Into The Wild

Apr 15, 2008 Dixie Diamond rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: Don't Try This At Home

Shelves: biography, outdoors, 1990s, my_books

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. My grandfather--not an Alaskan but an experienced outdoorsman--would have tied this kid to a tree and let the bears play tetherball with him.

A small part of me appreciates the effort Krakauer put into researching this book. A much bigger part of me is completely disgusted both with McCandless himself and with Krakauer's mindless adoration of him. Krakauer pulls out all the stops to make McCandless look like a phenomenon, and seems to agree with McCandless that the world should have handed itself...more

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Jul 25, 2008 Melinda rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: adventure, made-into-a-movie

This book is a wonderful cautionary tale. I will probably read it again with my daughter when she is old enough to discuss it. Unfortunately, I'm afraid the reason most people will read the book and see the new upcoming movie, is for a different reason. Chris McCandless (in the book, and from what I understand in the movie), is a hero and courageous for flying in the face of everything he grew up with to find a better way. A young man unhappy with the materialism, hunger, and waste in the world;...more This book is a wonderful cautionary tale. I will probably read it again with my daughter when she is old enough to discuss it. Unfortunately, I'm afraid the reason most people will read the book and see the new upcoming movie, is for a different reason. Chris McCandless (in the book, and from what I understand in the movie), is a hero and courageous for flying in the face of everything he grew up with to find a better way. A young man unhappy with the materialism, hunger, and waste in the world; angry with his father for not being a perfect father to him; intellectually superior, a fantastic athlete in top condition... and yet a young man who died because of his own decisions and his own actions. He cut off ties to his family, hitchhiked and worked his way to Alaska, headed "into the wild" in April 1992, and was found dead in August 1992 most probably from starvation. How wonderful to "fight against the odds" and "ask real questions". Unfortunately, Chris didn't really fight against any odds, he took the easy way out by cutting off real relationships. Chris may have asked real questions, but he denied real people the opportunity to answer them in any way, because he had already decided what was "the right way". This is not heroic. It is immaturity. It is tragic and sad, yes, but not heroic or courageous.

After reading the book, I think Chris died because he was foolish. Intellectually bright, yes. Athletically gifted, yes. But he had no wisdom. Wisdom has been defined as "skill in living", and wisdom is not always bestowed on the young and the healthy and the intellectually smart. The opposite of wisdom is foolishness. His anger and questioning drove him not to wisdom, but to self-reliance and an overweening arrogance in his own ability to "get through it". Well, we see the result of those decisions and those attitudes.... to quote Darwin, Chris is an example of how "survival of the fittest" applies. Chris was not "fit", therefore he did not "survive". But why wasn't he fit? He was smart and young and gifted in many ways, but he chose to abandon relationships and abandon those who loved him and create himself anew with no relationships and no ties. He walked away from people who loved him, made friends with people who came to love him, and walked away from all of that to find his answers "in the wild" on his own. The way away from love and relationship leads not to life, but indeed to death. And death is what Chris got.

The book quotes Chris' mother as saying, "I haven't prayed since we lost him." (pg. 202) An older man who befriended Chris, Ronald Franz, also says, "When Alex left for Alaska, I prayed. I asked God to keep his finger on the shoulder of that one; I told him that boy was special. But he let Alex die. So on December 26, when I learned what had happened, I renounced the Lord. I withdrew my church membership and became an atheist. I decided I couldn't believe in a God who would let something that terrible happen to a boy like Alex." (pg. 60) But God didn't do anything to Chris, except let him do as he wanted? If Chris sought real answers to his hard questions, God is there, and God can help, but you have to know you need help and submit to someone wiser than you. Chris McCandless never submitted willingly to anyone, and he certainly never admitted anyone else had teaching or wisdom for him. He was smarter than everyone else, better able to see the truth than anyone else. So the heritage Chris McCandless left is one that drives his mother to stop praying, and converts an old man to atheism. Is this the heritage anyone would want?

