Reviews

The Call of the Wild, by Jack London

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bb9159's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional inspiring reflective medium-paced

4.75

adelita18's review against another edition

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4.0

I read Jack London in grade school, but didn’t come to really appreciate his writing style until reading him again as an adult. His style strikes me as being the grandfather to Steinbeck’s and Hemingway’s - direct, realistic, and brutally honest. There were some moments in the book I had to put it down and come back to the story later due to the brutality London brings to the fore.

I thoroughly enjoyed how the book gives the perspective of Buck and the animal realm. It was intriguing exploring the regression from domesticated to wild animal and the discovery of self that resulted from that process. Buck at any stage is a bad ass dog.

jocelynw's review against another edition

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2.0

I finally defeated this book for my reading of the Books that Shaped America list. I had a copy of this as a kid and tried it several times before the age of 10, and never could get into it. Having now made it all the way through it, I realize that the problems were probably 1. dogs and 2. violence, neither of which I've ever been into. The oblique style of the storytelling - laden with allusions that might have been lost on me as a little kid - probably didn't help. This having gone okay, I'm half tempted to re-try the most hated book of my childhood (one that my mother loved) Little Women.