"La vida de Jerry, un cachorro de terrier irlandés nacido en la isla de Santa Isabel -perteneciente al archipiélago de las Salomón-, discurre entre la diversión de perseguir a los negros y la alegría de retozar por las playas de arena blanca. Pero una mañana su dueño se lo regala a un aventurero y ambos parten en una peligrosa misión, a bordo de un yate cargado de trabajadores negros, que regresan a sus recónditas tribus caníbales de cortadores de cabezas. Una novela que narra con gran encanto, y también con extrema crudeza las aventuras de un perro valiente y noble en un escenario de contrastes: los existentes entre la cultura racista y explotadora del colonizador blanco y la de unas tribus salvajes y crueles de antropófagos que se comen unos a otros. Una apasionante novela de aventuras en las lejanas islas de la Melanesia". (Descripción editorial).

As much as I usually enjoy Jack London's work I just couldn't get over the incessant use of the N word. Discarded.

This book captures a part of the history of the Solomon Islands (and indeed, Australia), that has been conveniently forgotten. This book should be called Jerry the Racist Dog and it is difficult to see how the author's attitudes are not racist. Nevertheless, as I was recently informed by a reliable source, Lolita did not necessarily make Nabokov a paedophile, but it is still confronting. Written in the style of White Fang and Call of the Wild, the story is from Jerry's perspective, although more than a decade later. And unlike his stories about humans, the animal stories tend to have happy endings. I found an article in an Australian newspaper that shows part of London's inspiration for the book. While I must reserve judgement until I read some more of London's work, but in the meantime, I find it difficult to rate this book too highly. ( )

This book follows Jerry, a puppy, as he sets out on the sea with a sailor. From there he ends up on land with a group of people. And he makes his way further from there. Much of the story is from Jerry’s point of view.

It was ok. I had trouble following much of the dialogue. I (no surprise to me) found myself much more interested in the parts that were from Jerry’s point of view, rather than the parts that strayed from that and focused on the people in the story. ( )

Not wonderful. Not bad, but not a favorite - not as good as Michael, for one (and now I need to read that to check that assertion). Full of crude racism - the N-word on just about every page, and long passages on the inherent superiority of white men and white men's dogs to black men and their dogs. Then there are the weird philosophical ramblings about how a dog thinks, what comes after death, and various other things - the beauty of the jungle, taboos, etc. The language varies from picture-book simple to complex philosophy, and there's really very little story to the story - Jerry the puppy is sold to a ship's captain, the captain is, later, attacked and killed by natives, Jerry is, complicatedly, saved from death, by sheer luck and coincidence he comes across a white couple sailing their motor-yacht through the islands, they keep him and eventually find out where he came from. There are a few hints near the end of Michael's story, which is rather more complicated - well, no, but I think his adventures are more interesting. We'll see if any of these events stick with me the way Michael's leper and circus do. ( )