White fang by Jack London

Book set in Klondike, Canada. Reviewed on 2019/04: https://www.instagram.com/p/BwcaviDHQZ9/

Whose #pain is bigger, more valid, more important? Is your #grief measured or supposed to be validated by others or compared to other people’s suffering? These are relevant and timeless questions which #jacklondon transposes onto animals: #wolves and #dogs . Although it’s also important to say that the difference between humans and animals in this book is very thin and purposely diluted. #london wrote a #comingofage story, but it’s a #wolfthe one doing to growing up and forming and creating his world. It’s also the story more specifically of a #wolfdog , a hybrid, not completely one or the other. The entire story is clearly a compelling #metaphor for our own worlds and reality, how we create them, how we entrench ourselves within them and not see a way out. Then inevitably we experience pain, suffering and trauma. But again whose trauma is deeper and more important than others? The wolfdog’s, the dogs’, the owners’, the village’s, yours, mine? Who gets to decide that? And what if our individual traumas could be a way for us to connect with one another? Instead of tearing each other down and belittling people’s grief and pain like #vultures, like wolves, we let our trauma show the way to compassion, to healing, towards seeing each other fully… I do want to acknowledge the fact that Jack London when alive, he did say pretty nasty and racist stuff/sh*t about minorities. I think this kind of information about the writers is something we should always strive to know as informed adults. This information needs to be known and out. What you do with that information is entirely up to you. I myself refrain from reading a few writers which are virulently antisemitic or homophobic. However that’s a very personal decision for every reader to make. #highlyrecommended#klondike #inhospitable#americanliterature #whitefang#anniversarycollection #california#yukon #alaska #seawolfpress