Blog Post 6

The book I am currently reading is called "Jack London Stories". It is a collection of many of the works of Jack London, an author famous for his stories concerning the Yukon Gold Rush of the late 1800s. The first story I am reading is called "Into the Wild". It is one of his longer stories in the book. It is set in the point of view of a dog named Buck, who was abducted from his home in Santa Clara Valley, California and brought to the north to work as a sled dog. This story reminds me of "Watership Down", the book that I read about a month ago that personified rabbits. In this case, it is a dog that is personified. When I wrote a blog post about "Watership Down", I think I may have actually compared it to this story by mistake. I realized that Jack London has written two similar books. "Into the Wild" is about a pet dog that becomes a wolf, while the one I have read before, "White Fang" is about a wolf that becomes domesticated. I was confused when I first started reading this book because it seemed familiar, I had to check Wikipedia before I realized that I had read "White Fang" and this story was like its reversed image. That said, It should make this book even more fun to finish since I have an idea about where it is going. As I have said, books that personify animals, while considered perhaps immature to some, are in fact my favorite books to read as I like animals infinitely more than people. At any rate, so far "Into the Wild" is hugely enjoyable to read. Buck is personified like a normal, although extremely intelligent, dog. He isn't given thoughts in the human sense. That is to say, he doesn't speak or communicate or talk as human characters might. Rather, the narrator of the story describes his feelings and thoughts to the reader, although they are not necessarily understood by Buck himself. That really does seem confusing but trust me, it's cool. Right now I'm about half way through this first story, then there are dozens of other short stories and another long one in London's book. I have enjoyed other works by Jack London and am currently enjoying "Into the Wild", so I have high expectations for the rest of his stories to come.