'The Call of the Wild' by Jack London

‘Poor old Buck’, taken from his comfortable life, beaten, enslaved, worn down, rescued, emancipated, self-actualized…I kept on thinking, ‘poor old Buck’.

The Call of the Wild, first published in 1903, is set in Yukon, Canada (the great white north) at the time of the 1890’s gold rush, and is told from the perspective of Buck (half St. Bernard, half Shepard, purely loveable). Well, that may not be entirely true…he does become quite savage by the end, but I think it’s safe to say he always had a good heart. Jack London actually did spend time in the Klondike. He went up there to make some quick cash in 1897, and his visceral experiences come through in the book. It has the feel of begin told by a man who was really there, who really knew what it was like to be cold, hungry, tired, and to be surrounded by gold hungry men and loyal sled dogs.

“It was in the Klondike I found myself,” – so says London. It’s not hard to imagine, a young man up there in the frozen tundra, carrying 50 kilograms on his back all day as he trudged through the snow. He stayed there for a year, partly in Dawson city, partly in a smaller wintery town, reading books and visiting brothels. This is where he found the inspiration for the book. The long hikes, the dangerous crossings, the sea, the mountains – all these settings from the book were painted clearly in London’s memory as he sat writing the novella.

Buck lived a lavish, spoiled life with an old Judge at a pastoral mansion. He had all the trappings of luxury – the rule of the roost, ample food, friends to play with, grandchildren to hunt with – until it all was taken away from him. One night, one of the gardener’s helper’s, Manuel, lured Buck into the forest alone, teasing him by way of offering a casual stroll (we all know how much dogs like walks). When he was far away enough, Buck was thrown in a crate, shipped by motorcar and train up north to ‘Frisco, processed, beaten, sold, and sent onwards towards his new unwanted career as a sled dog. Up there, in northwest Canada, he earned his strips. He learns to steal food from his colleagues who lacked vigilance. he learns to dig a hole in the snow to sleep in, he kills a rabbit, oh, and then kills the lead dog and assumes the role of boss – he becomes wild (big surprise).

I enjoyed reading this book although I felt it tedious at times. There were fairly long stretches of text that weren’t interesting to me, but that’s all right. It is true that this was the story of a long trek through the wilderness and it is makes sense that at times it would have been boring. Perhaps that was all part of London’s plan.

By way of coincidence, I started reading this book just a few days before the 2020 movie adaptation was released. I didn’t know that the movie was coming out before I started reading it. To illustrate the nature of the book, it is helpful to compare it to the movie, since by the time of reading this you may have watched the movie and not read the book. The movie suffered from being PG. In the book, Buck is not so nice of a dog. The whole point of the book is Buck’s becoming more vicious, more wild - the chapter “The Law of Club and Fang”, for example, or “The Dominant Primordial Beast”. This spirit of aggressiveness and ruthlessness wasn’t present in the book. The movie also needlessly changed characters and plot points in a way that dampened the interest.

It’s a classic. If you enjoy literature, you need to get this one and open it up – it’s a novella, you can finish it in a few days. We should all read more and more and more. Put down the phones and tablets and pick up a book.