The Call of the Wild book club questions

The reading plan

Meeting 1: Chapters 1 to 3

1. Does learning to survive violence mean accepting its rules?
2. What might require the most effort from Buck in moving from estate life to an unfamiliar world?
3. How does a dog's death change what readers expect from Buck's new life?
4. Do Buck's survival lessons suggest that experience matters more than instinct, or that the two need each other?
5. How much does danger explain the spreading disobedience, and how much might it excuse?

Meeting 2: Chapters 4 to 5

6. Is a record journey still a triumph when punishing work follows it?
7. What can Buck's leadership achieve when the work itself is punishing?
8. How do ancestral visions change your understanding of what Buck needs to survive?
9. What questions about the limits of endurance does Dave's final struggle raise?
10. How should responsibility be divided between the owners' mistakes and their deliberate beatings?

Meeting 3: Chapters 6 to 7

11. When does devotion become a strength, and when might it ask too much?
12. Should the skeptical crowd's judgment matter when Buck's strength is driven by love?
13. What does Buck's dangerous rescue show about the difference between obedience and devotion?
14. How does Buck's devotion to John Thornton complicate the idea that survival depends on instinct?
15. How do the forest wanderings shape your reading of Buck's eventual joining of the wolf pack?

Themes to talk about

Tips for the host

1. Open each meeting with one question everyone can answer, then go deeper.
2. Anyone who fell behind can catch up with the 15-minute summary.