White Fang

Author: Jack London
Publisher: Sea Wolf Press 2017

Chen Zhen in Wolf Totem, the student who was sent to Inner Mongolia during the cultural revolution, carried a trunk of books with him to read while attending to sheep.  One of the books he read was “Sea Wolf” by Jack London.  Jack London (1876 - 1916) wrote many novels about wolves in Northwestern Canada.  I bought this book after reading Wolf Totem.

Zhen adopted a male wolf cub against the wishes of the Mongolian nomads.  He said he wanted to study wolves and wanted to mate the wolf with a female dog to authorities.  Mongolian nomad leader told him that mating wolves and dogs cannot be done even though there were folklore stories of such matings.

Jung Rong, the author of Wolf Totem, got the idea of adopting a wolf cub and mating wolves and dogs from Jack London books.  In this story, White Fang was a cub of a male wolf and a female dog.  He was adopted and raised initially by nomadic “Canadian Indians”.  The story is told by White Fang.  He identifies humans as gods and shed his wild habits and accepts and follows gods' rules.  

There were a few instances where I learned a few things.  The book is written in the 1900s and certain words he used in the book were acceptable then but not acceptable now. “Squaw” means “a North American Indian woman or wife”.  This word is considered an offensive word now.  “Niggardly” means “not generous” or “stingy”.  This word has nothing to do with the n-word, but since it sounds like the n-word, it is now a controversial word.  Unlike most Americans (in those days), Jack London thought of a human as another animal.

I do not think anybody wants to go out of the way to read this book.  Overall, it is really a silly story.