The Call of the Wild and White Fang - Jack London [156]
But even in the worst of them one comes upon sudden splashes of brilliant color, stray proofs of the adept penman, half-wistful reminders that London, at bottom, was no fraud. He left enough, I am convinced, to keep him in mind. There was in him a vast delicacy of perception, a high feeling, a sensitiveness to beauty. And there was in him, too, under all his blatancies, a poignant sense of the infinite romance and mystery of human life.
—from Prejudices: First Series (1919)
Questions
1. How does London preserve the distinction between “animal virtue” and “human virtue,” as The Atlantic puts it, or between “feral nature” and “human nature,” as in the excerpt from The Nation?
2. Does the wild call because it is the opposite of a civilization we blame for what ails us, or is the call something that humans instinctively feel?
3. Does London’s fiction make good on his claim that Darwin and socialism work hand in hand?
4. The Call of the Wild and White Fang have been and continue to be immensely popular—even among readers who are not dog-lovers. Can you explain what makes the two books satisfying to so many readers?
For Further Reading
Biographies
Kershaw, Alex. Jack London: A Life. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1998.
Kingman, Russ. Jack London: A Definitive Chronology. Middletown, CA: David Rejl, 1992.
London, Charmian Kittredge. The Book of Jack London. 2 vols. New York: Century, 1921. Written by London’s second wife.
London, Joan. Jack London and His Times: An Unconventional Biography. 1939. Reprint: Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1968. Written by London’s eldest daughter.
Stasz, Clarice. American Dreamers: Charmian and Jack London. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1988.
Critical Studies
Hamilton, David Mike. “The Tools of My Trade”: The Annotated Books in Jack London’s Library. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1986. Detailed description of marginalia and other notes in more than 400 of the 15,000 volumes in London’s library.
Labor, Earle, and Jeanne Campbell Reesman. Jack London. 1974. Revised edition: New York and Toronto: Twayne Publishers and Maxwell Macmillan, 1994. Critical collection by London scholars.
Works Cited in the Introduction
Auerbach, Jonathan. Male Call: Becoming Jack London. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1996. Excellent discussion of London’s invention of a “trademark self” through the act of writing.
a
Term for a French coin, the rough equivalent of a penny in U.S. currency.
b
Stupid person.
c
Depart quickly.
d
Small, hardy horses descended from the wild horses of the Pacific Northwest.
e
In a dog team, the wheeler, or wheel dog, is harnessed nearest to the sleigh.
f
Pole used to direct the sled to turn to the right, or away from the driver, who walks on the left side.
g
Sleeping car; “travelling on a Pullman” was a relative luxury.
h
Quod erat demonstrandum, meaning “which was to be demonstrated or proved” (Latin).
i
Also called miner’s court; a makeshift court that miners set up to dispense justice in frontier areas.
j
trope made from the fiber of a plant grown in the Philippines.
k
To bring a boat to a sudden halt by throwing a rope around a post or tree.
l
The channel through which water runs to a mill wheel.
m
Clusters of dark-colored vegetation found in the Arctic.
n
Fictionalized trading post.
o
Card game in which players use a pegged board to keep track of their points.
p
Bitter alkaloid salt derived from the bark of the cinchona tree and often used in medicines.
q
Agent stationed at the post of a trading company who is responsible for that company’s goods and monies.
r
Runnerless sled; the original