The Call of the Wild

By: Jack London / Narrated By: John Lee

Length: 3 hrs and 26 mins

What’s this? Not as desperately tragic as I’d once felt? Beautiful!

Dunno what it was, but every single time, in the not so distant past even, whenever I’d thought of The Call of the Wild I’d gotten a big mother lump in my throat, grieving mightily for precious Buck. It’d gone so far as to where I was rather dreading listening to it this week. But I’d tagged it as my Animals Pick for the week, so what’s a body to do but grin and bear the tragic?

Not so, not so! When it came to the final words of Audible’s Rick Lewis hoping I’d enjoyed the program, I felt rather exhilarated. What had changed? What had changed?

Nothing except maybe for a pandemic upending life as we all once knew it, and I’d been in the mood for freeeeedom (NOT enough to make me rush health care workers, maskless, in a bid for a haircut, mind you…!). So here we had the beginning of the story, where I was indeed white-knuckling it as dear Buck knew not what holy hell was in store for him… aaaaallll the way to the very end where, I admit, I did shed tears, but they weren’t tears of grief so much as of happiness for him.

Because you see, Buck, the Judge’s dog, he who faithfully stood by the Judge’s side, he who faithfully trotted along as the sons hunted, he who lolled in the sun, rolled in the grass, does INDEED get bagged in a most traitorous manner, upending all he knew. The Gold Rush is on, author Jack London has us all know, and dogs are wanted, big dogs, strong dogs, dogs to do heavy, heavy work in the northern climes. Buck is a prime target, and he’s taken, he’s shipped, he’s broken by the club, left bloodied until he’s passive.

Now this was pROBably where I’d started my tears-fest so long ago because Buck’s life is brutal. The man in the red sweater receives dogs in crates, breaks them out with a thudding ax, and then he breaks THEM with a club, swung ruthlessly, swung repeatedly, and leaving at least one dog who will NOT bow dead. Buck, however, tho’ he ceases his enraged lunging at the man, learns and bides his time. Soon, he’s on the trail in the frozen wastelands, delivering mail and watching watching watching.

And soon he learns that change is a constant and that no man is Master. Delivering mail for a pair of Canadians passes over to delivering it for brutish bureaucrats who won’t let dogs rest, no, but will instead sell or kill a tired dog. Which passes over to being sold to greenhorns who know NOTHING of the Up North Ways and who whip and club exhausted dogs. This leads Buck to FINally say No. He will take not a further step for these tenderfeet greenhorns and he’s beaten, whipped, clubbed, until a man, Thornton, steps in to save his life.

But Buck knows now that all Life is change, Men come and they go. Most true -but- Thornton goes nowhere but simply cares for Buck, loves Buck, instills in Buck a love and passion so ferocious that he will do ANYthing for the man. He will kill for him, he will become the stuff of legends.

Throughout this, Buck sometimes sits, mesmerized by the campfire, seeing a man, a different man, hairy and long-armed, vigilant to the night and all that will kill, a man from the Primordial soup. Buck feels that he sits by this man, and he too listens to the howls in the night. It stirs something in him.

London’s beautifully and brutally wrought prose is complemented by the lordly tones of the magNIFicent John Lee. From the opening lines, he IS Buck, the oblivious, the challenged, the cunning, the WILD Buck. Also? He’s a plethora of characters who created the North, who sought and forged, who looked for wealth and who created even as the landscape killed them. He’s scoundrels, and he’s traders, and he’s Native tribesmen. He’s even a woman, weeping that chivalry is dead, and she’s asked to walk rather than ride. Lee IS all these people, from their accents to their oaths. LOVE him!!!

By the time I got to the end, I was a goner and was cheering wildly. I didn’t feel Buck’s lost love, the tragedy in his life so much as I felt his wild intelligence, his searching, his finding.

Weep? A little. Cheer?

Oh, a LOT! Huzzah for London, huzzah for Lee. A MIGHTY huzzah for Buck and the call he followed.

Included in the Audible Plus Catalog with free listening for Audible Members.