Is a Call of the Wild a Good Thing for Humans?

Just read Jack London's The Call of the Wild again. This book is great on many levels. But in my middle age I seem to enjoy taking these classic books to deeper levels, and perhaps finding some insights into what is going on in our own times.

It's a book written in third person but most decidedly from the dog Buck's point of view. Interestingly, he is more of a person than a dog, the author giving all sorts of human attributes and feelings to him: pride, greed, pity, bravery, loyalty, morality, not that dogs don't possess or tend toward some of these.

A strong, domesticated dog, descended from the wolf, given the circumstances, might degenerate into a wild animal if given the chance in the wilderness of Alaska, no harm done. London himself said The Call of the Wild was a story about a dog devolving. Was he also asking a question about human beings? For a human being, is a call to the wild side of life a good thing or not? Will it cause harm?

There is a quirky movie from 1968 called Wild in the Streets. It is about young people taking over the world according to their hedonistic whims and putting everybody over the stodgy age of 30 in nature camps where they are kept drugged and lethargic. The end of the movie hints at what is going to happen when the hippies in charge start to become tiresome and the 12-year-olds decide to take over. 

My mind turns to the developments in Seattle, Washington happening as I write, where a group of disillusioned people have taken over a section of the city and declared it to be an independent nation, at the same time making all sorts of  unrealistic and irrational and outrageous demands of the state of Washington. These include releasing all sorts of prisoners from jails,removing historical materials relating to the Civil War, providing free food and sanitary facilities for them, black doctors for black patients, and abolishing the Seattle police department. Such whims based on incomplete information and shallow thinking and ignorance end up doing the very opposite of what may have been sincerely intended. It's Lord of the Flies all over again, an anarchy void of wisdom, leadership, high purpose, ideals, and justice, to name a few principles necessary to civilized society.

Sometimes authors are deeper than we think. And sometimes they stumble on eternal truths that are almost impossible to miss if you care at all about reality and human nature. 

I Learned to Swim in the Ocean

Someone said: You will never have a better friend than a friend who points you to Christ. This is the goal of Tidal Wave Books' I Learned to Swim in the Ocean by me, Janice Graham, just off the presses January 2020.

The labor of love has been a long time coming; I started writing it in 2004. Set against my earliest Pacific island childhood memories, this book is a sink-or-swim adventure toward faith in Christ on a tidal wave of trial and truth. It could be called memoir, autobiographical, inspirational, literary, but above all, it's about conversion/coming to Christ. And who doesn't like to revisit childhood, anybody's childhood? C. S. Lewis said, "I never read an autobiography in which the parts devoted to the earlier years were not far the most interesting."And yes, that's me in the 1956 photo above.

As I finished up writing this book---I don't think I ever really wanted to finish it, it was such a joy to me to write about things that are good and true and beautiful---a thought occurred to me. I discussed it at length with my husband. It is something like this. There is a difference between books that are portrayed as true (as in real events, people, places) and books that are portrayed as fiction (made up out of the imagination). (There are some that meet in the middle, being historical fiction, that is, a made up story set in a real place surrounded by real events/people.) Both nonfiction and fiction can contain great truths and profound wisdom. But people seem to really care about that distinction. Case in point: Remember the wildly popular book, The Education of Little Tree? I think it was one of those bestsellers Oprah highlighted on her TV show. Well, it was promoted as autobiographical. As a true story. Like the author was really raised by his Indian grandfather. It was a treasure and everybody loved it, that is until it came out that it was a work of fiction. Same book, same good story, same wisdom, same writing. But people don't like to be lied to. They don't like hoaxes. The book went on a proverbial black list and the author was defamed, albeit after his death. Another case in point: In a book group years ago we read A Girl Named Zippy. The cover had a baby girl photo on it. I was the only one in the group who thought it was too good to be true. It seemed contrived, overblown, trying too hard to be cute and funny. It bothered me as I read; I couldn't help thinking the author embellished some or all of it.

My surmise from all this was that no matter how good the book is, fiction or nonfiction, if you pretend at it your story will be discredited---sometime, for someone, to some degree. I was hoping I hadn't pretended anything in my book, not even the slightest feeling or detail. I knew that at least I had tried my best not to, come what may. I had checked with my mother on the childhood facts. I was very careful not to exploit anything for convenience or effect. There were some temptations, so I get it. I get how authors can get carried away. I hope I didn't. Be that as it may, I like it best of all the things I've written.

This book is not only based on my memories, but on my beliefs, some of which were long in coming. You might call it a Christian take on Anne Morrow Lindbergh's secular Gift from the Sea, 1955. It's meant to be an easy, flowy read, but not a shallow one. I like to say I have some big names backing me up on the deep ideas presented in my book, as in Plato, John Locke, Dostoevsky, William James, Flannery O'Connor, and C. S. Lewis, to name just a few. After a lot of indecision I included conversational end notes for those who wish for more information on the classic works I cite. (I am one who thinks end notes are an added delight in the books I read; there they are just waiting to enlighten me further if I want them.)


Please be patient while the TWB website (tidalwavebooks.com) is being revamped; in the meantime you can order the book by sending an email to sgraham@mstar.net. It's $19.95. Free audio book is also in the works.

Note 2/5/2020 This book is now also available on Amazon and at Hide Away Books in American Fork, Utah. And of course for lending at Blue Hill Books in my Little Free Library.