White Fang Review

Title: White Fang

Author: Jack London

Copyright: 1906

Number of Pages: 298

Summary: White Fang by Jack London follows a part dog, part wolf cub as he goes from playful puppy-hood to ferocious killer. White Fang is born in the wilds of Northwest Canada where he learns early in his life that it is a kill or be killed world. Not long into his life though, his mother is recognized by an Indian as a dog his brother used to own.  As his mother rejoins the tribe, White Fang realizes that even though he would prefer to stay in the wild, he is just not ready to leave his mother.

From the tribe, White Fang learns to respect those who use “not live” things to bring on “the hurt.” Though he learned many difficult lessons through the discipline doled out to him from the tribe, nothing prepared him for the cruelty of man brought on to him by Beauty Smith, a man who buys White Fang from his Indian “God” through means of trickery and turns him into a fighting dog.

White Fang’s story receives its happy ending when a man happens upon the dog fighting ring by chance one evening and forces Beauty to sell White Fang to him. Through patience and kindness of his new master, White Fang learn that not all men are cruel and that not every world is kill or be killed.

Review: I have never read a book from the perspective of an animal, and White Fang is not just an animal, he is a vicious and deadly killer. I found the book to be a very intriguing read and would definitely agree that it is a book all should read.

I had a hard time with some of it though. At times, it felt like I was watching a show on Animal Planet where a lion is ripping apart a gazelle, only I couldn’t look away from the screen so I didn’t have to see it. Some of the kills in the book were difficult for me to stomach.

Next I am going to read A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness.

Back of the book states!  In this tale of passion and obsession, Diana Bishop, a young scholar and a descendant of witches, discovers a long-lost and enchanted alchemical manuscript,Ashmole 782, deep in Oxford's Bodleian Library. Its reappearance summons a fantastical underworld, which she navigates with her leading man, vampire geneticist Matthew Clairmont

After reading a classic I am jonesing for some fantasy. Have you read White Fang? If so, what did you think of it?