The call of the wild by Jack London

It was one of the different and interesting read. It was a story about the Dog called Buck.

The motivation to read this novel comes when I was watching the movie “Into the wild”, there was a scene when the Hero was reading this novel. I paused the movie to find out the name of the novel. When I went to crossword, it was in the child section. I didn’t purchase it. I thought of ordering it from the Flipkart to earn discount but it skipped out of my mind.  Recently, I found the audio book of this novel. It was terrific. 

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 It was the story of the metamorphosis of the dog amidst the wild dogs in most dangerous of the nature conditions. He was living the very comfortable life in estate when one day he was sold. He was not used to the life of the outer world. He lost his weight, his health when put in the business of sled where he was required to move the sled. As he was not used to such difficult life, he became very depressed. But gradually, he realized, he learned. He once again comeback . He fought with full strength to regain his supremacy over other dogs. One of the line taken directly from novel was , "He was in full flower at the high tide of his life overspilling with vigil and virility."

The transition was amazingly mesmerizing. During his first night in the forest, he didn’t able to sleep due to cold, then he learned from the other dogs, his peers how to sleep in the snow laden grounds. One can also compare it to our lives. The transition and cultural shocks in human lives are no different. When we leave our home for the first time, we feel depressed, we are haunted by the external environment but gradually, with time, we learn from the outer world and peers the art of survival. 

At one of point of time, I was so engrossed that I forgot that the buck is a dog as the author beautifully brings all the positive and negative emotions like envy, passion, greed, anger in dogs and show that they are not much different  than humans. We are ready to trade them but the dog always shows the faithfulness towards his new master who are emotionally intelligent. 

I like the way author narrated the story and present all the intricacies of the Dog and master relationship.  There are some very beautiful lines like how the buck loves to watch his master, his every move. At last, he was became habitual of living in forest. His experienced and exposure under different masters taught him , eat or be eaten, kill or be killed. He was also very friendly and was accepted by the wolves towards the end of the novel when he became free from any master.This was again a cultural shock to him and he longed very desperately for his last master. But he learned that the life goes on.

If you like to read about nature and jungles, then you will definitely going to love this book.