The Call of the Wild

By: Jack London

Narrated by: David Ian Davies

Length: 3 hrs and 39 mins

Publisher's summary

Kidnapped from his safe California home. Thrown into a life-death struggle in the frozen Arctic wilderness. Half St. Bernard, half Shepard, Buck learns many hard lessons as a sled dog: the lesson of the lash, of the cold, of near-starvation and cruelty. And the greatest lesson he learns from his last owner, John Thorton: the power of love and loyalty.

Yet always, even at the side of the human he loves, Buck feels the pull in his bones, an urge to answer his wolf ancestors as they howl to him. Can Buck resist the lure of the wolves?

Public Domain (P)2011 One Voice Recordings

Narration Quirks But Still Amazing!

This is the story of a hearty southland dog in the northland wilderness. To many The Call of the Wild is a tale of adventure in a harsh wilderness. To me this story has a brilliant depth well beyond the agitation to wanderlust perceptible from the surface. At least once, this book brought a tear to my eye, and I recommend this text wholeheartedly.

The narrator speaks passionately, and I feel he does the story justice. The quirks mentioned in the review title are 2 primary things.

1. The pauses between chapters and sentences are very short. It keeps the book moving quickly- the narration would announce the following chapter's title and begin reading it before I could even reach to my device to press pause. However, this problem is easily rectified (if you can call it a problem at all) as the chapter delimiters of the audiobook actually align with the beginning of each chapter. I found this book a pleasure to listen to from a functional stand point since the chapters tended to be 30 to 45 minutes, which gives the book natural segmentation for listening across a number of days.

2. There are quite a few narration dubs throughout the story in which a person besides the narrator speaks the text. The narrator dubbing over sounds similar but is definitely distinguishable as a different person. It happens in straight narration but also for certain characters speaking in the story. I didn't notice many in the first half of the book but perhaps I was only not yet accustomed to the narrators voice. These dubs are the principle reason the narration receives 4 stars, and an irritable person might even rate the performance as 3. However, without the dubs, the narration would be a resounding 5, and the lively delivery by the narrator was enjoyable regardless of the occasional dubbed correction!

Boring

What could have made this a 4 or 5-star listening experience for you?

Narrator being consistent with the accent. Having a livelier voice. I couldn't listen for more than 5 minutes.

What do you think your next listen will be?

I listened to Zen and the Art of Faking It and it was a much more entertaining narrator and story.

What didn’t you like about David Ian Davies’s performance?

The accent was very hard to follow. It sounded like he was going in and out of different accents. The speaking was very dull. If I had listened for more than a few minutes I would have fallen asleep, which would not have been good I was driving while listening.

What reaction did this book spark in you? Anger, sadness, disappointment?

Boredom

Any additional comments?

The narrator was dull and the story was dull. I stopped listening after 5 minutes. This was a waste of money.