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| The Call of the Wild, White Fang, and Other Stories (Oxford World's Classics) | 
| Author: Jack London
Creators: Earle Labor, Robert C. Leitz
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Category: Book
List Price: $7.95
Buy New: $3.68
You Save: $4.27 (54%)
New (25) from $3.68
Avg. Customer Rating:  8 reviews
Sales Rank: 59040
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 400
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.5
Dimensions (in): 7.6 x 5 x 0.7
ISBN: 0192835149
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.52
EAN: 9780192835147
ASIN: 0192835149
Publication Date: August 20, 1998
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: SHIPS TODAY!!!!!! BRAND NEW BOOK
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| Customer Reviews:
| Showing reviews 1-5 of 8 | | NEXT » |
A Classic book review January 11, 2006
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
In the book, The Call of the Wild and other stories, a dog name Buck is forced to leave his home in Santa Clara Valley, California after he is sold to two men that are going up north for the gold rush. They are headed to the region of Klondike Canada and once they get there Buck soon realizes that it is a very uncivilized place compared to his home. Buck competes with the rest of the sled dogs for head dog and it becomes a very violent contest in which Buck wins. After a while, Buck and the rest of the sled dogs become very weak after the long and treacherous journey. Buck is sold to an experienced gold hunter named John Thornton and they build a great relationship. After John Thornton dies Buck is forced to survive on his own and it is truly a Call of the Wild.
I enjoyed the book Call of the Wild because it was a great adventure story and a story that I think people of all ages would enjoy. I also liked how the author Jack London depicted the relationship between dog and man. He described how Buck felt towards all of his owners and how he learned that humans were only superior to him if they had one thing, a weapon. London went into more detail about Buck and John Thornton's relationship by describing how they were the best of friends. He showed that Buck was so obedient towards John that he would jump off a cliff if he were told to do so.
London did a great job of using imagery to enhance the book. I believe the plot of the book itself is what makes it a classic but the imagery and diction London chooses to use makes it just more interesting than it already is. I really think people of all ages would enjoy reading this book and even if you aren't into the wilderness type of book I think you will still enjoy the story.
Great stories with a few odd elements May 10, 2005
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
I'm reviewing a shorter compilation of Jack London stories not currently available on Amazon, but all of the stories are also in this book.
I bought the book to revisit the "cold weather stories" such as Call of the Wild and To Build a Fire while holed up last winter in my snowy mountain redoubt. I enjoyed the cold adventures and descriptions of living and working outdoors in subzero weather before the era of goose down, Thinsulate, Gore-Tex and nylon. I was not too surprised to learn my recollection of these stories that I first encountered forty-odd years ago was not particularly accurate (not unlike other distant memories I investigate) and I enjoyed reading them.
Having said that, a lot of these stories are downright DEPRESSING...London was a well regarded writer and commercial success in his short lifetime. But he was apparently a tormented person, driven to alcohol and suicide by age 40. His dark view of human nature and the need for and desirability of radical socialist revolution is a theme of several stories. One of them, The Dream of Debs, fantasizes about a bazaar socialist rebellion in San Francisco. The "working class" secretly colludes to hide away food for themselves and then calls a general strike that brings the "ruling class" to its knees by imminent starvation. The result is that everyone gets their pre-strike jobs back with greatly improved income and working conditions for all the strikers. It never occurs to London, apparently a "true believer", that some of the "rulers" might not reopen their businesses as they would lose money or that they would cover their increased costs by raising prices to the workers' detriment as consumers. Oddly, London could not fathom that his story's affluent protagonist would do anything after the strike except rehire his house full of domestic servants at much increased wages, even welcoming back those who stole his food and abandoned him to battle starvation. Weird...
Nevertheless, these stories are well written with vivid, pithy language, colorful descriptions and surprising plot twists. They are excellent reading for would-be writers of all ages and, at least regarding the "traditional" stories, are excellent tales of heroic adventure in the frigid late-19th century north country.
 White Fang March 10, 2005
1 out of 4 found this review helpful
I once read this book when I was around 11 years old. Back then I pretty much got all of the details of the book. I again read White Fang this summer. White fang is about a fearsome wolf named Buck. Buck always stood above all of the dogs. He led his team of fellow wolfs on a race over 2,000 miles long. In the book Buck proves his strength and his courage time and time again. I must give a warning to the younger readers out there that there are some violent dog fights that Buck gets into so if you are not into the whole fighting scene you might just want to skip those parts. If you like a classic book with action and adventure than White Fang is the book for you.
The strong and whole hearted dog November 12, 2002
1 out of 3 found this review helpful
The cold Alaskan air could burn anybody's skin and heart, but not this wolf named Buck. He showed he had heart in everything that he did. One of the many things Buck did during his three thousand miles was earning ownership from all the dogs on the team and from all of the men and women who owned him. He showed courage by pulling twenty five-pound sacks of flour for one hundred yards all by himself. This book is a good one to read if you love adventure, excitement and danger. I would recommend this book to anybody, but mostly the younger children because of its many fun adventures.
Really thrilling, but not quite a five October 17, 2002
9 out of 10 found this review helpful
This review is by a family of three kids. Our mom read this book aloud to us. Here are our opinions:
Anne (12): I think this was a really moving book, but some of the writer's opinions, I didn't quite agree with. Jack London says that we are shaped by our society, but I believe that we can change ourselves, because we have free will.
Michelle (11): It was a great book, but I didn't like the middle portion, because White Fang was all hatred, killing all the dogs he met.
John (9): The best part was when White Fang was sitting at the shore as boats came up, waiting to kill all the dogs. I think White Fang was good and bad. He would be a good guard dog. But he was bad because he tried to kill. He never let any dog retreat to save themselves.
Mom: This was really a good book, but I recommend it as a read aloud. The reading level is way above my kids heads, but they understood it in context as a read aloud. There are some very ferocious parts that I skipped as I read, because I thought them too graphic. But the book did inspire us to discuss the idea that we are shaped by our surroundings, and that we have free will to make our way. But also, we shape other's lives by our own choices -- so we are responsible before God to others.
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