Erämaan Kutsu
1903
A novel written in the late 19th century. The story centers around Buck, a domesticated dog whose life drastically changes after being uprooted from his comfortable home in California to the harsh wilderness of the Yukon during the Gold Rush. As he faces the brutal realities of survival, Buck's instincts awaken, leading him on a transformative journey back to his primal roots. The opening of the novel introduces Buck as a strong and proud dog living a pampered life with Judge Miller's family. He enjoys freedom on the estate, where he is respected and loved. However, this peaceful existence is shattered when Manuel, a gardener with gambling debts, kidnaps him, leading to a harrowing train journey that reveals the dangers lurking in his future. As Buck struggles with his new circumstances, he encounters abuse and competition among other dogs, setting the stage for his evolution from a domesticated pet to a wild, self-reliant creature. The harshness of his new environment forces Buck to adapt quickly and learn about the violent reality of survival in the wilderness.
Editions
X-Ray
“He was mastered by the sheer surging of life, the tidal wave of being, the perfect joy of each separate muscle, joint, and sinew in that it was everything that was not death, that it was aglow and rampant, expressing itself in movement, flying exultantly under the stars.””
— Jack London
“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 a 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 in 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.””
— Jack London
“But especially he loved to run in the dim twilight of the summer midnights, listening to the subdued and sleepy murmurs of the forest, reading signs and sounds as a man may read a book, and seeking for the mysterious something that called -- called, waking or sleeping, at all times, for him to come.””
— Jack London
“He had learned well the law of club and fang, and he never forewent an advantage or drew back from a foe he had started on the way to Death. He had lessoned from Spitz, and from the chief fighting dogs of the police and mail, and knew there was no middle course. He must master or be mastered; while to show mercy was a weakness. mercy did not exist in the primordial life. It was misunderstood for fear, and such misunderstandings made for death. Kill or be killed, eat or be eaten, was the law; and this mandate, down out of the depths of Time, he obeyed.””
— Jack London
“Deep in the forest a call was sounding, and as often as he heard this call, mysteriously thrilling and luring, he felt compelled to turn his back upon the fire and the beaten earth around it, and to plunge into the forest, and on and on, he knew not where or why; nor did he wonder where or why, the call sounding imperiously, deep in the forest.””
— Jack London
“Love, genuine passionate love, was his for the first time.””
— Jack London
“He was a killer, a thing that preyed, living on the things that lived, unaided, alone, by virtue of his own strength and prowess, surviving triumphantly in a hostile environment where only the strong survive.””
— Jack London
“No, sir. Go to hell sir. It's the best I can do for you sir.””
— Jack London
“He was sounding the deeps of his nature, and of the parts of his nature that were deeper than he, going back into the womb of Time.””
— Jack London
