To Build a Fire

by Christophe Chabouté (Adapter)

From the “master of black and white” artwork (Paste Magazine) and the bestselling illustrator-storyteller of Park Bench and Alone comes a starkly beautiful graphic novel adaptation of Jack London’s most famous short story.

Discover the beloved author of White Fang and The Call of the Wild, Jack London’s renowned short story “To Build a Fire” in a new and evocative way from master artist Christophe Chabouté. With his signature “stunning black-and-white art” (Publishers Weekly), Chabouté illustrates London’s gripping story of man versus nature in the harsh and unforgiving Yukon that has enthralled readers for over a century.

Genres: Graphic Novels, Comics, Bande Dessinée, Fiction, Historical Fiction, Graphic Novels Comics, Classics

64 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2007

About the author

Christophe Chabouté is a French author and illustrator.

D’origine alsacienne, il suit les cours des Beaux-Arts d’Angoulême, puis de Strasbourg. Vents d'Ouest publie ses premières planches en 1993 dans Les Récits, un album collectif sur Arthur Rimbaud. Mais il se fait surtout connaître en 1998 en publiant Sorcières aux éditions du Téméraire (primé au Festival d’Illzach) puis Quelques jours d’été aux éditions Paquet (Alph’Art Coup de Cœur au Festival d'Angoulême). Il a également illustré des romans pour la jeunesse.

Reviews

[Jon Nakapalau · Rating 5 out of 5]

So savagely beautiful - so happy to see works of this quality in the form of GN. The illustrations really pair well with this adaptation. Hope to see more GN adaptations like this in the future; so many classics I would like to see. Hope to see more of the works of Jack London in this form in the future - highest recommendation.

[Dave Schaafsma · Rating 4 out of 5]

We are in a kind of blizzard in most of the US now, and where I live, the wind chill is below zero, we have a foot of new snow, and so I read the original Jack London story and now this graphic adaptation of the story. Chabouté in internationally known for tomes about humans facing extreme isolation: Alone (about a man living in a lighthouse on an island; Park Bench (about myriad people that sit on one park bench over a day), and Moby Dick (about one man's obsession with a white whale). All three of those are huge, and the first two are silent, or wordless. Given how many words Melville used to create Moby Dick, I guess the few Chabouté uses makes it almost wordless.

To Build a Fire is, because of the source material (read it here):

https://americanenglish.state.gov/fil...

shorter, and I think could/should have been silent. He writes a one page introduction and includes some of the narration from the book, though many pages are wordless (for which I was grateful). I rate this 3.5 stars, really, as it doesn't have the same impact as the above three books for me, but I round up to 4 stars because, though this is not one of his major works, it is still amazing (mostly) back and white drawing (with some muted brown and tan washes). The fire, when it happens, is bright, tantalizing red, and powerfully hopeful when it happens.

This book is a good companion piece for the story, if you are teaching it. Some (especially) young readers have trouble visualizing what they read, and I think this book can help them. And as a piece of art on the perils of isolation, and our ignorance/arrogance about the power of nature, well, this is just not just a simple illustrated story. It's a warning, and prophecy.

This is a dramatic excerpt from the 1970 film, which also has language from the story as voice-over, though is unnecessary, it could also have been silent, but again, is still good:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yjAKm...

[Fátima Linhares · Rating 3 out of 5]

Nesta BD acompanhamos a luta de um homem contra os elementos, no caso, o frio extremo. Tem como companheiro de viagem um cão que, tal como o dono, só se quer aquecer. Mas não é tarefa fácil, pois no frio todos os gestos se tornam menos precisos. Conseguirá sobreviver e acender uma fogueira?

[Theo Logos · Rating 4 out of 5]

The original Jack London story from which this graphic novel is adapted is a masterpiece of stark Naturalism. It is a bleak tale in a forsaken landscape where a never named man and his dog are pitted against the uncaring force of nature — Cold.

Chaboute strips the tale down even further. For several pages there are neither words nor figures — only establishing scenes of bleak, frozen landscape. On the third page we see rough foot tracks in the snow. Only on page four do we finally see the man (still bereft of words) trudging through the snow.

Chaboute slightly expands his color palette from his signature black and white, adding some shades of brown on the man, some brightly contrasting orange and reds for the allusive fire, but the overall effect remains stark and bleak as the tale being illustrated. What London accomplished with prose, Chaboute executes with images — a classic of ice cold Naturalism.

