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 Brilliant Book March 25, 2008
10 out of 10 found this review helpful
This book is a puffin classic and it really is a true classic. This tale is very moving and adventurous. That is why I really like it! It is about a dog, called Buck, who was born in a big house in Santa Clara Valley, where the sun shone brightly and Judge Miller owned him - he lived in a lap of luxury. The dog was sold to be a sledge dog in the severe coldness in horrible Yukon, who rises way above his enemies, which leads him to becoming a highly admired dog in the North Pole. I thoroughly enjoyed this book and it is now on my all time favourite books list. I would rate this book 10/ 10 and would strongly recommend it to children, mainly aged 9 - 13, who like adventure stories.
best book ever November 28, 2007
This is a beautiful powerful story. I have read it at least 5 times over the last 30 years and I am about to buy it for my 9-year old nephew. If you love animals, if you love the wilderness, if you love the call of the wild, then you will love this book. It is a timeless classic - written in 1902!
ondon's Best Work: A Modern Masterpiece of American Lit. November 2, 2007
London achieved his masterpiece with this book. He never wrote anything better than THE CALL Of THE WILD (first called THE SLEEPING WOLF). It's also to redeem the dog race, which he condemned in a short story entitled "Diablo". Ironically, London originally started out writing a short story, and instead it kept growing and growing until it reached a novel length.
In the late 19th century early 20th century naturalism (a literary movement that places value on science and observation with the mindset that there is no fixed morality - its only chemical by-products) is just beginning to catch hold. Naturalism is a direct response to Realism, which Huck Finn is a prime example. Realism came about as a literary movement in the late 1860s after the Civil War, because the writers wanted to point toward a moral code. The movement started to fail in the late 1880s or 1890s because things weren't getting better. Naturalism, especially in this book (although CALL OF THE WILD has many things foreign to naturalism as well), contends there is no moral code, and that the way to get to the true explanation of life is to really get back to nature and observation and science. Although fundamentally opposed to naturalism (read C. S. Lewis's ABOLITION OF MAN for a detailed argument, as well as THE CASE FOR CHRISTIANITY, the first two books in MERE CHRISTIANITY), I like this book quite a bit. Why? Glad you asked. Lets take this story and make Buck a human. Would the story have been well received? No. It would have gotten the same treatment SISTER CARRIE did. The sheer genius in this book rests in the fact that Buck is a dog, and, being a dog, London can do quite a bit more. The moral code doesn't really apply to animals in this fallen world. There are also strong evolutionary themes in this work (Darwin just recently becoming popular in that era).
Another paradox to this work, since it is supposed to be naturalist, is how much Buck transforms. In most naturalist novels the characters hardly learn anything through the course of the novel (look at Carrie at the beginning and at the end of Drieser's novel - she doesn't learn anything really, as opposed to Realist work where the moral is always clearly stated) - not so with this book. Buck not only learns but he becomes progressively more and more powerful. The interesting thing about this novel lies in the fact that, although supposedly naturalistic, in the end Buck becomes a mythic character. There are twelve elements of myth, and this reaches all of them. There is a book (A Hero With A Thousand Faces I think) that goes through them all. Anyway, and it shows up in SISTER CARRIE as well with the rocking chair serving as the symbolism, the major preoccupation with naturalist writers is why do humans have this constant yearning for something more? London doesn't have the answers (because he didn't have Jesus), and, for a naturalist novel, the ending is very strange and out of place because it ends in a romanticized and impossible mythic realm, in a valley where the gold crowds the river beds and Buck becomes a legendary terror among the Yeehats.
