Last Sunday, a very bad storm, which the media said had the potential of becoming a tornado, stopped by our town. I was awoken by the wind torturing my window so hard at 8:10 in the morning. I got up and closed the window. Two minutes later, the tornado warning siren was all over the air. Another two minutes later, the power was out. After the power was back, I immediately turned on the TV. It was reported that the southwest part of our town was hit by baseball size hails. I saw some window-broken cars and houses. The good news is that the school announced cancellation on Monday.
My laptop was recently broken. So I could not work at home and therefore I had two free days to read “The Call of the Wild” by Jack London.
It was a really joyful experience, totally offset the upset caused by the warning of tornado. It is a poem, with magnificent imagination, flowing like the most decent music. Not only the narration of the story, but also the story itself, has a magic power to capture my breath. I haven’t read a book like this for a long time.
It is about a dog, Buck. He was a civilized dog in a Judge’s house at Santa Clara. One day, he was sold by a worker in the Judge’s house secretly. This is the first lesson Buck learned, betrayal by the familiar. He was locked in a small cage and sent to some professional dog dealer. He tried so hard to regain his pride, but what he got was the strike by a heavy club, again and again, until he understood that it was no good to be against something/somebody stronger than him. The longing for living overweighs the pride. He was sold to some gold-miners from Alaska finally and became a snow trail dog.
The transition is not only painful, but also bloody and brutal. Buck faced two greatest challenges. One is the wild nature, so different from the sun-kissed California. He had to learn how to run on the snow and ice, how to sleep in the snow and ice, and how to get most from the limited food. The other is death threat from the stronger. Buck saw the weak tortured and killed by the stronger, without mercy, again and again. The leader of his group, Spitz, for whatever reason, wanted to kill Buck by any chance he had. In this cold, icy, and, death-threatening environment, Buck learned as fast as he can. He finally killed Spitz and became the leader of his group using his strength and wisdom. This is the part I like most. The law of fit forces Buck to change dramatically from a civilized family dog to a competitive fighter in the wild.
Jack London accredited the fast and successful transition of Buck to his birth, or the origin of his blood. Civilization could only hide his wild nature temporarily. His longing for the wild emerged and became predominant when there came a chance. According to Jack London, Buck belongs to the wild. The civilized world is where his strength, and his wisdom are wasted. It is his destiny to go back to the wild. The call of the wild is from inside Buck rather than outside.