Jack London - hands

[coyote2]

Which writing by Jack London, did he write of a man looking astonished at the way his own hands worked, cherishing them as never before because he was freezing?

I just re-read "To Build a Fire", and that's not it. I read it as a kid; maybe "Call of the Wild"?

[kev67]

I doubt it was White Fang as that was written from the point of view of a dog.

[chrisvia]

My first thought was "To Build a Fire," but you've debunked that. I did some various Google searches to no good yield. I suppose my reply isn't very helpful, but you've rekindled an interest in London's work for me!

[coyote2]

My first thought was "To Build a Fire," but you've debunked that. I did some various Google searches to no good yield. I suppose my reply isn't very helpful, but you've rekindled an interest in London's work for me!maybe I should read another version than the ones I found at jacklondons dot net/buildafire.html

I was probably barely a teen, but that story moved me deeply. The character's impending death moved him to regard the mechanism of his own fingers/hands as virtual miracles, he so cherished the life he knew would not last much longer.

Heck, maybe it was "To Build a Fire" and the transcendent realization came not from London but from something else my teacher presented. Sigh.

[coyote2]

Oops! I just remembered (sorry it was a half-century ago) that the man wasn't freezing (that was "To Build a Fire"), the man was facing impending death from attack by a pack of wolves.

Even with that, google fails me. Any clues now, please?

[chrisvia]

Seems like it could be The Sea-Wolf. Hard to say with this level of information, because it seems like every London story has wolves/dogs/etc. and lots of references to hands (mostly, however, from the perspective of wolves or other animals analyzing the hands of men; no this self-observance you speak of)! Can you remember anything else? Was it a short story or a novel?

[coyote2]

Seems like it could be The Sea-Wolf. Hard to say with this level of information, because it seems like every London story has wolves/dogs/etc. and lots of references to hands (mostly, however, from the perspective of wolves or other animals analyzing the hands of men; no this self-observance you speak of)! Can you remember anything else? Was it a short story or a novel?
I think that the story ended just before the wolves actually attacked/killed the protagonist.

My hunch is that it was a short story; when I added the word "short" to my google search, I pulled up a couple JL short stories ("The Law of Life", "The Sun of the Wolf") but I just scanned them and they aren't it.

I hope I can find the passage; my memory of reading it is a priceless lesson about cherishing life.

[bluosean]

Iv'e read to build a fire in school too. I don't remember. But your plot ends exactly like the movie "The Grey". There is a short story by the same name by Ian Mackenzie Jeffers. I haven't read it.

[coyote2]

Sounds like I'd enjoy the film "The Grey" (which google tells me is based upon a Jeffers short story "Ghost Walker") but I'm sure I read this story over forty years ago, so my search continues.