So read this book, but read it with questions in mind. Why are we lauding a young man as a hero who was actually a foolish man? What kind of society are we in where real courage and real heroism are somehow playing 2nd fiddle to selfishness and arrogance? When are you so intellectually intelligent that you become stupid? Is there any time when foolish decisions could be called "courageous"? In a search for truth and what really matters in life, is it acceptable to think nothing of hurting those people who are most vulnerable to you? When you die, will the way you lived your life cause others to abandon their faith or grow in their faith? Is it ever courageous to be selfish and think only of yourself? Is it harder to walk away from a relationship, or to stay in a relationship and work on making it better? Would you ever teach anyone else that the way to have real relationships is to limit yourself only to those people who cannot ever hurt you?

Real courage, real heroism comes when you love others and you serve others. Real courage has nothing selfish in it. Fathers and husbands who remain with their families and provide for them, even though they would rather have a mid-life crisis and leave it all, they are courageous and heroic. They remain, they work, they don't father or husband perfectly, but they remain in difficult relationships. It courageous to stay in the hard parts of life, and try. Mothers and wives who sacrifice and serve again and again and again without books being written about them, without thanks, but who continue to love and give of themselves to others. That is courageous. It is hard to stay in messy relationships. It is easy to leave. It is courageous to stay and do hard things. It is easy to leave and do what you want.

So, let's read this book, but read it as a cautionary tale. This is what happens when you seemingly 'have it all', but have not love. When you die, will people be driven to become atheists? Will people stop praying when you are dead? Or will you live a life of wisdom and love? Will you leave behind you a heritage of godly love and service? Will people pray more because of the example you left them? Will they be more loving, better mothers or fathers or sisters or brothers? Or will they become angry and arrogant and foolishness? Yes, this is a good book to read. But let's read it for the right reasons and with the right questions.

[NOTE: In the book, and in the movie, the author proposes that Chris ate some poison berries which caused his death. But tests have been made around the area, and plants that would have been available to Chris were tested, and no toxic berries or plants have been found. The truth is probably that he starved. Too few calories coming in, high expenditure of calories for hunting and keeping warm resulted eventually in such a calorie deficit that he died.]

Some good articles I found on Chris McCandless include:
http://www.newsminer.com/news/2008/ap...

http://nmge.gmu.edu/textandcommunity/...

Alaskan Park Ranger Peter Christian wrote: “I am exposed continually to what I will call the ‘McCandless Phenomenon.’ People, nearly always young men, come to Alaska to challenge themselves against an unforgiving wilderness landscape where convenience of access and possibility of rescue are practically nonexistent […:] When you consider McCandless from my perspective, you quickly see that what he did wasn’t even particularly daring, just stupid, tragic, and inconsiderate. First off, he spent very little time learning how to actually live in the wild. He arrived at the Stampede Trail without even a map of the area. If he [had:] had a good map he could have walked out of his predicament […:] Essentially, Chris McCandless committed suicide.”[18:] Some may argue that this is what he wanted all along, given his troubled past
(less)

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Jan 04, 2012 Petra X rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: biography-true-story

We are all heroes to ourselves. McCandless was, Krakauer is. This doesn't vary. All that varies is how we define heroism and how much, or how little, we are prepared to do to for that stance.

In order to get people, usually young men, to sacrifice their lives we tell them of those that went before and tell them they were heroes who died for their countries, died for their principles, died even for their dreams. Impractical dreams that are the province of the young. And those who would be heroes n...more

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Sep 18, 2007 Nadine rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: non-fiction

Overall, I was pretty disappointed with this book. The genesis of the book was an in-depth magazine article, and I suspect that the article was superb. But I just don't think there's enough here to warrant an entire book. As evidence, I point to several lengthy chapters that have nothing to do with the underlying story--they discuss other people who have gone "into the wild" and, surprisingly, Krakauer includes a whole chapter about himself.

