White Fang - Jack London
I meant to write this post months ago... but here we are. I'd say, watch the Netflix movie version before reading the book (it has Nick Offerman and Rashida Jones!).
This book is moving and spectacular. It gives the reader a sense of awe and wonder at the people who managed to live in Alaska in the late 1800s, with poetic and terrific paragraphs dedicated to discussing the brutality of northern winters. It shows how well-adapted and capable the wolves, lynxes, ptarmigans, and other critters of The North are. And, it rends the heart with a tale of a wolf-dog's savage upbringing and heartwarming domestication.
Unfortunately, the book is saddled with racism against Native people. This racism is portrayed through the eyes of the titular character, White Fang, which ameliorates it somewhat; the wolf-dog does not intend to be racist, but recognizes the differences in technology and culture between the Natives and the European American gold rushers. However, the language around these differences, and the way that Natives are portrayed in their interactions with the gold rushers, makes parts of the book hard to stomach.
I believe it is worth powering through, however. The Call of the Wild did not give me the same chills or surges of raw emotion. White Fang inspires awe and respect of nature, and wolf, and humans.
The book is told in five parts. The first is a sort of prologue, telling of two men and their sled dogs trudging through the winter and hauling a dead body of a rich man. They are beset by wolves, and the horror of the hunt unfolds in poignant beauty.
The remaining parts of the book detail White Fang's upbringing and encounters with humans. This book essentially reverses the story of The Call of the Wild, but takes much longer doing so. I won't divulge more of the story here. Rather, I'll emphasize that the way Jack London tells the story is beautiful and inspiring. Most interestingly, the author gives you an experience of the competence and mild levels of consciousness experienced by wolves. It is clear in how White Fang's actions and interpretation of stimuli are presented that he is intelligent, brutally competent, and yet of a different sort of consciousness and identity entirely from human. This philosophical bent folds in nicely with the harsh conditions, vicious characters, and exuberant triumphs of the North.
Altogether, I strongly recommend reading White Fang.
This book is moving and spectacular. It gives the reader a sense of awe and wonder at the people who managed to live in Alaska in the late 1800s, with poetic and terrific paragraphs dedicated to discussing the brutality of northern winters. It shows how well-adapted and capable the wolves, lynxes, ptarmigans, and other critters of The North are. And, it rends the heart with a tale of a wolf-dog's savage upbringing and heartwarming domestication.
Unfortunately, the book is saddled with racism against Native people. This racism is portrayed through the eyes of the titular character, White Fang, which ameliorates it somewhat; the wolf-dog does not intend to be racist, but recognizes the differences in technology and culture between the Natives and the European American gold rushers. However, the language around these differences, and the way that Natives are portrayed in their interactions with the gold rushers, makes parts of the book hard to stomach.
I believe it is worth powering through, however. The Call of the Wild did not give me the same chills or surges of raw emotion. White Fang inspires awe and respect of nature, and wolf, and humans.
The book is told in five parts. The first is a sort of prologue, telling of two men and their sled dogs trudging through the winter and hauling a dead body of a rich man. They are beset by wolves, and the horror of the hunt unfolds in poignant beauty.
The remaining parts of the book detail White Fang's upbringing and encounters with humans. This book essentially reverses the story of The Call of the Wild, but takes much longer doing so. I won't divulge more of the story here. Rather, I'll emphasize that the way Jack London tells the story is beautiful and inspiring. Most interestingly, the author gives you an experience of the competence and mild levels of consciousness experienced by wolves. It is clear in how White Fang's actions and interpretation of stimuli are presented that he is intelligent, brutally competent, and yet of a different sort of consciousness and identity entirely from human. This philosophical bent folds in nicely with the harsh conditions, vicious characters, and exuberant triumphs of the North.
Altogether, I strongly recommend reading White Fang.
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