[Jefi Sevilay · Rating 3 out of 5]

Jack London'ın Ateş Yakmak kitabından uyarlanan yine kısacık bir grafik roman. Bu kadar kısa hikayeleri sevmiyorum. Ne içine girebiliyorum, ne karakterle özdeşleşebiliyorum. Çizimlerini beğendim ama aynı kitabı gibi birşey katmadı. Hani tek cümleyle özetle deseniz, almanıza değmez derim.

Herkese keyifli okumalar!

[Alan · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a graphic novel adaptation of Jack London’s To Build A Fire, done by the very talented Christophe Chabouté. I love the context he gives to the story, situating it in the time period where gold deposits were discovered in northern Canada. This gold rush brought many young individuals scampering up, undoubtedly hoping to make a living or a fortune.

“Thousands of men, questing for fortune or adventure, lost themselves and perished in this desert of snow and ice.

Frequently inexperienced and poorly equipped, they were forced to confront a hostile natural landscape, vanquish isolation, hunger, scurvy, and above all face an enemy terrible and without pity…

The cold…”

[Rod Brown · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have taken a personal vow to not read any more graphic novel adaptations of works I have not read, so in order to read this book I have spent the week making my way through The Call Of The Wild And Selected Stories. My wife advises me that "To Build a Fire" is a popular example to use in units on "man vs. nature" in most secondary school English classes, but I don't believe I've ever read it before. The only Jack London work I've ever read in full is White Fang decades ago (though pre-vow, I have read several adaptations of Call of the Wild.)

Unfortunately for this adaptation, it suffers in comparison to the original when read the same day, but is still a fairly remarkable attempt at capturing the heart of the story: a man's confidence in his ability to safely walk with his dog to a far-off refuge begins to crumble as he faces a series of mishaps in -75 degree Fahrenheit temperatures in the Yukon. (This seems particularly timely as I confidently drove to work during two days of subzero temperatures in Iowa this week.)

Chaboute uses a minimal amount of words, relying on his art to convey the coldness and the danger of the environment. And it does for the most part. But the power of London's story is how its third-person omniscient narrator lets you know everything the protagonist is choosing to ignore and gives you a front-row seat to the changing tide of his thoughts as outside forces come crashing down on his bubble. Chaboute (or his translator) tries to make the few words used in this graphic novel more immediate by switching to second-person narration, and that's not a bad choice, but the little caption boxes scattered across a page give us ellipse-laden sentences like this: "...but the distant trail, no sun in the sky...this great cold...the weighty silence and the strangeness of it all has no effect on you...you are not worried...even though you are a newcomer to this land...a cheechako...and this is your first winter..."

The original is a classic for a reason, and this adaptation serves as a fine chance to revisit it.

[♥ Sandi ❣ · Rating 5 out of 5]

5 star

"A man alone on the Yukon Trail—save for his dog..." the start of Jack London's famed novel "To Build a Fire". Chaboute has written a retelling of London's novella in graphic form. Like all Chaboute works, there is minimal words, but effective picture descriptions.

Having been reminded lately of the book Alone, which was Chaboute's award winning first book, I find that others have now been translated from his first language, French. I was in awe of Alone and also really enjoyed The Park Bench. I will now be going through any of his other books that have been translated.

[Murat Dural · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bir çizer bir yazarın üretimini olabilecek en iyi şekilde kavrar ve olaylar gelişir. Çok kısa, çok öz ama net olarak Jack London'ı, eserini yansıtan bir eser olmuş. Edebiyattan, kitaptan, yazardan çizgi romana aktarılan yorumu, özgün tasarımları seviyorsanız bence bir klasik.

[João Teixeira · Rating 5 out of 5]

Adaptar uma história a BD em que a parte psicológica é determinante não deve ser pêra doce... Mas Chabouté conseguiu fazê-lo de forma brilhante. Não consegui imaginar o que será experienciar 45° negativos na pele (o máximo que já experienciei deverá ter sido uns 4° negativos, e para mim, já foi temperatura demasiado baixa...), mas cheguei a sentir-me verdadeiramente angustiado ao ver este homem e a sua tentativa de sobrevivência face a um meio completamente inclemente.
Não podia deixar de dar 5 estrelas como classificação a este livro. Ao terminá-lo, temos vontade de o ler novamente!

[Mary · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lovely landscape drawing, though his rendering of the human face seemed less skillful. The story is very much like the other Jack London I've read, particularly on the topic of human-animal relationships. It is brutal and inexorable and also, somehow, not that upsetting.

