C = Call of the Wild by Jack London

 

"Straight away he raced, with Dolly, panting and frothing, one leap behind; nor could she gain on him, so great was his terror, nor could he leave her, so great was her madness." Call of the Wild by Jack London

If I could only take 5 books with me to live on a desert island, this book would be top of the list. There has always been something about this book that calls to me like a wolf in the night.

This is the story of Buck, pampered pet, stolen and sold into a life of toil in the wild North. And as he is introduced to the "law of the primitive," that a man with a weapon is a dangerous thing, and a fair fight becomes a thing of the past as survival of the fittest becomes paramount, he begins his transformation from the picture of domestication to a feral creature of the wilds.

Jack London has been gone a long time, but his stories of the Yukon live on. Pitting man against nature has been a constant theme in his works and in this story, we learn about it through a dog's eyes. Buck who is forced to conform to his new way of life or die, proves himself an adaptable survivor of circumstance. First, he is purchased as a sled dog by two men, Francois and Perrault. They are as adaptable and capable in the face of danger as the dogs that pull their sled, seemingly perfectly suited to hard life in the North.

But eventually Buck winds up in the hands of a family ill-suited to survival in the North. Unlike Francois and Perrault, there is no adaptability in Buck's new masters. Incompetant, disorganized and unprepared are Hal, Charles, and Mercedes. They become increasingly quarrelsome and desperate as the trip through the Northlands becomes too much for their inexperience.

In the war between man and nature, there are going to be winners and losers.

Buck learns to fight, steal, and kill; he becomes wrathful and stubborn. He becomes a predator. Enter his newest master John Thornton, who unlike Buck has managed to survive in the North without giving up morality. He is the final tenuous thread holding Buck to the last vestiges of domesticated life. Then the thread breaks.

This story of survival has captivated me since I was a small child, and from that you may deduce that I was an odd child, it remains a fact that this is one of the best books I've ever read. Well-written, gritty, withholding no punches, and so like the world inside the book, the storytelling shows no mercy.

I will say reader beware: This is not a book about wonderful things happening to cute, little puppies. If you are easily upset by bad things happen to animals in literature, this is not the book for you.