Before this book, I’ve already read the Chinese translated
one when I was very young. The brave and unselfish dog deeply impressed me at
that time. However, after this reading, I found out something more than that.
The domesticated dog Buck was supposed to spend his
rest years in a comfortable room at ranch. He enjoyed his soft, sun-kissed kennel, spoiled by love from the family. Then suddenly,
he is reduced to nothing. Trough that tough Canadian
wilderness, he was beaten and kicked and forced to pull sleds for human, the
one who is nothing like his nice owner, even the dogs looked so fierce, like someone born to be a killer. Life made a big joke to him.
This horrible experience, though, didn’t destroy him at
all. He soon learned “the law of the club”, kill or be killed. It made him
stronger, more aggressive, and he ultimately
won a new kingdom.
I think this story would not be so famous if it ended
there. After became the king, Buck met John, then he knew whom he was going to
fight for. John’s representation shows that there still be something good and
nature inside Buck, in human-dog relationship. It is a nice mixture of
adventure, villainy and romance, and it’s the main reason I love this story.
The call of the wild is not only a story about dog. It is
a celebration of wildness, a poem for human spirit. The life Buck went through
is just like ours --- We will all undergo some really tough time, we fail over
and over again, we feel frustrated, even hopeless, but we’ll never stop
fighting. At first, it might be for our own survive, but then, it will be for
love, for our family and friends. After all of this, the experience that
provide us with great insight molds who we are right now, and it’s much better than we thought.
This story reminds me of the time when I was in high
school. At that time, college entrance examination is like an impossible
session for me. I had to fight with 900,000 students to get the permission for
my ideal university. It was a real hard time. I slept only five or less hours
every day, did nothing but studying. At first, I was overwhelmed by the heavy
burden I put on my shoulder, but quickly, I got used to it, and kept on
fighting till the end. I made it. You will never know how excited, how bittersweet
I felt at that moment. That year I went though, the support from my family and
my friends became the eternal memory that I valued most.
When Buck stayed in his sweet home, he would never know he
was a king, a wild one that better suits his true destiny as a wild
animal. When I entranced my high school, I didn’t think of any possibility to
be in such a great university. But we made it, eventually.
After this quarter, I have to head back to my school. I
know it will be a hard a year for me because I’m trying to apply to a graduated
school in America. However, this book gives me more courage to face it, to
fight against it. As I said in the beginning, you will never know whom you turn
out to be.
PS:
It turned out that they do have the movie, but it was made in 1978, super old, and the story is a little lack of respect to London's work. I was let down! LOL