[Murat · Rating 4 out of 5]

Jack London'ın aynı adlı hikayesinden uyarlanan grafik roman, hikayeyi neredeyse birebir cümlelerle aktarıyor. Tek fark olarak: Jack London hikayeyi isimsiz üçüncü tekil kişi başkahraman üzerinden aktarırken, Chaboute ikinci tekil kişi kullanmış.. "Karda donmak üzeresin, uyumak tatlı geliyor ama sen öldüğünün farkında değilsin.." (Şaka şaka)

Christophe Chabouté önceki eserlerinden tanıdığım, sevdiğim, az kelimeyle çok şey anlatmayı tercih eden/başaran bir yazar/illustratör.

Bu işi de hayal kırıklığına uğratmadı.

[Pedro Alhinho · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sublime relato da morte na neve fria.

[Bettendorf Library · Rating 4 out of 5]

Our book discussion group Get Lit read this title for our most recent meeting. This was a great graphic adaptation of Jack London's famous short story. The story of To Build a Fire, already spare, becomes even more stark when rendered in Chaboute's black inks and muted color palate. Chaboute's illustrations highlight and accentuate details from London's story. Seeing "the man's" spit freeze solid before hitting the ground, and shattering, illustrated over a series of three panels made me feel deeply the -70 below temperatures of the story. Additionally, towards the end of the story the artwork really heightened how I experienced the sense of panic from "the man" when he comes to realize his fate. Feelings of panic and dread, giving way to resignation and calm are effectively illustrated in a series of panels drawn out over the final several pages. Chaboute's drawings and mostly wordless panels at this stage of the book are just as effective as London's classic prose. Still, if you’ve not read the original short story, you owe it to yourself to do so. You’ll enjoy this graphic adaptation even more. -David

[Václav · Rating 4 out of 5]

(3,8 of 5 for another somehow excellent but bad comics from Chabouté)
I picked this by the theme. I love survival, wilderness and all that. And London's short story is just about that so picking up the comics adaptation was a sure thing. Usually, I'm not keen about Chabouté's art, but this time I did liked it. I loved how he transferred the white paper into all covering heavy snow with such ease. The emptiness, the beauty, the deadly vast and merciless cold - that all is perfect here. I liked the dog's look, I liked the depicted wilderness, so without a doubt, the atmosphere is really great. I would maybe prefer to keep it that way, get rid of most of the narration text which somehow interfered with it. This is a problem of many comics adaptations and even Chabouté didn't manage to avoid it. You need to cut out the story from the book, from the words. The art is in transferring a story to the reader by all that visual tools that comics medium provides. And Chabouté achieved that, which is more than many adaptors can do (just creating pictures in consequent frames depicting the narrative is not enough), but then he took some of that waste splinters and glue them back on his work. Why. If you do comics from a book, you're recreating the story, not the book itself.

[Meric Aksu · Rating 4 out of 5]

Otuz beş derecelik güneşin altında alev almaya yüz de tutsanız, Alaska'nın eksi kırk beş, altmışlardaki soğuğunu iliklerinize kadar hissediyorsunuz. Kısacık hikayesi, buz gibi bir etkisi var kitabın. Chaboute çok başarılı.

[sheribubble · Rating 4 out of 5]

Crazy how something that took only 10 minutes to read had such a lasting impact, beautiful and tragic.

[Tara Schaafsma · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very appropriate as I read this it was -26 degrees outside and the house is cold. Enjoyed it.

[Alexander · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good adaption of London's short story about a man wandering in the unforgiving cold of the great north.

The art, as to be expected when seeing the name Chabouté on the cover, is phenomenal. Though I gotta say... it's the first book I've read from him that is colored. It's colored pretty well, mind you, but it's an odd contrast to Alone or Park Bench and I feel like this book might have had a better reason to be in black and white than the others. It at least felt a little bit weird to me.

Anyway.

What I didn't like was the text. After reading London's short story, I was wondering how Chabouté would handle the writing. This book could have worked with direct copies of London's prose or even without any text at all. Instead he chose to adapt the thoughts of the protagonist (or maybe rather the narrator?). Which is okay, I guess, but it lost quite a bit of the dreariness London managed to build up.
But maybe it's not Chaboutés fault. Maybe it's just an unfitting translation. I can't tell. Not until I start learning french. Which, if the other works of Chabouté don't get translated soon enough, I might even be inclined to do, just to see what more gems this man has to offer.