My other problem is that I found myself unable to ident...more

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Jan 14, 2008 Maudeen Wachsmith rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: people who have seen the movie, lovers of the outdoors

I first read Into the Wild ten years ago when it first came out after finding out that parts of it are set in Carthage, Miner County, South Dakota pop. 187, a town where my mother has family and where her cousin was once mayor. My great-grandmother is buried in Howard, the Miner county seat. So that was the book and movie’s initial appeal. I mean this town is the true “blink-and-you-miss-it” town. That is, if one would ever even happen to drive through it as it isn’t on a main road. So I wondere...more I first read Into the Wild ten years ago when it first came out after finding out that parts of it are set in Carthage, Miner County, South Dakota pop. 187, a town where my mother has family and where her cousin was once mayor. My great-grandmother is buried in Howard, the Miner county seat. So that was the book and movie’s initial appeal. I mean this town is the true “blink-and-you-miss-it” town. That is, if one would ever even happen to drive through it as it isn’t on a main road. So I wondered, how young Chris McCandless, the subject of the book and movie ended up in Carthage in the first place.

Then I read that Sean Penn was finally making a movie adapted from the book and filming in Carthage. I thought it would be really interesting to see Carthage on the big screen. The first day it was showing in our little theater here in town I Shanghaied my husband (who really isn’t a movie goer, in fact if you ask him, on a scale of 1-10, that he’d suggest going to a movie as a form of entertainment he’d probably tell you –2) into going with me for the matinee. Now John had seen the Oprah show where Sean Penn and Emile Hirsch (who portrays young McCandless in the film) were guests along with author Jon Krakauer and didn’t think too much of McCandless so he was even less excited than usual about seeing this film. If he had known ahead of time that it was 140 minutes long he’d probably had left the theater after his first carton of Milk Duds. But the trooper he is, he persevered for my sake.

The movie adequately told the story of young Christopher McCandless who after graduating from Emory University, took off on a two year road trip, calling himself Alexander Supertramp. Very early on his car was destroyed and he abandoned it, burned what little money he had left and took off on foot. Some one say he was idealist others an adventurer, but others just reckless. Everyone seems to have his or her own opinion. What is clear is that he was found two year later dead in an abandoned bus just north of Denali National Park in Alaska. However his adventures along the way and the people he met tell a very interesting story. And the just how he died is still fodder for speculation although Krakauer does give his theory. Hirsch as McCandless is wonderful – his portrayal deserves an Oscar nomination as does that of Hal Holbrook as Ron Franz, the elderly recluse who befriends him. Told mostly in flashbacks, the movie suffers from uneven editing. I was also disappointed in the cinematography—the Alaskan scenes could have been brilliant but they were just average. That said, the South Dakota prairie was breathtaking. And it was fun to see Carthage. I think the entire town was filmed.

After watching the movie, I was compelled to read the book again. At only 207 pages it’s a fairly quick read. It was even more meaningful after watching the movie. I read many passages out loud to my husband and told him I thought he might change his opinion of McCandless. He is now reading the book. I don’t have the absolutely negative opinion of young Chris as many people have. He was a bit reckless, that’s for sure. But no more than many young men. As Krakauer mentions late in the book, it’s that attribute of daring that contributes to many young men signing up for the military—particularly in times of war. Yes, he did some things wrong. But don’t we all. The only reason that we’re reading about him was that he made some little mistakes that ended up killing him. He was actually a smart kid and I found a lot in him to be admired. It was sad he had to die. Any loss of life is sad. And that is what bothers me the most. That a parent lost a child, that a sister lost a brother, that a world lost a promising young man. There are lessons to be learned here, of course, but was the price too great? (less)

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Dec 14, 2008 Dini rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: nonfiction, favorites, lendable

