White Fang by Jack London x Smoked Rye by Gun Brewery

About 4 weeks ago, the world looked a very different place.

Just as the sun sailed higher in the sky and the clocks ticked forward an hour and the spring began to

call us out of our winter slumber, an invisible foe materialised, apparently from the Wild itself.

How the new coronavirus came to be is of little importance compared to the devastation it is currently

causing. As I sit here contemplating the book White Fang and try to put into words why I think reading it

during this time has been especially poignant, I find myself drawn back repeatedly to the idea of the call

of the wild, what comfort actually is and the sorrows as well as the benefits that can result from our

relationship to nature.

Throughout White Fang, Jack London capitalises Wild, it is a central character in his book.

Full disclosure, I’d never known much about this book. I had only a very dim awareness that it existed

and was considered ‘a classic’ when I picked it up a few weeks ago in a charity shop because I liked the

cover and the back sounded exciting. 

As it turns out, the specific excitement that the back promised was finished rather promptly. In three

chapters to be precise. For those first three chapters, though, I was so physically tense that I had to r
epeatedly put down the book to recover from my sheer angst. Breathtaking was the scale of the winter,
ferocious and cunning were the wolves, tangible was the rising hopelessness of the hero. The bite of
heat on his feet and hands as he ACTUALLY JUMPS INTO THE FIRE TO DELAY THE INEVITABLE
TEARING OF HIS FLESH BY A PACK OF STARVING WOLVES. I was beside myself. 

Then he left me. The hero was gone and I became aware that this book was not about a man, or men

at all. Dimly they may feature, like weather. This book is about the Wild. Specifically and literally it is a

book about a sort-of-wolf called White Fang, but my quarantined, caged mind is reading White Fang is

an allegory for Nature and the Wild and what-not so, frankly, no wonder we’re capitalising nouns now.

At times impossibly dark (I’m looking at you, opening paragraph), and occasionally so uplifting that I

would let out a little sigh of joy, White Fang tells the story of the journey of a wolf/dog cub, born in the

Wild and then raised by different men, in different ways. The language is simple and steady and sure.

As it is describing the world through the eyes of an animal, feelings and reason don’t feature highly.

Reading at a time when emotions are heightened, it has been a pleasure to dip into a world where

everything is so primal: hurt is bad, food is good, squirrels are irritating and Mum is the law.

It all feels, just very reliable.

That is, of course, until men get involved. Again though, it is refreshing to hear about men and their

actions from a perspective that doesn’t pretend to understand them. We never know their thoughts or

reasons, we just know what they do and how that makes White Fang act or react.

The instinct to survive is a recurring motif throughout the book, from those first thrilling chapters as men

square up against wolves, through the comedy of a clumsy cub and into the horror of often crushing

failure or abuse. When framed through an animal character, the difference between the instinct to

survive and the will to survive seem suddenly vividly violent, and very human.

There is no such thing as sadness, just decline. 

So what am I drinking to accompany this canine adventure at this epic time? As the first bonfire was lit

the decision was made… this must be a smoky beer. A beer that wafts from the glass, right up my

nostrils, not necessarily fighting off the fear of the night but perhaps making it all a bit more bearable.

Out of the fridge comes a delicious Smoked Rye by the terrific and local (support local businesses,

friends) Gun Brewery.

I’ve been saving this for a special occasion and the last chapter of White Fang is it.

Pouring into the glass blood red, no… better! Campfire red, I know I have made the right decision.

This beer is the kind of warm, burning red that is cast on the faces of fireside companions when

everything else is dark. I swear, I’m not even making it up, such perfection. 

A dense creamy head forms, chased away in seconds by a pack of energetically racing bubbles.

On the nose, as the can cracks open, straight away is a puff of smoke, fading to a crisp, piney herbal

smell stinging its way down my airways and up and down my tongue.

I can’t resist, it’s the call of the Wild! 

In the mouth the smoky notes come back for a big hit in the middle of the tongue. Bang in the middle,

as if there’s almost a ring where flavour is absent forming around this one smoky central point. As the

flavour dwindles, receptors across the tongue come alive striking out on their own and howling their

own adventures.

At the back of the mouth a growl of bitterness is building as, on the tip, those bubbles pop leaving little

nips of an almost salty dryness. Racing up and down the sides of my tongue, rounding up and chasing

the other flavours is a mellow whisky-like maltiness, not too sweet and ever so subtle, like a howl heard

from a long way off in the afternoon. 

All those other aromas are now being herded together and penned back into the centre where the

smokiness is giving way to a fresh herbal echo that gets louder with every sip, harmonising with those

dry salty nips and bitter bass notes, softened out by biscuit edges.

Just like Jack’s writing, and unlike mine, this beer is short in the mouth. Full of flavour and brutally bold,

but doesn’t linger offering unnecessary posy. It calls for another sip.

With the book finished, the can art draws me in. A stark logo set against a sunset circle.

Turning it over to read the back I learn the Gun Brewery logo is a type of hobo hieroglyph meaning

‘man with gun here’, referencing the brewery location on Gun Hill. These chalk symbols were historically

developed by homeless travelling labourers in America, living wild at the time of the Gold Rush when

White Fang was set. They were intended as a guide for other travellers about what they could expect

from a community or household. Whether that could be a hot meal and a bed in exchange for some

work, or a man with a gun. I’d call that not just a survival instinct, that’s a survival language.

Ultimately the lesson of White Fang is that kindness begets kindness. Another timely theme.

Last night at 8pm, my neighbours gathered on their balconies to applaud the health workers who are

risking their lives to take care of our loved ones. As businesses are shuttered and people lose their jobs,

I’m seeing them not angry, but using their time and resources and good health to volunteer in their

communities, doing shopping for those that can’t, giving blood, making masks… giving assistance is

the covid equivalent of leaving chalk marks for those that need them.

The Wild has us in its grip right now, we can do nothing against a virus borne of nature, but be kind to

each other and rally in our will to survive because, as our kindness becomes more and more apparent,

life seems so much dearer. 

What does this all mean to me, as I contemplate White Fang the hero wolf?

There seems to be a lot of links running through my head, maybe it’s the beer, maybe it’s the book,

maybe it’s these wild days we’re seeing through, from the safety of our campfires.