White Fang by Jack London (good book recommendations txt) ๐
Description
White Fang is Jack Londonโs companion novel to The Call of the Wild. In The Call of the Wild we follow a dogโs journey from domestication to wilderness, but in White Fang we see the opposite: a wild wolf-dog captured by men and eventually domesticated.
White Fangโs journey isnโt an easy one; both the wild and civilization have their share of brutal violence. But he eventually seems happy in a home with a loving family. When read side-by-side with The Call of the Wild, White Fang poses an interesting question: is wilderness really an improvement over civilization? Is there one right way to live?
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- Author: Jack London
Read book online ยซWhite Fang by Jack London (good book recommendations txt) ๐ยป. Author - Jack London
โHeโs all in, poor devil,โ muttered the master.
โWeโll see about that,โ asserted the Judge, as he started for the telephone.
โFrankly, he has one chance in a thousand,โ announced the surgeon, after he had worked an hour and a half on White Fang.
Dawn was breaking through the windows and dimming the electric lights. With the exception of the children, the whole family was gathered about the surgeon to hear his verdict.
โOne broken hind leg,โ he went on. โThree broken ribs, one at least of which has pierced the lungs. He has lost nearly all the blood in his body. There is a large likelihood of internal injuries. He must have been jumped upon. To say nothing of three bullet holes clear through him. One chance in a thousand is really optimistic. He hasnโt a chance in ten thousand.โ
โBut he mustnโt lose any chance that might be of help to him,โ Judge Scott exclaimed. โNever mind expense. Put him under the X-rayโ โanything. Weedon, telegraph at once to San Francisco for Doctor Nichols. No reflection on you, doctor, you understand; but he must have the advantage of every chance.โ
The surgeon smiled indulgently. โOf course I understand. He deserves all that can be done for him. He must be nursed as you would nurse a human being, a sick child. And donโt forget what I told you about temperature. Iโll be back at ten oโclock again.โ
White Fang received the nursing. Judge Scottโs suggestion of a trained nurse was indignantly clamoured down by the girls, who themselves undertook the task. And White Fang won out on the one chance in ten thousand denied him by the surgeon.
The latter was not to be censured for his misjudgment. All his life he had tended and operated on the soft humans of civilisation, who lived sheltered lives and had descended out of many sheltered generations. Compared with White Fang, they were frail and flabby, and clutched life without any strength in their grip. White Fang had come straight from the Wild, where the weak perish early and shelter is vouchsafed to none. In neither his father nor his mother was there any weakness, nor in the generations before them. A constitution of iron and the vitality of the Wild were White Fangโs inheritance, and he clung to life, the whole of him and every part of him, in spirit and in flesh, with the tenacity that of old belonged to all creatures.
Bound down a prisoner, denied even movement by the plaster casts and bandages, White Fang lingered out the weeks. He slept long hours and dreamed much, and through his mind passed an unending pageant of Northland visions. All the ghosts of the past arose and were with him. Once again he lived in the lair with Kiche, crept trembling to the knees of Grey Beaver to tender his allegiance, ran for his life before Lip-lip and all the howling bedlam of the puppy-pack.
He ran again through the silence, hunting his living food through the months of famine; and again he ran at the head of the team, the gut-whips of Mit-sah and Grey Beaver snapping behind, their voices crying โRa! Raa!โ when they came to a narrow passage and the team closed together like a fan to go through. He lived again all his days with Beauty Smith and the fights he had fought. At such times he whimpered and snarled in his sleep, and they that looked on said that his dreams were bad.
But there was one particular nightmare from which he sufferedโ โthe clanking, clanging monsters of electric cars that were to him colossal screaming lynxes. He would lie in a screen of bushes, watching for a squirrel to venture far enough out on the ground from its tree-refuge. Then, when he sprang out upon it, it would transform itself into an electric car, menacing and terrible, towering over him like a mountain, screaming and clanging and spitting fire at him. It was the same when he challenged the hawk down out of the sky. Down out of the blue it would rush, as it dropped upon him changing itself into the ubiquitous electric car. Or again, he would be in the pen of Beauty Smith. Outside the pen, men would be gathering, and he knew that a fight was on. He watched the door for his antagonist to enter. The door would open, and thrust in upon him would come the awful electric car. A thousand times this occurred, and each time the terror it inspired was as vivid and great as ever.
Then came the day when the last bandage and the last plaster cast were taken off. It was a gala day. All Sierra Vista was gathered around. The master rubbed his ears, and he crooned his love-growl. The masterโs wife called him the โBlessed Wolf,โ which name was taken up with acclaim and all the women called him the Blessed Wolf.
He tried to rise to his feet, and after several attempts fell down from weakness. He had lain so long that his muscles had lost their cunning, and all the strength had gone out of them. He felt a little shame because of his weakness, as though, forsooth, he were failing the gods in the service he owed them. Because of this he made heroic efforts to arise and at last he stood on his four legs, tottering and swaying back and forth.
โThe Blessed Wolf!โ chorused the women.
Judge Scott surveyed them triumphantly.
โOut of your own mouths be it,โ he said. โJust as I contended right along. No mere dog could have done what he did. Heโs a wolf.โ
โA Blessed Wolf,โ amended the Judgeโs wife.
โYes, Blessed Wolf,โ agreed the Judge. โAnd henceforth that shall be my name for him.โ
โHeโll have to learn to walk again,โ said the surgeon; โso he
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