The Call of the Wild Paperback – November 3, 2013

Jack London was a master of the short story. This is his classic story of the rugged, deadly life on the trail during the Alaska gold rush days in the Yukon. All told from the viewpoint of Buck, one amazing dog. I've read it many times. It never gets old.

Written like poetry. Couldn’t put it down and read it in one sitting.

I really liked this book. I thought it was very adventurous. And, I learned a lot about dogs and packs of wolves in it.

I absolutely love animals and this book holds an amazing journey of a dog becoming his true self and wiser throughout his life. I used this book for a book test for school. Very easy to read and it is very short. I’m very glad that I did read this book because now, if I ever have any leisure time, I can go back and read it. Great book overall.

Beautiful story of a dog, Buck, who is a St. Bernard from his father's side a sheep dog from his mother's. Throughout the story Buck proves that he is a dog like no other. His grit and tenacity see him sail through the worst treatment that can be wrought by man on animal. (Warning:If you have a pet or if you are an animal lover it might prove extremely challenging to sail through many parts of the book). Just when Buck finally finds a master who he dearly loves and is loved, he hears a call, the 'call of the wild'. He knows that he cannot ignore the call.This is a slim volume, can perhaps be read in one sitting if you have some time. I had not imagined that such a book would keep me riveted, for it is not about mystery,suspense, adventure or action. It is about a dog! No wonder this is a classic.Update (June 2019): After reading this book, I was keen on visiting the Jack London Square at Oakland,CA and I did. A thoroughly enjoyable place that does justice to this son of Oakland. Bronze statues of Mr. London and a dog along with plaques about his life present the visitor a nice peek into his life. Sadly he died relatively young, in his forties. A must see is the log cabin he is believed to have spent some time at while in Alaska. An enthusiastic admirer of his identified the cabin in a remote part of Alaska (based on accounts in his works I think), retrieved it and had it reconstructed!(if you plan to read the book, feel free to skip the rest of this below)The Alaska Gold Rush of late 19th century (1896 or so) attracted something like 100,000 prospectors, mostly from the San Francisco/Seattle areas to the Yukon region.Well cared, healthy, powerful dogs attracted unheard of premiums. This prompted a greedy gardener to kidnap his employer's dog and sell it off to work the sleds. While being transported from sunny Santa Clara Valley, Buck changes many cruel hands, however his last tormentor is particularly vile. He clubs Buck to pulp leaving him clinging to life. The experience infuses a steely character in Buck. While anything could break his body, nothing could break his spirit.Buck has to fight many competitors to finally establish supremacy of the pack.His masters recognize his remarkable character and reward him by according him the pride of place, to lead the pack. Demands of transportation make the dogs overworked, underfed and exploited, Buck included. He, like the rest of his pack is reduced to skin and bone. He is sold to ignorant but cruel masters who continue the exploitation, but Buck would have none of it. His greatness is recognized by a camper who adopts him and then begins Buck's wonderful life. He regains everything he had lost and seems even more virile and strong than the best of past times. Buck serves his master, even helping him add to his fortunes. When everything seems hunky dory, something tells Buck his place is in the wild. When the call of the wild is received it does not go unheeded.Meanwhile his master and associates are killed by native Indians.Trust Buck to take revenge and kill them all, establishing his superiority over even man himself. After this inflection point and after having lost his beloved master, Buck is even more convinced that his place is in the Wild and he returns to it, as if he had belonged there all the time.

you axed me this question, and the book is quite gripping and and easy read. It is an adventure/survival story taking place in the Canadian north woods. Although fiction, the story could play out as several past airplane crashes in wilderness areas. The author spends chapters on survival techniques such as fire starting, food gathering, shelter construction, weapon making, fishing, and bird catching. However, the immediate problems of sanitation, bowel movements, body cleanliness are totally lacking. Any one in this situation should have these issues at least mentioned.

This book was so unlike anything I’ve ever read. I loved every minute of it! I would totally recommend it to anyone who loves dogs ❤️🐶