This book got me riveted in the tragic story of Chris McCandless, a young man who left his family and friends, abandoned most of his material possessions, went to the Alaska wilderness and perished there. The author does a great job of portraying McCandless complex personality through meticulous research based on interviews, letters and journal entries. The writing is so engaging that although it is already clear from the beginning how McCandless' story would end, I was hooked till the last page...more This book got me riveted in the tragic story of Chris McCandless, a young man who left his family and friends, abandoned most of his material possessions, went to the Alaska wilderness and perished there. The author does a great job of portraying McCandless complex personality through meticulous research based on interviews, letters and journal entries. The writing is so engaging that although it is already clear from the beginning how McCandless' story would end, I was hooked till the last page. Krakauer only digresses when discussing his own high-risk undertaking and those of ill-fated adventurers similar to McCandless — these parts offer comparison to McCandless' character but I found myself getting impatient and wanting them to end quickly, to return to the main story itself which is much more compelling.

Readers have been divided with regard to this story. Some admire McCandless' daring and idealism; some others say he was stupid, reckless and arrogant enough to have gone to Alaska without sufficient preparation. I think he was a human being with faults and merits, but I have to admit I felt something stirring in me when I read this passage, taken from a letter he wrote to a friend:

"...make a radical change in your lifestyle and begin to boldly do things which you may previously never have thought of doing, or been too hesitant to attempt. So many people live within unhappy circumstances and yet will not take the initiative to change their situation because they are conditioned to a life of security, conformity, and conservation... The very basic core of a man's living spirit is his passion for adventure."

The passage resonates with me because my life has been filled with stagnation and inactivity. I am the queen of conservatism. I don't consider myself unhappy, but I'm always afraid of moving outside the comfort zone, of expanding further than my own comfortable little shell. I often don't exert myself to my best capabilities because halfhearted efforts seemed good enough. When I read about McCandless, I noticed that one of his admirable traits is if he wanted something he went out and did it. He was not afraid of challenges, the greater they are the better. Jason Mraz says "live high, live mighty, live righteously". I think that was what McCandless did: he lived up to his ideals.

One the other hand, the greatest tragedy of McCandless' life, in my opinion, was his conflicting feelings toward human intimacy and relationship. He clashed with his parents and others who didn't share his beliefs to the point that he spurned humanity and sought nature and the wilderness instead. But even during his solitary journeys he met a lot of people and connected with them, touching their lives as well as his own. His final odyssey in Alaska had probably made him realize, more than ever, the raw need for companionship, but he didn't survive that trip — causing endless grief to his family. So in the end, if there is something I can take from McCandless story, it is this message: Be bold. Get out there. Do something. But don't forget those who love you.(less)

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Feb 26, 2008 Forrest Marchinton rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

n April 1992, a young 20-something walked into the Alaskan bush to live off the land and experience Reality. His emaciated body was found four months later. Some of you may have heard about the incident; it was reported in an article in Outside magazine, and carried by some news services. Some lauded him as a new Thoreau, living life to the fullest and taking the consequences; others say he was a stupid, hopeless romantic, an example of what happens when suburbanites try to do The Nature Thing.

W...more n April 1992, a young 20-something walked into the Alaskan bush to live off the land and experience Reality. His emaciated body was found four months later. Some of you may have heard about the incident; it was reported in an article in Outside magazine, and carried by some news services. Some lauded him as a new Thoreau, living life to the fullest and taking the consequences; others say he was a stupid, hopeless romantic, an example of what happens when suburbanites try to do The Nature Thing.

Who was Chris McCandless? He was naïve. He was Immortal. Like many of that age, he thought that if he wanted something passionately enough, he was entitled to it. Many of us secretly envy his kind, the drifters who revel in "owning no more possessions than you can carry on your back at a full run," for whom each day is an adventure, an indelible experience. To paraphrase Monty Python, those who live free in the wilderness subsequently die free in the wilderness.

The author suggests that one of his flaws was that he refused to learn from others. He was native talent embodied, making him very good at anything he tried. But he wouldn't listen to the advice of experts, to realize his potential for excellence. Also, one friend commented that although he was a tireless worker even on the nastiest jobs, he didn't have much common sense.

