White Fang (Puffin Classics) [Audiobook] [Audio Cassette]

I first read White Fang when I was 8 years old by nicking it from my uncle and since then, i.e. 20 years later, I have read it at least 50 times.
This is a truly sensational masterpiece. The way London describes the ever-lasting struggle for survival, the dangers present in true life along with the deep feelings and emotions of a half-wolf, is overwhelming.
By the end of the book, you realise that have falen in love with white fang and want him to be yours.
I most certainly recommend this book to all children and also grown ups. read this book once and then you will realise that London was a genius, who truly understood the human nature. In this book, London illustrates the different natures of human being: love, hatred, greed, vengence, justice, etc.
This is a book for all ages and I assure you that if you look beyond the dog and human masks, you'll never regret having read this book and you most certainly won't consider it a waste of time.

Right from the start `White Fang' grips the reader with the dramatic chase of Henry and Bill, with their dogs and a coffin-laden sled, across the Klondike snows by a pack of wolves. Henry alone survives. The story shifts to a mysterious she-wolf and her suitors in their hunt for food and internecine rivalries. The pack breaks up and the focus shifts to the she-wolf; but only for the time it takes her to bear a litter. Then that focus passes to one of her cubs, to be called White Fang. His first venture into the outside world is a brilliant description of exploration into a frightening environment (e.g. `It was bewildering. He was sprawling through solidity. And ever the light grew brighter. Fear urged him to go back, but growth drove him on. Suddenly he found himself at the mouth of the cave'.(P. 50)). Even so, after the cub enters the world of man, and is mastered by Grey Beaver, he appears to take on much of their thinking patterns. Gradually White Fang merges into the society of white men drawn by the Klondike Gold Rush in 1898. `However, the clay of White Fang had been moulded until he became what he was, morose and lonely, unloving and ferocious, the enemy of all his kind.'(P. 109)
However, when Grey Beaver surrenders ownership to the insane `Beauty' Smith the ferocity of White Fang's life descends into nightmare. Tortured and ill-treated, White Fang develops what in humans would be called psychopathic behaviour. He relishes his regular fights to the death with canines of any description (plus a lynx). London describes vividly not mere `animal madness' but madness in an animal. `.... He hated blindly and without the faintest spark of reason. He hated the chain that bound him, the men who peered in at him through the slats of the pen, the dogs that accompanied the men.... He hated the very wood of the pen that confined him. And first, last, and most of all, he hated Beauty Smith.' (P. 119). Finally White Fang meets his match with a bulldog and is rescued from his degraded life by Ben Weedon Scott.

Weedon Scott accepts the challenge to `tame' the wolf and by kindness succeeds. White Fang accompanies him back home to California where he finds it difficult to settle down on the family estate - massacring fifty chickens being but one of his `crimes'. Gradually, however, he becomes fully integrated into the household.

Almost throughout the whole novel the reader is asked to see the world through the eyes of a wolf, an outsider to nature and civilisation alike. Occasionally the author steps outside that perspective to explain a point - such as the rejection of White Fang, partly grown, by his mother. Initially objects and creatures are described rather than defined and humans from the beginning are referred to as `gods' - although White Fang learns that there are good gods, bad gods and even mad gods. With the exception of Weedon Smith, the world is `tolerated' by White Fang - that even includes the collie on the estate, even though she produces his puppies.

Jack London angrily rejected the charge of `animal fakerism' but, even in the wild, he comes very close to it (e.g. `The effect on White Fang was to give him a greater faith in himself, and a greater pride.'(P.97). This tendency grows especially after the move to California, as in: `He achieved a staidness, and calmness, and philosophic tolerance.'(P. 169). This is largely because the author was writing about a wolf who came in from the wild.

Jack London's sentences are laconic and very effective. Some of the scenes are horrific and it is not surprising that Disney's 1991 PG film version owes little to the book - and `White Fang 2' is even more of a travesty. The reader's sympathies move along with the author's focus so the world is peopled by creatures black, white or grey according to how they react to White Fang..

The Kindle scan is excellent and the book was a pleasure to read.. I would thoroughly recommend it.

when my dad got me this book i didn't think it would be anything special but once i started to read it i couldn't stop! the tension towards the end, i couldn't move with fright and upset! definately a must read...