We lived in a two bedroom-apartment in Flushing, New York, when I was nine, close enough to Fresh Meadows that mail would come to us, emphatically “Flushing, Flushing, Flushing,” with one lone dissenter, “Fresh Meadows.” It is now I realize the irony on a neighborhood map, that of a toilet in action producing fragrant fields lush with flowering plants and grass.
My local library was the Pomonok Branch. Later on, I would consider all areas of the library open for business; from the imposing spines of autobiographies and the profile of their far-off-gazing authors to the Young Adult (YA) section where I read summaries and skimmed excerpts to assess my appetite. At the time, however, I made my rounds in the upstairs children’s section. I knew the shelves like the back of my hand. Along the wall, Henry and Mudge; here, The Baby-sitters Club; and there, Goosebumps. There was also the Dr. Dolittle series by Hugh Lofting, which I had considered “dry” in comparison to books about sock-eating plants until I gave in and read it all, my progress impeded only by the availability of a new Animorphs book. Successful reading ventures like these helped lay the foundation for tackling denser material.
The classics section, its paperbacks squeezed and so closely quartered that to remove one was to cause a collective sigh among its shelved companions, was adjacent to the stairs I often ascended to the upper level. Here, each book was distinguished by the bands of color representing its respective publisher: Bantam Classics; Penguin Classics; Puffin Classics. Maybe Pigeon or Parakeet Classics had been found wanting. Tilting my head sideways and moving through the shelves, I found White Fang. I knew that the book was not likely to leave me chuckling or whisk me away on an easy adventure. Since reading is like holding a conversation with someone who monopolizes the dialogue, reading a classic meant possibly getting stuck with a disagreeable interlocutor or a boring topic. Regardless, I decided to take it on as a personal challenge.
I expected the character of the wolf to be illuminated in the first pages to the effect of a booming voice conveniently announcing, “This is the titular character.” I assumed each character had joined the story until the last pages, and was poised to introduce myself to the protagonist at any moment. If I had thought I could expeditiously extract the story at the heart of the novel, I was mistaken. Instead, I jumbled along the concerns of the story arc I was presently reading, Part One to Part Two to Part Three, pangs of emotion piercing my heart, leaving me slack-jawed, unsure, and hoping against all hope.
It was a story of the relationship between man and the undomesticated animal of the wild—the wolf—with whom he did not share a language. Their form of communication was power, whether the instinctual hungry ferocity of the wolf causing man to tremble or the two-legged creature holding fire and speaking fear into the wolf’s heart. In his life, White Fang came to know both the club-wielding hand which wrecked defeating blows and the hand offering belly rubs of affection. Despite his quarter-dog heritage, domesticating White Fang was not an easy feat.
Like the wolves before him, White Fang inherited the fear instinct which had been passed down through “a thousand thousand lives.” As a wolf cub, he boisterously attacked a stray ptarmigan when wandering outside, but bristled quietly in the cave as a wolverine passed by. His wolf heritage prompted a “hungry yearning for the free life that had been his” when his mother led him to an Indian camp. Despite the food and protection the people provided him, it was unlikely that an animal born into the wild could accept and enjoy a master’s rule. However, never did such a terrible feeling gnaw at him as did the raging hatred that consumed him under the cruel ownership of Beauty Smith.
If the mistrust held by White Fang against bondage were not enough, his bad dealings with Beauty would not have allowed any man thereafter to feed or even pet him. Under the circumstances, White Fang could not logically have been, and yet was, overwhelmed by Weedon Scott’s unconditional care and regard. Out of an unlikely pairing was borne a companionship, unfathomable in that a wolf’s longing for freedom could be tempered by fealty and gratitude, and that such a bond would ultimately become pleasure.
When I finished the novel, I was overcome by what I had read that I was compelled to write a letter to its author. I did not know how to get the letter into his hands, but I wanted to tell Mr. London that his words mattered greatly. I wanted to connect and to respond in the conversation that we had started, a conversation that had, up until now, been monopolized by him.
Unfortunately, the excitement of receiving a possible reply soon equaled and exceeded the anticipation of what the reply might contain, and I decided against sending the letter. When I came across it many years later tucked in a composition notebook, I found a single sheet of creased looseleaf paper and words staring back in cursive, “I want to be an author when I grow up.” Had I known then? It is more likely I had not believed Mr. London would respond to anything less than a conclusive admission. I at least had tried to write, but had been stumped by how to turn sentences into paragraphs. After all, who has never had to turn an idea easily expressed in several sentences into an essay?
I know I would not have gotten a reply, Jack London’s death being in 1916, but I did not need one, after all. Here I am yet, making sentences into paragraphs.
