First published in 1903, Jack London’s The Call of the Wild is a classic short story about instinct, adaptation, survival, and wisdom.

It follows the adventures of an 140-pound St. Bernard-Scotch Shepard dog called Buck. Mistreated by one owner, then stolen, he’s eventually taken into a sledding service in Alaska. There he grows more primitive as he yearns for a return to the wild.

Our edition (Collins Classics) has just over 100 pages, making it a brief but highly effective story. And we’re here to delve a little deeper into its power.

Primitive Dreams Arise Within The Call of the Wild

“He was mastered by the sheer surging of life, the tidal wave of being, the perfect joy of each separate muscle, joint, and sinew in that it was everything that was not death, that it was aglow and rampant, expressing itself in movement, flying exultantly under the stars.”

The book begins in 1897 and immediately concerns the life of Buck the St.Bernard-Scotch Shephard. He’s a big dog and lives an easy live as the pet of a comfortable family in California.

However, one night he’s stolen by his owner’s gardener as the employee needs to pay off gambling debts. Buck is shipped to Seattle and treated very poorly, left to almost starve and also trapped in a crate.

The unfortunate dog winds a difficult path between various sellers, until being taken to Alaska where he begins life as a sled dog for the Klondike region in Canada. Buck’s owners are François and Perrault.

There are 10 dogs in the sled team called Spitz, Dolly, Pike, Joe, Billie, Teek, Koona, Dub, Dave, and Sol-leks. That lot start teaching the once domesticated dog how to exist in a tough environment minus any pampering.

“He had learned well the law of club and fang, and he never forewent an advantage or drew back from a foe he had started on the way to Death. He had lessoned from Spitz, and from the chief fighting dogs of the police and mail, and knew there was no middle course. He must master or be mastered; while to show mercy was a weakness. mercy did not exist in the primordial life. It was misunderstood for fear, and such misunderstandings made for death. Kill or be killed, eat or be eaten, was the law; and this mandate, down out of the depths of Time, he obeyed.”

Buck learns about pack society and surviving in the wilderness, but takes the brunt of the pack leader Spitz’s growing rivalry.

This reaches its head with a bloody battle, from which the powerful Buck emerges victorious and the pack’s new figurehead.

Right there is the turning point of The Call of the Wild, with Buck beginning his journey towards completely re-entering the animal kingdom as a wild dog.

But there is a brief refrain.

After the sled team meets John Thornton, an outdoorsman, he frees Buck and nurses the malnourished animal back to full health. They then bond and share a fine life together, with Thornton treasuring the magnificence beast of a dog in his life.

This happiness is short-lived, as Thornton is slain by Native American Yeehats.

Buck goes on a berserk rampage, killing many Yeehats in revenge in a complete, unstoppable bloodbath. Once free from his frenzy, the dog realises he is free from all human ties. This leaves him to head off into the wild as he joins a pack of wolves. In his wake, Buck has left a powerful legend spread by the Native Americans of the indestructible “Ghost Dog”.

The Call of the Wild is a fascinating read.

A tale of primitive survival, throughout its narrative there’s a harking to primal life out in the wilderness. The true calling of a wild animal.

“Deep in the forest a call was sounding, and as often as he heard this call, mysteriously thrilling and luring, he felt compelled to turn his back upon the fire and the beaten earth around it, and to plunge into the forest, and on and on, he knew not where or why; nor did he wonder where or why, the call sounding imperiously, deep in the forest.”

Buck spends the work breaking free from the shackles imposed upon him by humanity, finally finding his truthful existence in bloodied fashion come the close of the work.

Jack London’s prose is blunt and brief; almost Hemingway-esque (before the American writer made that style his own).

Above everything else, all the symbolism you can get from the book, it’s just a riveting story. A timeless tale and a modern classic. But we should imagine you already knew that, which is why you’re here reading this.

Life & Times: Animals in Literature

“The literary establishment has always tended to consign novels about animals to children’s fiction, mainly because of the more imaginative and open nature of a young audience. The appeal of the animal kingdom and the anthropomorphism of creatures has always been something that delights children and is perhaps less likely to excite adult readers.”

There’s an interesting pre-face to our Call of the Wild edition (2011).

It’s a valid point, as we can nod to the likes of Richard Adam’s Watership Down (1972) amongst many other classics for children that feature animals.

The likes of literary classic The Wind in the Willows (1908) also spring to mind, this one particularly relying on anthropomorphism. Roald Dahl used the literary tactic, as did Brian Jacques across his magnificent Redwall series.

But what about adult literature?

Here with London’s work, he was actually criticised upon publication in 1903 for imposing human thoughts on to Buck. Some accused him of being a “nature faker”, to which he responded defending his narrative decisions.

We don’t think it’s a work you should take with total realistic seriousness, there are obvious fabrications with Buck’s personality as a dog to make it a memorable story.

The Call of the Wild aside, it’s quite uncommon to have an animal leading a “mature” narrative like this. But it’s noted in this edition’s pre-face we can trace anthropomorphism in literature to 6th century BC with Greek storytellers such as Aesop.

Modern examples include the likes of Anna Sewell’s Black Beauty (1877). There’s also I am a Cat (1905) by legendary Japanese writer Soseki Natsume. Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick (1851) and Franz Kafka’s The Metamorphosis (1915) also spring to mind.

Even more examples include Andrey Kurkov’s Death and the Penguin (1996).

We think it’s possible for writers to actually use those existing narrative expectations in their favour. As Kurkov did with the above work, the title (asides from the “death” bit) suggests a cutesy, cuddly story—it’s anything but.

So why not play on fiction expectations by doing the exact opposite?

And yet, we do think most readers will associate animals more fiction aimed at younger people. Not that there’s anything too wrong about that, so long as we dismiss ideas it’s “childish” to have a mature work involving the animal kingdom.

There’s plenty of evidence across literary history to highlight that’s not the case.

The Call of the Wild’s 2020 Film Adaptation

Starring screen legend Harrison Ford, and directed by Chris Sanders, this was the big Hollywood adaptation in 2020.

Despite its massive budget (between $125-150 million) the film was a commercial failure, only making $111.1 million in box office returns.

It also received middling critical responses, although Ford was praised for his performance as Terry Notary.

We’ve not seen the film yet, so won’t pass judgement, but we do think Ford was an excellent choice for the lead. But some critics noted the film undermines itself with dodgy CGI.

We do feel it’s the type of story that demands an on-site telling with gritty realism. Get rid of the set, remove the CGI, have them filming The Revenant style in freezing temperatures to capture the essence of this riveting story.