The Call of the Wild and Three Other Klondike Stories

by Jack London, Roger Dressler (Narrator)

Jack London's stories are classic American favorites. Recorded unabridged in Bookcassette Audio are "Call of the Wild" and three special Klondike stories: "To Build a Fire", "Love of Life" and "To the Man on the Trail".

Call of the Wild
A domestic dog is kidnapped from his comfortable life on a California estate and thrown into the wild north woods. Buck, half St. Bernard and half Scottish shepherd, is a strong dog but not accustomed to the harsh life of the north and he must fight for survival. He learns how to work hard; how to dig a hole in a snowbank to stay warm; how to eat anything no matter how loathsome; how to scent the weather; how to break ice to find water; and most importantly, how to survive cruelty.
At one of the worst moments in his life, Buck receives unexpected human kindness from a new master. With the kind of devotion that only a dog can give, he shows loyalty to his master in ways that are both touching and profound.

To Build a Fire
A man alone on the Yukon Trail, except for his dog, is planning on meeting friends on a day in which he encounters severe cold that reaches 75 degrees below zero. His troubles worsen when he falls through the snow and gets his feet and lower legs wet. His only hope of surviving is to build a fire, but his lack of ample supplies, extreme elements and his own diminishing senses prove to be an impenetrable barrier to his existence.

Genres: Fiction, Audiobook

5 pages, Audiobook

First published August 1, 2001

About the author

John Griffith Chaney, better known as Jack London, was an American novelist, journalist and activist. A pioneer of commercial fiction and American magazines, he was one of the first American authors to become an international celebrity and earn a large fortune from writing. He was also an innovator in the genre that would later become known as science fiction.

London was part of the radical literary group "The Crowd" in San Francisco and a passionate advocate of animal rights, workers’ rights and socialism. London wrote several works dealing with these topics, such as his dystopian novel The Iron Heel, his non-fiction exposé The People of the Abyss, War of the Classes, and Before Adam.

His most famous works include The Call of the Wild and White Fang, both set in Alaska and the Yukon during the Klondike Gold Rush, as well as the short stories "To Build a Fire", "An Odyssey of the North", and "Love of Life". He also wrote about the South Pacific in stories such as "The Pearls of Parlay" and "The Heathen".

Reviews

[John · Rating 5 out of 5]

Things Jack London likes:
- clubs
- fangs
- Alaska
- reconnecting to the dormant ancestral ur-wolf
- doggies

[Laura Risdall · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this classic with my middle school daughter. For the record, it is a dense book for a middle school student. It uses a lot of old English phrases and challenging vocabulary. That said, the story is totally worth the effort.

[864cw · Rating 5 out of 5]

2018

[Jack · Rating 5 out of 5]

Audible Audiobook

[Ensiform · Rating 4 out of 5]

Buck, a huge and simple ranch dog, is abducted, brutalized, and sent to the Klondike, where he works as a sled dog until becoming something more feral and untamed. I must have read this first sometime in the mid-eighties. I enjoyed it this time around for the drama and for the admittedly rich, exuberant uber-macho prose --- though at times I imagined London masturbating furiously as he scratched out line after line about Buck’s lithe muscles, white fangs, hairs charged with unbridled and unconquerable energy, driving his muzzle into the warm living blood of the hare, staining it to the eyeballs, feeling life in death and death in life, pure and unconquered and noble and atavistic… And blah blah blah. Cynicism aside, though, it’s not a bad adventure book, even though London’s view of the primitive and untamed is simplistic, as is his portrayal of the greenhorns Buck nearly dies with before being rescued.
{Read twice]

"Love Of Life": A man with no ammunition and no food, abandoned by his partner, stumbles his way through the vast Klondike wilderness, hounded by a wolf as sick and hungry as himself. More primordial man versus nature, drinking the living blood, living and dying by one’s own hands. Well written and suspenseful macho porn.

"To Build a Fire": A newcomer to the Arctic, who has disregarded the old-timers’ admonitions to travel with a partner in 75 below zero weather, falls through thin ice up to his knees and races against time to build a fire, but his fingers grow utterly numb the longer his fingers are exposed to the air. This is a truly suspenseful and harrowing story, very visceral and real and at times hard to bear. The man is not a complete idiot and has some measure of skill, but the odds are horribly stacked against him, and as his chances fall away, his terrible fate grows more certain. A terrific little tale of nature as an inexorable force.

“To the Man On the Trail": Men at a Klondike camp house abet a thief and try to waylay the police, because the thief was a noble, hardworking guy who’d been stiffed. Rather tepid self-congratulatory “manly” stuff. Not up there with London’s best.

[Kim · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed this book very much. Listened to the unabridged version. Really made me want to visit Alaska and experience some of the rugged terrain detailed so beautifully in Call of the Wild. Was also nice to read a book during the heat of the summer that deals almost exclusively with extreme winter conditions and man/dog's ability to survive and thrive. Made me feel significantly cooler. Well...that and my air conditioner on "frozen tundra" mode.

[Joey, about to e-x-p-l-o-d-e.]

THIS...WAS...AAAAAAAAAAAWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWEEEEEEEEEEEEEESSSSSSSSSSSSSSOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMMEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
EVERYONE MUST READ THIS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!