The Call of the Wild Review

Imagine living a happy, comfortable life. Then, imagine being taken from that life and thrown into the complete opposite: a life of hard work and struggle. This is the beginning of the story of Buck in The Call of the Wild by Jack London. The Call of the Wild proved to be an exciting and interesting book.

The Call of the Wild is about a dog named Buck during the time of the gold rush in Alaska. Prospectors began to race to Alaska to find gold, but in order to get there, they needed sled dogs. Since sled dogs were very expensive, a black market took form. Buck gets sold into the black market and soon discovers just how difficult his life will be. This is the story of Buck's survival in the tough conditions, his fight to be top dog, and his road to answering the "call of the wild."

The characters in this book are very interesting. The entire book is written from the point of view of a dog, so this provides unique insight into the mind of an animal. Each other dog on the sled team is thoroughly described, and I found myself thinking that they were real people. Each dog had his own personality and traits. There are people mentioned in the book, but they stay in the background because the story is about Buck.

The setting that Jack London created in The Call of the Wild was interesting. He described the many places that Buck had to go to including the Alaskan and Canadian wilderness. Each scene was not perfectly clear in my mind, but since there were so many different scenes, that would have been very difficult for London. With that much extra description, The Call of the Wild would have been an extremely long book.

The Call of the Wild illustrates a theme of survival of the fittest. In order to survive, Buck and the other dogs had to push themselves to the limits. Many dogs died because they simply were not fit to work. The book shows what great lengths Buck will go to in order to survive and proper.

The Call of the Wild provided interesting insight into the world of a character who would normally not be brought into light. I would recommend this book to anyone of any age.