He was independent, that's true enough. He as much as said he wanted to see if he could make it on his own. But it was also clear to me that he needed people for survival. While he survived some dangerous (if stupid) situations on his own, he needed people to pull his fat out of the fire on occasion. For example, in the beginning of his long journey, he ignorantly got his truck disabled in a flash flood; some motorists found him on the verge of heat stroke from traveling through the desert all day. When he was hopelessly lost in a Mexican swamp, Chris stumbled upon some duck hunters who towed his canoe to safety. In the last and terminal episode of his short life, his saviors showed up three weeks too late.

Maybe I'm being too hard on the guy. After all, he managed to last longer than most of us would. But his sin was naiveté, and Nature doesn't give a tinker's damn about our reasons for screwing up.

What killed him? A combination of things. Number one, he purposefully went into the bush without a quad map (lacking a "blank spot on the map" to go to, speculates Krakauer, he ditched the map so that "In his mind, if nowhere else, the terra would thereby remain incognita"). When he had found what he had been looking for and began to hike his way out, he found his way blocked by a river flooded by glacier meltwater. With no map, he couldn't know that a 30 minute hike would have brought him to an abandoned hydrology station with a functional cable crossing. And so he was forced to wait out the summer.
The second error, more forgivable but fatal, was that he poisoned himself. Despite all his hunting and gathering, July found him scrawny and gaunt. Trying to improve his diet, he at the seeds of the wild potato, which at the time contained an toxin which blocks nutrient intake. I say forgivable because his plant books made no mention of this, although a botanist would have guessed this property of the potato family. If he was in good health, his body would have flushed the inhibitors from his system in time, but as it was he had no sugar or protein to spare.

Jon Krakauer, an outdoor writer, is fixated on McCandless. He draws on Chris' writings and photos along with interviews with family and people Chris met on his trek. In the book he relates the ends of others who braved Alaska for whatever reason, from arrogance to ignorance to insanity. He uses his own personal experiences, including his relationship with his father and a foolhardy, nearly fatal climb on a peak in (again) Alaska to bring some insight to Chris' mindset.

So is there a moral to this story? That Mother Nature doesn't suffer fools gladly? "Be Prepared?" As with most things, I suspect that the meaning found in this story will be personalized, unique for each one who reads it.(less)

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Andrew This is an excellent overview of the major issues and themes explored in "Into The Wild." I guess my only question, which you don't seem to address ex...more
Feb 26, 2008 12:57pm

Forrest Marchinton You probably have a point on the book’s worth. I’ll try to explain where I’m coming from.

It’s been years since I’ve read the book, and what I remember...more
Feb 26, 2008 03:44pm

Andrew OK - thanks for the clarification. I agree that Krakauer might have presented the material more directly, and made some different choices.

In my class...more
Feb 26, 2008 06:18pm

Apr 09, 2008 Traci rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: People who respect the outdoors

I love Jon Krakauer. I didn't find one single thing about the Alex McCandless even remotely interesting. He came across as a spoiled brat with no concept of reality - basically because of his priveleged upbringing. But somehow, he blamed his parents for that void of myopic self absorption.

I live in Alaska and I've lived in Idaho and Colorado and Oregon . . . basically AROUND people who love the great outdoors. I am more comfortable in a heated coffee shop READING about the great outdoors. Still...more I love Jon Krakauer. I didn't find one single thing about the Alex McCandless even remotely interesting. He came across as a spoiled brat with no concept of reality - basically because of his priveleged upbringing. But somehow, he blamed his parents for that void of myopic self absorption.

I live in Alaska and I've lived in Idaho and Colorado and Oregon . . . basically AROUND people who love the great outdoors. I am more comfortable in a heated coffee shop READING about the great outdoors. Still, I know that heading into any forest - particularly one at that latitude and altitude in pursuit of adventure with (a) no food, (b) no gear, (c) no plan and (d) no backup plan is nothing short of delusional or maybe just stupid.

