REVIEW: Call of the Wild

Call of the Wild
Author: Jack London

I love adventure stories. When I was a child, I greedily devoured any book that involved wilderness, danger and action. Jack London's stories were some of my favorites. My dad bought me his books on the downlow, as my mother had in her mind that such stories were not "ladylike.''  My dad supported me in my love of adventure and supplied me with all sorts of unladylike tales -- Tarzan, The Jungle Book, Jack London, and all sorts of wonderful stories that carried me away to far off places. Very unladylike places.

Out of all of those wonderful stories, Call of the Wild was one of my favorites. It was the first story I read where an animal is a realistic main character, not a talking caricature in a children's story. Buck is a dog who gets stolen from his owner and sold as a sled dog. The changes he goes through....the transformation from pet to a wild animal is fascinating. Back then (and still today) I wanted to hop into the story and kick the butts of the abusive men who train the dog to be a working dog by whipping and clubbing him. The abuse of the animals in this story is realistic, but the horrible humans who mistreat their dogs seem to meet grisly fates in the Alaskan wilderness. Karma. I celebrated with Buck finally had a master he loved....and supported how he blended into the wilderness at the end. I always felt that ending was totally appropriate. He had morphed into a wild animal, not a pet, so he deserved his freedom in the end.

Jack London was definitely a man's man. He lived hard, worked hard, and died hard.  He was the highest paid author of his day before he died at 40 in 1916 of an accidental morphine overdose. It has been suggested that the overdose might not have been accidental. He was very ill and dying from a mix of self abuse (alcoholism) and disease (several afflictions caught in the tropics that never went away), and might have decided to go the way of several of the characters in his story....OD on morphine and quietly slip away. I can see him wanting to leave on his own terms, in peace, at the house in California that he loved. But that's all just conjecture....we can never know if it was accidental or on purpose. I think it's wonderful that his stories are more than 100 years old now and still catch the attention of readers today.

I listened to an audiobook version of this classic novella. Narrated by Patrick Lawlor, the audio is almost 3.5 hours long. Lawlor reads at a steady, even pace with good inflection. I have hearing loss, but was able to easily hear and understand his narration.

Call of the Wild is one of 100 books chosen as part of The Great American Read. I can totally see how this classic about life in the Alaskan wilderness deserves a spot on the list. This is the 7th book on the list that I have read/re-read on my quest to read through the entire list.

Jack London wrote many short stories and novels and even some plays and poetry. His most famous novels are Call of the Wild, White Fang, The Sea-Wolf and Martin Eden.