[Nazım · Rating 5 out of 5]

Jack London’un artık neredeyse bir kült haline gelmiş hikayesinden nefis Chabouté uyarlaması. Coverı kendinden iyi olan şarkılara benzeyen bir uyarlama. Chabouté, Jack London’un aksine tüm hikayeyi bize üçüncü değil de birinci kişi ağzından anlatıyor. Bu da hikaye ile daha net bir bağ kurmanıza sebep oluyor. Orijinal hikayeyi bitirdiğimizde nasıl ki Temmuz sıcağında bile üşümeye başlıyorsak, Chabouté uyarlamasını bitirdiğimizde de derin bir yalnızlık hissi ile hesaplaşırken buluyoruz kendimizi.

Chabouté bu kitapta genel tarzının aksine renkli bir çizgi kullanıyor ve çoğu zaman kendinizi hikayeden kopup çizimleri dehşet içinde izlerken buluyorsunuz.
Çizgi roman kitaplığımdaki en sevdiğim parçalardan biri.

[Urbon Adamsson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another pleasant surprise.

The writing here is simply superb. It allows the reader to easily immerge into the story.

Together with the fantastic art and sequences you can transport yourself into the cold weather of Alaska. You can feel the cold and the danger of the wild.

The story is intense and sad. You can feel the emotions and the desperation of someone that is trying to survive the extreme weather.

A fantastic experience. One that you won't need to experience in the first person to understand how it is, thanks to this work.

[Tufan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Her sayfası tablo niteliğinde olan, yeni gelenin hikayesini anlatan Ateş Yakmak, Jack London’ın aynı adlı hikayesinden uyarlanan çizgi romanlardan birisidir. Kanada’nın kuzeyinde yer alan, altın arayıcılarından birisi olan baş karakterimizin, ekip arkadaşlarının yanına varma yönünde dondurucu soğuğa ve zorlu yollara karşı verdiği mücadeleye tanıklık ediyoruz.
http://www.tufanyt.com/ates-yakmak-ch...

[Steph Mostav · Rating 3 out of 5]

Foi meu primeiro contato com Chabouté e a experiência foi de tirar o fôlego. Não digo que nada se perdeu com a adaptação, mas o que a história ganhou com a potência das imagens fez tanto do conto quanto do quadrinho equivalentes quanto à qualidade. O uso de cores frias em conjunto do preto e do branco tanto serviu pra representar a atmosfera daquele deserto de neve e gelo quanto foi um excelente contraste para as cores vibrantes das fogueiras. Curti bastante.

[Emilia P · Rating 4 out of 5]

Chaboute could like, illustrate a textbook about cheesemaking and make it super exciting.
He is an artistic gem.
This one's about freezing to death! It was....chilling! Get it. YEP. It was good, but since it was so simple, too short! Chaboute forever.

[Caroline · Rating 4 out of 5]

Beautifully illustrated in Chaboute's black and white signature, London's haunting tale of man vs. nature is truly hot.

[John Woakes · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very short story, but very well done. The drawing of the snowy landscape is fantastic, you can almost feel the coldness.

[Tracey · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent graphic novel version of Jack London's grim short story.

[Oskar · Rating 4 out of 5]

Based on Jack London's story of the same name, To Build a Fire is a minimalist tale that explores the theme of being completely out of one's element. Immediately after finishing it, I felt it perhaps offered a bit too little. But afterward, I found myself thinking a lot about how the few plot elements it did present could be interpreted. In that sense, I suppose it really fulfilled its purpose as a piece of minimalist writing.

Though I empathized with its message as a cautionary tale about hubris and arrogance, I thought it was perhaps a bit too ruthless—especially if interpreted through an existential lens.

[Sandra Dias · Rating 4 out of 5]

A arte de Chabouté cumpre na íntegra todos os elogios que li e ouvi em podcasts.
Que beleza de traço e o uso da sombra é fabuloso.

A história, baseada na escrita de Jack London, é envolta em neve, montanhas, animais selvagens e cães, além de muita luta pela sobrevivência dos poucos humanos que se atrevem a ir para tais locais em pleno inverno.

[Marko · Rating 2 out of 5]

Nice realistic art but the man could have had more different expressions on his face. Now it was a bit one note thing. And I think, that more dramatic, colourful and exaggerated art would have worked better with this simple story.