We all know of that author who, even though long gone – for nearly a century now - remained unsurpassed in his genre. The novels he created, hanging between naturalism and romanticism, with a hint of adventure and strongly influenced by autobiographical motifs, are known for an unbeatably unique atmosphere and show a rough nature of things, sometimes beautiful and other times brutal. This particular author chose for the vast Canadian woodlands to play a significant part in the plot of his stories, after having drawn his attention. Reading it almost felt like smelling the wet soil in the forest, stepping on the dry stick that warns prey of the threat, touching a pine-cone sticky with tree juices and feeling a chill like needles with my own senses.
This American writer is best known even nowadays for his, one could call them, sister stories revolving around two canine hybrids partially belonging to the human world and partially to the wild, but spinning in the opposite directions. Enough clues yet? A lonesome howling of a wolf or perhaps a dog in the silent night under full moon should give it away, no doubt.
Call Of The Wild was published for the first time in 1903 by Macmillan. Believed to be one of the first fiction writers to obtain worldwide celebrity and a large fortune from his fiction alone, London sold the book rights to Macmillan for $2,000, read: cosmic value back then. Apparently being a worthwhile investment, the novel turned very successful swiftly.
The main character of the story is Buck – based on the real dog that London encountered in his time in Klondike - a large and powerful St. Bernard-Scotch Collie cross. At this time, strong dogs with thick fur were in high demand, so the fictional Buck is stolen and shipped to Klondike to become a sled dog. Ripped out of his happy life in sunny California where he lived with people he knew and trusted, he is thrown into a whole new dangerous and unfriendly reality of Yukon’s wilderness. The story is about the owners whose hands he shifts between quickly, the lessons he learns to survive and transition as he goes through his memories of living among people gradually fade. Being a domesticated dog once, Buck answers the call of the wild after there is nothing left of the old life he could still be attached to.
This animal fiction indisputably benefits from having Buck portrayed as an anthropomorphised animal character, with human traits and thoughts. Recognized as invaluable later on, at first it did not earn critics’ positive reactions. Initially, London was called a nature faker and accused of attributing "unnatural" feelings to a dog. It started off a dispute over the clash of the old and new ways in naturalism and science against sentiment.
Another genre, that this story is a great example of, is pastoralism that follows the archetypal myth of the hero. There is a journey, transformation, achievement and apotheosis that Buck undergoes to be reborn as a wild animal.
Enormously popular from the very beginning, Call Of The Wild sold 10,000 printed copies almost immediately, securing London a place in the canon of American literature. The success of this book got London thinking and it was not long before he contacted Macmillan again, in 1904, proposing a new book, meant to be a reversal of the order of things presented in Call Of The Wild. From wild to tamed, from woods to human house, was its planned spin.
The story starts well before the titular White Fang is born, first the reader gets to know his parents: full blood wolf One Eye and his mate Kiche – dog-wolf hybrid that escapes to the wild during the famine. Born wild and half-orphaned soon enough, he returns with his mother to where she came from: an Indian camp, and that is where his journey with humans begins. Seen as more a wolf than a dog, he is rejected by the dog pack in the camp. Harsh lessons quickly teach White Fang to be stronger and faster and fight for his position in the pack, like a wild animal would, using instincts inherited. At the age of five he becomes the property of dog-fighter which means a fate predetermined for most of the dogs. Not for White Fang though in whose veins wolf’s blood flows, but eventually for him as well comes the day when he encounters a stronger opponent. The man who rescues him, a rich, young gold hunter, Weedon Scott, becomes his new master and eventually, a friend. He not only nourishes White Fang back to full health and tames him with his gentle touch, restoring the animal’s faith in humanity, but also takes him back to his home in California. In fact, initially he does not want to put White Fang through such a drastic change of environment, but the animal insists in its own way. From what we know, the rest of White Fang’s life lies ahead in California.
Surely everyone can see where the ends meet. Being a place of departure and symbolic end of one canine’s life, California is a destination and beginning of one new chapter for another. Just like Buck eventually blended in to the wolves’ pack, White Fang developed dog behaviours and found a dog mate. Unlike Buck acting on awakened wild instincts, White Fang appeals to his dog side and learns to be a pet.
Critics see many underlying themes in both stories. Especially widely spoken of is the one seeing White Fang as an allegory of humanity’s progression from nature to civilization and Buck as its reversal, devolution that the being goes through in order to survive. The novels are also seen as London’s autobiographical allegory, a symbolic description of the transition he goes through becoming a successful and self-aware writer. Immediate success of both novels worldwide seemed to have been written in the stars. They became popular, especially among younger readers and it remains so to this day. Hopefully the day when the younger generation of readers will say they have no clue what White Fang or Buck is, running freely through Canadian forests to face their fate, is nowhere near to happening.
Happy Canada Day, why won’t you celebrate it by grabbing these reads?