: Call of the Wild
Author: Jack London
What a book. I believe I read this when I was twelve or so; it’s even better now. In fact, it’s even better a century after it was written, as our society is less wild and (presumably) more civilized. Few of us know the rawness of the pure struggle for survival. It’s amazing to read this book, written from the intimate perspective of an animal, and relate it to the petty concerns of my own life. Modern society, gripped by the madness of political correctness, is mocked by London with brutal reality, for the wild knows no mercy. I found it a breath of fresh air. The book reads quickly, like a flowing brook; there’s not a false step anywhere. It’s truly one of the best books ever written, full of truth and reality. Here’s my favorite quote:
“There is an ecstasy that marks the summit of life, and beyond which life cannot rise. And such is the paradox of living, this ecstasy comes when one is most alive, and it comes as complete forgetfulness that one is alive. This ecstasy, this forgetfulness of living, comes to the artist, caught up and out of himself in a sheet of flame; it comes to the soldier, war-mad on a stricken field and refusing quarter; and it came to Buck, leading the pack, sounding the old wolf-cry, straining after the food that was alive and that fled swiftly before him through the moonlight.”
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