ‘discipline') teaches him the ‘law of club and fang'.

The first part of his journey is about survival. The second part is his life with his final and favorite owner.
*The third and final is the Call of the Wild.

If I start describing them, the review might end up longer than the book. I'd rather point out two aspects of the book I especially liked.

1. The author is a master in setting a scene.
This is when Buck is in a fight with Spitz, another dog.
“Spitz was untouched, while Buck was streaming with blood and panting hard. The fight was growing desperate. And all the while the silent and wolfish circle[other dogs watching the fight] waited to finish off whichever dog went down. As Buck grew winded, Spitz took to rushing, and he kept him staggering for footing. Once Buck went over, and the whole circle of sixty dogs started up; but he recovered himself almost in mid air, and the circle sank down again and waited.”
This brings to my mind the boxing scenes from movies like Raging Bull and Million Dollar Baby. The imagery is so sharp, almost movie-like.
2. The ‘Call' has both figurative and literal meaning.
There is a recurring theme of the transformation of Buck being explained to be due to the Call of the Wild. This figurative ‘call' is the call of his ancestors.
“And not only did he learn by experience, but instincts long dead became alive again. The domesticated generations fell from him. In vague ways he remembered back to the youth of the breed, to the time the wild dogs ranged in packs through the primeval forest and killed their meat as they ran it down. It was no task for him to learn to fight with cut and slash and the quick wolf snap[ don't you hear the crunch!?] In this manner had fought forgotten ancestors. They quickened the old life within him, and the old tricks which they had stamped into the heredity of the breed were his tricks. They came to him without effort or discovery, as though they had been his always. And when, on the still cold nights, he pointed his nose at a star and howled long and wolf-like, it was his ancestors, dead and dust, pointing nose at star and howling down through the centuries and through him.”

The language is simple and beautiful. The novel is short and sweet. The prose is poetic.

“Never was there such a dog.. .....when he was made the mould was broke.”

The whole book is filled with descriptions of Buck, which would leave any reader in awe of this exceptional creature.

Worth multiple reads.

Although the book is marketed as a Young adult book, in my opinion, the message and the realities of human greed and exploitation of nature and animals were strongly portrayed, although it was written from the singular circumstances of the Yukon gold rush and general treatment of sledge dogs and guard dogsother than this I liked how realistic was London towards Buck's attachment of his old family and the new kinder master Thornton, also his instinct of getting back to his space like in the primitive nature of a beast I can see why the title suits the story so much.
But I wasn't too interested in the adventure parts especially Thronton and Buck's many adventures in the woods, they were hard to visualise for me
3. 25 stars from me.

I went in knowing nothing about what this book is really about and while I partially enjoyed this, the novel was not very impressive.. It's written from a dog's perspective and that alone makes it very interesting and quite sweet at times but there were quite a few passages that didn't interest me at all. I didn't really connect with the writing as well, so something that could make someone emotional really didn't do it for me.

Lovely prosePage 5 “He opened his eyes and into them came the unbridled anger of a kidnapped king.”Page 84 “Faithfulness and devotion, things born of fire and roof, were his; yet he retained his wildness and wiliness.”Page 85 “He was older than the days he had seen and the breaths he had drawn. He linked the past to the present, and the eternity behind him, throbbed through him in a mighty rhythm to which he swayed as the tide in seasons swayed.”Obviously this was written before [b:Hatchet 50 Hatchet (Brian's Saga, #1) Gary Paulsen https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1385297074l/50.SX50.jpg 1158125] but it made me think of it due to the survival aspect, then I recalled that [a:Gary Paulsen 18 Gary Paulsen https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1595914847p2/18.jpg] wrote the introduction and I chuckled at myself.I loved this playful moment of Buck: “Buck caused even the weazened face of Perrault to twist itself into a grin one morning, when François forgot the moccasins and Buck lay on his back, his four feet waving appealingly in the air, and refused to budge without them.”I did not love the dialogue that was in nearly cryptic vernacular, but I understand its use.

Summary: When Buck, a majestic St. Bernard-shepherd mix is stolen from his owner to be sold to a prospector heading to Alaska in search of gold, he begins an action-filled, often brutal adventure. The book gives several rather graphic descriptions of violence toward and between Buck and the other dogs and humans he encounters.

I went into this blindly. I thought I knew what the plot was about but I was way off. Had I known, I don't think I would have picked it up. I have a very low tolerance for animal abuse and violence. I read on since this is a classic (and not a long one at that) hoping it would improve. I also don't like heavily accented writing because it messes with my brain and throws of the rhythm of my reading. My rating is solely on personal taste. I can see why it's a classic and while people like it, but I couldn't get past the gruesome content. 

This ended up being much better than I thought it would be based on the first page. It's not a perfect book, being a bit choppy in places, but it is engaging and visceral. I'm not big on dog stories, but I found myself identifying with Buck in many ways both endearing and disturbing. Overall, a nice little (short!) book.