The Call of the Wild

The Call of the Wild, by Jack London, is the story of a dog named Buck who is raised in a "sunkissed" country home with a loving and caring family, and is suddenly sold by the gardener. Buck finds himself in the freezing and hostile land of the Klondike, pulling a sled in search for gold. Or as he puts it, "the yellow metal." The call of the wild is, in fact, every creatures...more

The Call of the Wild, by Jack London, is the story of a dog named Buck who is raised in a "sunkissed" country home with a loving and caring family, and is suddenly sold by the gardener. Buck finds himself in the freezing and hostile land of the Klondike, pulling a sled in search for gold. Or as he puts it, "the yellow metal." The call of the wild is, in fact, every creatures call to survive, to be wild, to eat or be eaten, to kill or be killed. This theme plays off the enlightenment view of Rousseau's "noble savage," or "natures gentleman," and of philosophical Naturalism. By honoring the rules of "club and fang," he is noble. By obeying the rules, he is savage. This same doctrine, so to speak, influenced Darwin's "survival of the fittest," which later inspired Hitler's self-theology of a master race.I give it a five-star for good presentation, negative one for idea.   hide

this is one of my fav books of all time!

12/13/09 Not a pleasant book to read (especially the first half), but it is amazingly well-written. Animal lovers beware.

for the love of dogs+the nature+adventure+love&friendship. used to be one of my bedside books..one of the first novels i've read in english. didnt reread it as much when i got into grade 5/6..but i kept the interest and love of Yukon& Buck&Jack London ever since.

It has been a long time since I last read this. This time around, I was a lot more aware of the savage nature of Buck and the reason for the title of the book. A part of me doesn't like this book because of how Buck was personified in the beginning of the book. I felt like his character was intended to be understood as a human, not as a dog and the change of this point of view later on in the...more

It has been a long time since I last read this. This time around, I was a lot more aware of the savage nature of Buck and the reason for the title of the book. A part of me doesn't like this book because of how Buck was personified in the beginning of the book. I felt like his character was intended to be understood as a human, not as a dog and the change of this point of view later on in the book was a little disconcerting at the end. However, that may have been the intention of London.   hide

This is a great book--and I got my husband to read it and he doesn't read! It took us both only one day to read, and it was the door to reading for my husband! Read it.

Need to read the classics from time to time. Anyone who really knows me would understand this...

What can you say about London other than they guy was a master story teller. Read it if you haven't.

A classic.