This might qualify for my first book review. I will keep it short. Never have I read such a heart soothing story of an animal. Written by Jack London, Call of the Wild is a short adventure novel published in 1903.
I am a fan of allegories. This novel is not quite an allegory but when you read the ordeal, plight, and suffering of this beautiful dog Buck you realize that humans are no different.
Just one key take-way. You will live life to the fullest when you live it by your instincts.
Your rational mind might keep you safe but your instincts will keep you raw yet vulnerable, and you will be alive more than ever.
To quote 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.”
This book is available free on Google Books.
One minute notes 