The Call of the Wild by Jack London

3/14/2006

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.