Partly in honor of a new movie adaptation of this book coming out soon, I decided to reread this Jack London classic, which I must have last read in hPartly in honor of a new movie adaptation of this book coming out soon, I decided to reread this Jack London classic, which I must have last read in high school.
It's a short novel, and it rattles along at a pace that matches the sled dogs that dominate the story. It also has a continuing theme of "species memory," in which the main character, the dog Buck, is able to evoke memories of his wolf ancestors and even of early human companions as he gazes into the campfire.
What makes this story work is not only its vivid description of the Klondike gold rush, which London participated in as a young man, but his decision to tell the story through the eyes of a dog, the offspring of a St. Bernard and a collie who looks like a supersized wolf.
Buck is kidnapped from his comfortable home in California by a farmhand who needs money and sold as a sled dog, as tens of thousands of men (and some women) raced to hunt for gold in the Klondike in the late 1800s. He is beaten into submission during the long trip to Canada, and finally lands in a sled dog pack pulling mail to and from the docks at Skagway. Much of the early part of the book describes the different personalities and rivalries of the sled dogs, and Buck's patience in waiting for his opportunity to defeat his archrival and become the lead sled dog.
Buck goes through two more sets of owners, including a contemptible American threesome who mistreat him, before he meets the human he most loves, John Thornton. Under Thornton's care, Buck goes through several more adventures before his human companions venture deep into the Arctic to search for gold, and there meet their destiny. All though this journey, as Buck becomes more physically overpowering, he hears the call of the wild, the voices of his wolf ancestors deep in the forest, and that becomes the goal toward which Buck's life flows....more
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