Jack London’s call of the book

Many of you have discovered our exclusive line of Levenger Press books. And yet not all of our literary pursuits are bound between book covers.

We sometimes go three-dimensional, as we have with Ogden Nash’s poem on the porpoise and E.B. White’s story and poem about his winsome pooch.

Another author in our pantheon of writers most admired is Jack London. Did you read The Call of the Wild and White Fang? Several of us here at Levenger did and were bowled over by how beautifully crafted these classic American tales are.

The stars of those stories were just begging to be captured in 3-D. And now they are.

 Mim Harrison, our editor of Levenger Press, gives you the back story on our new sculptures of The Call of the Wild and White Fang. (And I have a follow-up question for you at the end of the post.)

—Steve

Jon Bickley just seemed like a natural to create these bookends. A British sculptor, Jon crafted the larger-than-life statue of Samuel Johnson’s cat Hodge, which is on permanent patrol outside Johnson’s house in London. Later he sculpted Hodge in miniature as a bookend for Levenger (sorry, we've sold out). I had met Jon and knew he was an animal lover of the highest order.

There was just one problem: Jon’s British, and Jack London was most emphatically American. How could Jon artistically scale that daunting distance across the pond?

“That’s the great thing about books,” says Jon. “They cross continents and cut through boundaries.”

But his words are far from mere rhetoric. As it turned out, Jack London’s books were all but imprinted in Jon’s soul.

The call to the child

“The Call of the Wild and White Fang were some of the first books I remember reading for myself,” says Jon. “I was about seven years old.”

He was “animal-mad,” as his mum called him, even then. Reading Jack London sealed it.

“The Call of the Wild was the first book I knew that suggested animals had lives outside of human beings’, that they were entities unto themselves and not just add-ons to humans,” Jon says. Then he adds:

“It’s about respect. We have to respect the other creatures in the world.”

Wolf-Man Jon

The two books continued to call to him. At art college, Jon read them again, fascinated by the wild places of London’s stories, so different from the tame and tidy world of England.

And recently, he read them once more, this time in readiness for sculpting the wolves.

“Once I read the books this time ’round, I had an image of what the dogs looked like,” Jon says. “Books create images in your mind, without being fettered by illustrations.”

But here again, there was just one problem: unlike with Johnson’s cat, there are no wolves in England. And Jon is a sculptor whose works are grounded in authenticity. After all, he’d combed many of England’s beaches looking for the kind of oyster that Johnson would feed to Hodge.

“I used to work as a zookeeper in Kent,” says Jon. “We kept wolves.”

Who knew?

Wakes up with wolves

“The wolves had big packs,” Jon continues, “and they were allowed to sort out their own hierarchy. They lived behind the house that I stayed in, and they’d often howl at 3:00 a.m.” A bit disconcerting, he adds.

Symmetry, balance, the fundamental shape of wolves—all these were in Jon’s head when he set to work sculpting the wolves. But what was in his soul? What would make these statues haunting, memorable creatures?

The bases, in part. (Surprise.)

“I wanted the bases to look as if they could have come from Jack London’s period,” Jon explains. “It’s a bit like framing a picture. They’re not part of the picture, but they are part of the impression the picture creates. It’s taking things in context, and it does change the way you view them.”

But there has to be more to it than merely putting these wolves on their pedestals. When you first encounter these sculptures—especially the two together—they’re startling, they’re so lifelike.

Much of it has to do with the poses of each one. Jon took his cue from the quotations we had selected to be engraved on the bookends.

 It was the long wolf-howl, full-throated and mournful, the first howl he had ever uttered.

That was from White Fang, and thus Jon's sculpture shows the creature in mid-howl, crossing the threshold into a place he had not been before, and where humans could not follow.

 There is a patience of the wild—dogged, tireless, persistent as life itself.

For The Call of the Wild, the image in Jon's mind (unfettered by illustrations) when he read the quote was the metamorphosis of Buck. "It's what Buck became as he changed into a wild wolf after being a tame dog," Jon says.

Perhaps this is where some sculptors would have stopped, content that they'd captured the essence of these wild spirits. For Jon, there was something else calling to him.

 “With wolves, the detail is all in the eyes. It’s the difference between a piece of taxidermy and looking at a live wolf. If you can get the eyes right, you’ve got it. It’s as we say of humans: the eyes are the window into the soul.”

—Mim

And now to you, dear reader—are there books you “see” in 3-D? And do you envision them, as Jon did Jack London’s, without being prompted by illustrations? And what of wolves--are there wolves in your mind's eye? Do you find them scary or attractive, or both?  I’d love to hear your ideas. Just click on the Comments link below. (If you’re reading this as an email, click here and you'll connect to Comments).

—Steve

Comments

[Louis Delair Jr]

This is an interesting question, Steve, since I've always believed that reading was a natural doorway to imagination! Any novel I read carries with it images during the course of the reading - influenced, I believe, by prior experience. That is true (again, I believe) whether the subject matter is science fiction and totally new to the reader, or whether it is a re-imagining through reading of stories read to us by parents or babysitters or siblings during childhood. As a middle school student in New Orleans, I checked out from the school library one book each day, roughly 180 pages in length to ensure I could finish it overnight, and returned it the following morning or afternoon. My area of interest was always action military figures, westerns, spy thrillers - all influenced by television series or cinema films I had seen. I believe that what is resident in our memories rises easily to the consciousness during reading because reading strikes a chord of familiarity within us. The science fiction example I mentioned is interesting because our psyche takes us to what we "interpret" the science fiction character, place, action or general genre to be. If we look at Isaac Asimov's works, Gene Roddenberry's or those of Rod Serling, we are reminded of our awe at the first reading of the text or viewing of the TV or film version of a story. Unfortunately, our 3-D visuals often create expectations by us when viewing a film version of a written work. I say unfortunately only because we so often refuse to allow our minds to grow their own creativity, accepting instead the creative genius of others. As children we "create" and "Imagine" freely! I have experienced greater difficulty in allowing my creative fluids to result in the cohesive formation of a "new" concept (other than poetry which I still do fairly well). I seem not to be able to come up with new ideas akin to the creativity I experienced in high school and college. Jack London's books were among those I read as a child and more than once - along with Moby-Dick, Fury, Lassie, the story of Trigger (Roy Rogers) and certainly cartoon characters (Disney or other) in print. They each had an accompanying 3-D mental movie going on, interspersed with passages of dialogue that did not build anything mentally - only understanding of words used and writing style employed.

[Anne Maxfield]

Hello Steve,
Just wanted to share a quick message with you and didn't know your email address. Earlier today I finished reading "The Little Guide to your Well-Read Life." The points you make in the book are very useful. You underscored your ideas very well by incorporating thoughts and perspectives from other voracious readers.

Thank you for sharing your thoughts -- I will certainly modify my thinking on choosing, reading and reflecting on books.

[Trish O'Brien]

My heart is broken and I still shed tears throughout the day...my German Shepherd recently died...we sat together, slept together, for fifteen months as he tried to recuperate from surgery gone bad...And at nite...we, tho so close to San Francisco, have wolves (and mountain lions, and foxes) behind us on Mt.Tamalpais...and I have heard the howl...only once, but my heart said it was my beloved Phoenix.

[mim harrison]

Dear Trish,

I'm so sorry about Phoenix. I'm one of many dog lovers here at Levenger, so we know how difficult this is. The good thing about pets is that they never really leave us--except with wonderful memories.

Mim

[Trever Anderson]

I am a Freshman at North Miami High School and I love your book "White Fang". It is interesting to see how you came up with these amazing books. :)