One theme that struck me as very interesting is the theme of man (or in the case dog) against society - or more appropriately Civilization. Civilization imposes rigid and unnatural things Buck, and he becomes aloof from all. London describes him as a lord, and he has no real love. Yet, as he abandons these conventions of Civilization (and in many cases morality), he falls in love with (in a man-dog relation can go of course - lets not get indecent here) John Thornton. Yet even his love for Thornton he must abandon for the Call of the Wild. It seems (although, as it is a dog, the lines are a lot more blurred since a lot of what London says is true for animals, but not for the human race) the closer you get to the real primal creature and abandon society's convention, the closer to the real world you are. If you take that to apply to humans, its true and it's a lie. Man has two natures within him, one for righteousness the other for sin. If you are a Christian, then you will end in the place where Buck did - that land of myth that is impossible in this world. But if you indulge your sin nature and do not come to Jesus in the end you will go to.
Something must be said for WHITE FANG. WHITE FANG is this novel in reverse. It's a story of a dog who becomes civilized, and although CALL is better WF is very good. I tend to look upon them as companion works, with one tracing the harkening back to the wild and the other the domestication of dogs.
There is also a complex economic underpinning to this novel. Jack London proclaimed himself a socialist, and yet bragged that he wrote novels for money. Much of the motivation in this novel is economics - why would people go up to the Klondike in the first place but to get gold? And in the end they end in the valley of gold, that land of myth.
Jack London was a contradictory man. Much like Buck, he had come out of the states and went to live in London in the slums, a horrible place, one of the worst on earth at that time. This corresponds to Buck going from sunkissed California to the Klondike, and London sought out the extremes in both situations. In the end he committed suicide, dying at the age of 40.
(Just a side note: Buck is involved in the transmission of the mail at first, and at the end of the book he involves himself in the transmission of the male genetics....
Buck realizes his potential June 30, 2005
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
Gold was found in Alaska, the rush to obtain it required a strong constitution and many dogs to do the work that horses usually did in the states. The environment bread harsh attitudes. Also in the testing of ones mettle one finds their true potential. Buck (a dog that is half St Bernard and half Shepherd) goes through many lives, trials, and tribulations finally realizing his potential. On the way he learns many concepts from surprise, to deceit, and cunning; he also learns loyalty, devotion, and love. As he is growing he feels the call of the wild. This book is well written. There is not a wasted word or thought and the story while building on its self has purpose and direction. The descriptions may be a tad graphic for the squeamish and a tad sentimental for the romantic. You see the world through Buck's eyes and understand it through his perspective until you also feel the call of the wild.
A poignant, moving story of nature and survival November 30, 2002
10 out of 10 found this review helpful
I have to admit that I have not really given Jack London his proper due up to now. Perhaps it is because I don't by my nature like outdoor adventure type stories, or perhaps it is because I associate White Fang and "To Build a Fire" with my youth. The fact is that Jack London is a tremendously talented writer. His understanding of the basics of life matches his great knowledge of the snow-enshrouded world of the upper latitudes. The Call of the Wild, despite its relative brevity and the fact that it is (at least on its surface) a dog's story, contains as much truth and reality of man's own struggles as that which can be sifted from the life's work of many another respected author. The story London tells is starkly real; as such, it is not pretty, and it is not elevating. As an animal lover, I found parts of this story heartbreaking: Buck's removal from the civilized Southland in which he reigned supreme among his animal kindred to the brutal cold and even more brutal machinations of hard, weathered men who literally beat him and whipped him full of lashes is supremely sad and bothersome. Even sadder are the stories of the dogs that fill the sled's traces around him. Poor good-spirited Curly never has a chance, while Dave's story is made the more unbearable by his brave, undying spirit. Even the harsh taskmaster Spitz has to be pitied, despite his harsh nature, for the reader knows full well that this harsh nature was forced upon him by man and his thirst for gold. Buck's travails are long and hard, but the nobility of his spirit makes of him a hero--this despite the fact that his primitive animal instincts and urges continually come to dominate him, pushing away the memory and reality of his younger, softer days among civilized man. Buck not only conquers all--the weather, the harshness of the men who harness his powers in turn, the other dogs and wolves he comes into contact with--he thrives. This isn't a story to read when you are depressed. London's writing is beautiful, poignant, and powerful, but it is also somber, sometimes morose, infinitely real, and at times gut-wrenching and heartbreaking.
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