Bonus Book! Call of the Wild

Call of the Wild by Jack London

Literature (1903 - 83 pp.*)

In Call of the Wild, Buck, a St. Bernard/Scottish shepherd mix, is kidnapped from his home in Santa Clara to be sold up north as a sled dog in Alaska and Yukon during the 1897 gold rush. Buck is sold numerous times, from French-Canadian prospectors Francois and Perrault, to incompetent fortune-seekers Hal and Charles, to John Thornton. Finally, in one of the few spoilers I will ever deliver on this blog, Buck finds that he belongs with a wolf pack in the wild despite being a lifelong pet with not a drop of wolf blood in him.

People new to Call of the Wild, perhaps from the movie released earlier this year, will probably be surprised while reading this book. According to the Rotten Tomatoes critics' consensus of the 2020 film, "It's undermined by distracting and unnecessary CGI, but this heartwarming Call of the Wild remains a classic story affectionately told." Much as I compared White Fang to a slasher movie back in 2012, Call of the Wild has some gory scenes, such as the brutal gang murder of Curly early on, or when Buck and his fellow sled dogs fend off some starving, mangy mutts who are after their meat: "Buck got a frothing adversary by the throat, and was sprayed with blood when his teeth sank through the jugular. The warm taste of it in his mouth goaded him to greater fierceness." (218) The scene in the book in which a sled, its passengers and its dogs fall through the ice, killing them all, (250) is a less bloody but no less evocative vision of doom in Jack London's world. (Buck was supposed to be pulling that sled, but John Thornton bought him just in time. The whole scene has a Dion DiMucci during "The Day the Music Died" feel to it.) Buck's killing spree near the end of the book goes unsaid; this apparently was omitted from the new Disney movie.

Like any good dog, Buck responds to Pavlovian conditioning. He initially fails to understand why he is being clubbed, which obviously never happened at his house in Santa Clara, but learns quickly. Later in the book, when he is hungry for a slab of bacon, he takes it when the prospector's back is turned and then lets a less cunning dog take the blame. Buck is most upfront about his learning process when he sees the other dogs keeping warm by burrowing in the snow: "Another lesson. So that was the way they did it, eh?" (210) Buck applies his lessons when his rival, Spitz, is the one receiving the clubbing instead of him.

Buck's lessons turn him wild, in his observations, in his traits, and even in the way his fur feels to the touch. In an uncharacteristic one-liner, London notes: "Mercy was a thing reserved for gentler climes." (228) In contrast to Santa Clara, where Buck was the ruler of the demesne (London's word) and the other dogs seemed barely capable of pulling a popsicle stick wagon, the Klondike turns Buck into a literal ball of energy: "When Thornton passed a caressing hand along his back, a snapping and crackling followed the hand, each hair discharging its pent magnetism at the contact." (270) Buck is shown to be faster and smarter than huskies who had spent their entire lives up north. In these few tender moments, Buck is a true companion, a cross between a pet and a sentinel. London anthropomorphizes Buck most when Buck processes the outside world in a way no other dog can: "Buck possessed a quality that made for greatness - imagination." (228)

My favourite part of Call of the Wild, a scene I'd never heard discussed, is when John Thornton bets on Buck being the strongest dog in the town. Other prospectors bet on their dogs being able to pull 500, 600 or even 700 pounds on a sled; Thornton, in a fit of enthusiasm, bets that Buck can pull 1,000 pounds. (Thornton's overenthusiasm is evident in his failure to bet on 750 or 800. If you ever have a chance to select a teammate for The Price Is Right, don't pick John Thornton.) London tracks each inch of Buck's Herculean effort to pull the sacks of flour. (259-262) The whole time, the reader is spirited away from the harshness of the wild and cold in order to root for Buck.

Eight years later, finally returning to Jack London was even more fun than I thought it would be. Call of the Wild is an extremely fast read, clocking in at about an hour and a half for me, including a break to get my morning coffee. London is nowhere near what 2020 audiences would call politically correct, especially in his treatment of the Yeehats, although in the world of Buck, virtually everyone except him or Thornton is a bad guy anyway. The north is cold and isolating, but a dog like Buck, part hero, part victim, part avenger, finds his home there.

Ease of Reading: 10

Educational Content: 2

*My edition of Call of the Wild is a two-part compendium that also includes White Fang (1906), which I reviewed back in 2012. Call of the Wild's pages run from 195-278.

2020 has been a fun year for this blog so far. In keeping with my tradition of not reviewing the same author twice in the same calendar year, I've accidentally punted or forgotten some of my favourite authors. During the venerable Book a Week of 2012, I last read H.G. Wells (In the Days of the Comet) and first read Douglas Adams (The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy; I also read The Restaurant at the End of the Universe in 2018).

Last month, I read Life, the Universe and Everything, raising my Douglas Adams count to 3. Earlier this month, I read The Food of the Gods, raising my H.G. Wells count to many more than that, although most of my Wells reading far predates this blog.