Jack London, old and new

Source: The Bancroft Library

Jack London was the writer who ignited my lust for books. Weirdly, I don't remember how old I was. It might have been 10, could have been 12. I had laughed over Dr. Seuss, of course, and I'd read a lot of stuff lying around our rambling old house. But it wasn't until The Call of the Wild fell into my hands that I experienced the impelling desire for books.

I remember that experience common to a lot of us: searching through the stacks at the library for "another [insert favorite author]." I found and devoured White Fang. But that was all our library had of Jack London. I moved on to other dog stories, thinking (hoping) that it was "dog stories" I wanted. It would have been too unbearable to imagine that I wanted only something that did not exist: more Jack London books.

In retrospect, it was an unexpected spark, that book. A more unlikely steel to my flint would be hard to imagine. I was a dreamy-eyed kid, anything but hardened by my travails, such as they were. I'd been raised to believe in a different ethic, not the one Jack London preached in all the pages of that book. I was taught to love my enemies; London's hero and mine, the reborn dog Buck, taught me valor, strength, cunning. Survival of the fittest. Later someone would label this for me: it's the heroic code in modern dress, the code of Beowulf and his ilk, and before him of Achilles and Hector, stalking glory on the battlefield. Here you boast, not in weakness, but in strength. Humility, on this field, is taken for weakness. And prowess is valued, not buried in shame.

There is no accounting for loves. What I devoured when I read those books was not social Darwinism, but the cold austerity of courage, stripped down, made vital. And the language--London's words are often deeply moving, merciless in their confrontation of that wildness he courts. Poetic, inspired, impassioned.

Maybe it was just that--his passion. Maybe I took that up in my veins through the ink that was, as it were, his blood on the page.

I couldn't say. I only know this: I revisited The Call of the Wild last month. And still, though I shrink back from that brutality, and though I sense better now the cost of embracing his vision of what and who we animals are, I felt the call of the wild in its pages, even so. It moved me, drew something from me, as Homer still does, and Beowulf.

And there's more, I think. In my exhausting efforts to lay low, bury my prowess at this or that, not vaunt myself--I start to hear that call drifting down from the timberland. Some day, I will meet that call. Not to become a brute, but to reconcile my desire and my skill with the things I've been taught, the civilizing influences I've taken in.

You can read The Call of the Wild at Project Gutenberg, or on an e-reader near you.
Here's a nice, brief biography, by Dr. Clarice Stasz.
Here's a nice summing up of its potency and value, by Robert McCrum.
Here's how you treat this book when you're afraid of the wild: "Common Sense" Media

Heart's Blood, by Juliet Marillier

"Beauty and the Beast" meets Jane Eyre, with a bit of undead in the mix. What's not to like?

This novel isn't news, I guess, since it was published in 2009 (Roc; released as a mass paperback in 2010). But I just found it, read it, and thought it was worth a few remarks.

I would class Heart's Blood as "mythic fantasy," because it taps into the fairy tale tradition, though not in a heavy-handed way. It's not simply a retelling of a fairy tale (like "Beauty and the Beast"). The main character, Caitrin, is a bit like Jane Eyre, as I hinted above: she enters a situation that's … well, a lot more complicated than it seems at first. There's not exactly a mad wife stowed up in the attic, but it has that feel at times, and some other details call Jane Eyre to mind. Caitrin's a little like Belle, too: she all but plucks forbidden roses early in the tale. Plus, there's a kind of enchantment over the castle, its grounds (Whistling Tor), and its inhabitants--both the servants and their deformed master, Anluan.

(I suppose it's fair to wonder whether Jane Eyre is modeled on "Beauty and the Beast" at some remove or other. Or maybe some other fairy tale. Maybe one you (normally quiet) readers has a theory about that?)

Like Jane, Caitrin is also fleeing an abusive home life, thanks to the sudden death of her father and the misbehavior of distant relatives. Like Belle, she's a looker. And, well, … of course she's got to fall for the crippled master. Right? And vice versa?

So where this novel succeeded for me wasn't in setting up some new permutation of an old fairy tale (or British novel, or both), though it does that, and it does it well. What made it work was how Marillier judiciously loosened the reins on the old storyline, allowing it to take new directions, satisfying because she's drawing on older traditions, but not stale or predictable.

I liked that the Norman (military, i.e. "epic") threat wasn't the point of this story, though it makes a meaningful impact.

And I enjoyed Caitrin's strength. She overcomes real challenges within herself and outside of herself in a credible, heart-warming way. As in countless old folktales, Caitrin finds herself caught in a web of forces beyond her power to control. But with a mixture of hope and small steps of incredible courage, she manages to find her way through--with a bit of fey guidance, to be sure.

Magic. Romantic tension. Mystery. And a strong heroine. Like I said, what's not to like?

Read it? Thoughts?

Spring Flowers are Not Delicate

Photo credit: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Nino_Barbieri

Daffodils. Forsythia. Their names suggest freshness and delicacy. They come, tender and yellow and lovely, out of the soil or from old stalks, when the air warms up. One is tempted to think they are weak in their fragile courage. After all, doesn't the summer heat scare them away?

This year, when the weather has been halting between extremes, this lesson has come home to me: these flowers are anything but fragile. Two days ago it was 30 degrees. I, softened by the warm weather and too many years in this temperate climate, could hardly stand the sharp wind. My winter coat was at the dry-cleaners and I had only a thin jacket to keep off the cold. A couple of hours out of doors without sunshine and I was miserable. The daffodils … they suffered too. They looked droopy, their yellow heads hung down, and I thought they were doomed. But come a little warm sun and they perked up again. They're bright and healthy today again.

The tiny yellow forsythia blossoms, so delicate they seem to be made of butterfly wings, should be dead, too, by my logic. It's frosted the windshield more than once since they made their appearance on those old bare stalks. And yet here they were again today, looking unfazed by the weather's whims.

I could go on. Other people probably have known this all along. I'm sure there's some perfectly logical, ecological explanation for all this. The flowers have adapted for this cold weather; they're able to endure swings of temperature common to springs the world over. They have to be or they wouldn't have survived. Yes, yes, of course, all that must be true. And yet, in some fundamental way, I mistook delicacy of beauty for delicacy of constitution. No doubt men (like me) have been doing this for endless ages. And so I register my fault.

But even more, since in the rhythm of nature I experience spring as a dawning of hope, a promise of newness after the barren winter, I take a lot of solace from those resilient blooms.

No, spring flowers are not delicate. They are as tough as an old tree. And so is their promise.

I'm not the only one thinking about this:
The daffodil: a hardy bloomer, heralding spring