After reading "The Call of the Wild" or more precisely, after being transferred to another place and time, or even more to the point after being totally submerged into the being of this animal, I'm left completely awe-struck by London's work.To see what Buck saw, to feel the forces and the instincts that he felt... that is the power of this book. Here's a passage from the third chaper to illustrate what I mean:"At the mouth of the Tahkeena, one night after super, Dub (a member of the sled-dog team) turned up a snowshoe rabbit, blundered it, and missed. A hundred yards away was a camp of the Northwest Police, with fifty dogs, huskies all, who joined the chase. The rabbit sped down the river, turned off into a small creek, up the frozen bed of which it held steadily. It ran lightly on the surface of the snow, while the dogs plowed through by main strength. Buck led the pack, sixty strong, around bend after bend, but he could not gain. He lay down low to the race, whining eagerly, his splendid body flashing forward, leap by leap, in the wan white moonlight. And leap by leap, like some pale frost wraith, the snowshoe rabbit flashed on ahead.All the stirring of old instincts which at stated periods drives men out from the sounding cities to forest and plain to kill things by chemically propelled leaden pellets, the blood lust, the joy to kill--all this was Buck's, only it was infinitely more intimate. He was ranging at the head of the pack, running the wild thing down, the living meat, to kill with his own teeth and wash his muzzle to the eyes in warm blood.There is an ecstasy that marks the summit of life, and beyond which life cannot rise. And such is the paradox of living, this ecstasy comes when one is most alive, and it comes as a complete forgetfulness that one is alive. This ecstasy, this forgetfulness of living, comes to the artist, caught up and out of himself in a sheet of flame; it comes to the soldier, war-mad on a stricken field and refusing quarter; it came to Buck, leading the pack, sounding the old wolf-cry, straining after the food that was alive and that fled swiftly before him through the moonlight. He was sounding the deeps of his nature, and of the parts of his nature that were deeper than he, going back into the womb of Time. He as mastered by the sheer surging of life, the tidal wave of being, the perfect joy of each separate muscle, joint, and sinew in that it was everything that was not death, that it was aglow and rampant, expressing itself in movement, flying exultantly under the stars and over the face of dead matter that did not move."

An amazing adventure story about a dog called Buck. Buck goes through hell in this book as a man takes him from his home and sells him to become a sled dog. He is a tough one though and never gives up on life. He takes on every challenge with amazing spirit and strength.As I read Buck's story I admired his never ending motivation to survive. Yet, I hated the brutality in the story and winced a fair few times at the tearing flesh and descriptions of death and injury. Some of the human characters are vile and callous. The sled dogs work hard for little reward or comfort. Buck made me feel grateful for my privileged life. He also showed me that the world is a tough place and you have got to fight to survive.It's a short story and takes a couple of hours to read.The Author Jack London wrote numerous other works throughout his life. I will definitely read more of his work. I will never forget the story of Buck. It's made a lasting impression.

This elemental story imagines a dog plucked from an indolent early life as a household pet, to become part of a sledge team working in the harsh world of the Yukon during the Klondike gold rush. Struggling to survive, the former domesticated animal begins to regress through past generations to its wolf forebears. The story itself makes a similar journey back into the history, taking the form of the archetypal myth of the hero, where a youngster leaves the comfort of home and heads into the unknown. Writers such as Christopher Vogler suggest that such a story evolved back in the early history of humanity, as a teaching tool to prepare the young to go out beyond the tribe's home territory into a hostile world. In both subject and form, The Call of the Wild reaches back to the time when dog and man first came together, when they were rather similar, hairy creatures struggling for survival. This makes sense of the humanisation of the dog, even though its animal character is closely observed.I found The Call of the Wild immensely powerful and involving. By the end of it I actually felt bloodied and battered, as though I'd come through a formative experience. The Call of the Wild deserves its status as one of the best novels ever written.

"Humans inhumanity is all too human."Buck a domesticated dog is stolen for use during the gold rush in the Yukon; use is not a word I use lightly here, enslaved would begin to describe it better. This is not a childrens book by any standard; the description of cruelty of humans towards animals is brutal and unrelenting, also the descriptions of the survival of the fittest is not restricted in any way, expect gore and cruelty in bucket loads.This is a tale of adventure and survival, that takes you into a world where nature is king and master of men and animals, one mistake one miscalculation and your life is gone.I finished this short book in one sitting and enjoyed the resilience of buck but found some of the violence a bit disturbing.

Jack London did not pull any punches in describing the treatment of animals in Alaska during the gold rush. Jack London was one of the few people to make an absolute fortune out of NOT finding gold in the Klondike. He stories about the gold rush were very popular in the United States where people liked to imagine prospecting for gold without the inconvenience of actually doing it.His characters were drawn from real life. So much so that far from suing him, anyone who appeared as a character in a Jack London short story was more likely to thank him.He was a great writer of short stories and, although his tales of the Klondike were famous, the rest of his stories are equally good.

A big, privileged southern dog gets his life inverted by his theft. Shifting from one vicious owner to the next, the big dog, Buck, has to use to wit, cunning and strength to remain alive in the frozen and brutal world of the Klondike Gold rush. At last he meets a good man, John Thonton, who saves his life and Buck doesn't forget it. Prospecting far into the rugged mountains of the interior, he accompanies his new master and two friends, before finally answering the voice he's heard all of his life. It's a wonderful story.