The Call of the Wild and White Fang
Jack London
Bantam Classics
Fiction, Adventure/Historical Fiction
***
DESCRIPTION: Two of Jack London's most famed books, plus a biographical introduction by Abraham Rothberg:
The Call of the Wild - Born and raised in sunny California, the dog Buck finds himself abducted by a servant and sold to unscrupulous men, bound for the
Gold Rush in Alaska to be broken as a sled dog. Chained and beaten for the first time in his life, facing bitter weather and terrible masters, Buck's spirit refuses to
let him die... and something deep within that spirit responds to the savage, white wilderness, so unlike the soft green world he came from.
White Fang - Sole surviving offspring of an Indian husky and wolf father, the pup White Fang started life in the harsh and unforgiving Wild, before
following his mother into Man's territory. Seeing these strange creatures as forces akin to gods, White Fang learns of their hard rules and cruel justice... but can
any of these terrifying, club-bearing beasts teach him the lesson he needs most, the lesson of the strength of love?
(Note: The Amazon link above leads to a different edition than the older one reviewed.)
REVIEW: This rating takes into account all three parts of the book. While I found The Call of the Wild a decent read, the rest of it drug things firmly back into Okay territory. Rothberg's long-winded introduction, outlining the author's unhappy life and premature death, is riddled with spoilers. Buck's tale paints a grim and hostile picture of the Gold Rush and humanity in general, with a bittersweet ending. White Fang reads like a spiritual sequel to The Call of the Wild, with the wolf learning the ways of the dog instead of the dog learning the ways of the wolf. Unfortunately, White Fang's story runs in circles more often than it advances, and has far too much space between its beginning, middle, and end. (Any book where the main character isn't even born until the sixth chapter should have encountered a firmer editor at some point between creation and publication.) That said, London's prose is interesting, if somewhat exaggerated, and I can see why both books would be considered classics.
You might also enjoy:
Dragoncharm (Graham Edwards, Fiction - Before the rise of Man, two dragons begin a quest to save their kind)
Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats (T. S. Eliot, Poetry - The poems that inspired the musical Cats)
Warriors: Into the Wild (Erin Hunter, YA Fiction - A housecat leaves his safe human home to live with the local ferals)
Redwall (Brian Jacques, YA? Fiction - The animals of Redwall Abbey face an army of evil rats)
The Wild Road (Gabriel King, Fiction - A housecat is called to protect the King and Queen of Cats from an ancient enemy)
The Jungle Book (Rudyard Kipling, Fiction - Five classic stories tell of the Indian jungles)
The Brian Robeson books (Gary Paulsen, YA Fiction - A city boy stranded in the Canadian wilderness learns to survive on his own)
Wolf Brother (Michelle Paver, YA Fiction - In prehistoric times, an orphaned boy and a wolf cub face a savage, demon-possessed bear)
felidae (Akif Pirinçci, Fiction - A tomcat discovers a murdered cat in the yard of his new home)
Three Bags Full (Leonie Swann, Fiction - A flock of Irish sheep investigates the suspicious death of its shepherd)
Tailchaser's Song (Tad Williams, Fiction - A tomcat sets out to find a lost cat-friend, and instead finds an ancient horror from the days of the Firstborn)
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