I absolutely adore Jon Krakauer's attempts to explain Alex's possible motives and angst. I get that Krakauer identifies with some of what gnawed at Alex . . . that discontent . . . that feeling that life can't possibly be this pointless . . . etc. I wonder about those things with fairly consistent frequency. I suppose I have my own means of stamping those feelings out (alternating burst of extreme carbohydrate consumption and running or spinning; work and volunteerism). Still, the fact that Alex died of exposure in an abandoned bus in Denali National Park is less poignant than poetic - justice, that is. Darwinism, if you want to be cruel.

(Cringe) That sounded really awful, didn't it? But Krakauer carefully paints a picture of a young man completely disillusioned with the life that his parents provided for him, the future they groomed him for. A life easier, better than theirs. He points to his parents' mistakes and flaws as lightening rods for Alex's rejection of them and his pursuit of deeper understanding.

What a luxury. One that we all pursue at some point in our lives and if we have any sense, grow out of. I was constantly irritated with Alex for hitching, homelessness, biting every hand that tried to feed him. His lonely, desperate death not at all surprising and not terribly sad, either . . . except for what it put his family through.

I had no interest in seeing the movie. I saw trailer images of a young man looking off into the wildnerness with depth and intensity and that is NOT the Alex McCandless I got to know in the book. If Sean Penn managed to paint a more enlightened image of Alex, then he deviated from the book quite a bit.(less)

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Dec 28, 2007 sylas rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: non-fict

After watching the film of the same name, I was interested to learn more about the life of the kid described. His was a captivating story and I was hungry for further details of Alex Supertramp's life.

However, this book mostly served as a reminder of why I don't like to read books written by journalists. Jon Krakauer is a fine writer, but like many other journalists is prone to irritating exaggeration and spent quite a bit of time romanticizing the parallels between Supertramp's life and his ow...more After watching the film of the same name, I was interested to learn more about the life of the kid described. His was a captivating story and I was hungry for further details of Alex Supertramp's life.

However, this book mostly served as a reminder of why I don't like to read books written by journalists. Jon Krakauer is a fine writer, but like many other journalists is prone to irritating exaggeration and spent quite a bit of time romanticizing the parallels between Supertramp's life and his own.

In fact, the entire book was a romanticization of the ultimately fatal journey of Supertramp. It's not that I take issue with the telling of Alex's tale (I found his two-year journey to be interesting and somewhat surprising), it's that Krakauer seemed bent on clearing Supertramp's name.

Krakauer tells us that after publishing the preliminary story of Supertramp's death in Outside magazine, he received a large response from readers less than impressed with Alex's mission. Krakauer seemed to look at Into the Wild as an opportunity to convince readers that Alex wasn't just some stupid kid ignorantly seeking adventure in dangerous places; that somehow because of Supertramp's well-educated and privileged background he was in some way intellectually and morally superior to the many other individuals who have embarked on similar journeys. Karakauer wants us to understand that he believes Alex embarked on what amounts to "a rite of passage in our culture" (pg. 190) and that it wasn't his mistakes that caused his untimely death, but rather circumstances out of his control. We are meant to feel sympathy for the poor privileged white kid who was merely fulfilling his role as twenty-something, upper class white male.

Krakauer identified strongly with Alex Supertramp (as noted in chapters 14 and 15 which are devoted entirely to stories paralelling Krakauer's experiences with Alex's) and, in my opinion, took away quite a bit from Alex's story by entwining it with his own. Though I found the story of Alex and other's fatal journeys into "the wild" to be somewhat interesting from a sociological perspective, ultimately this book did very little for me. Hence the two stars.(less)

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Aug 29, 2007 Paul Wilder rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: Those Longing for a Deeper Relationship with Nature

Ah, nature. That lovely, peaceful place where we go for a few minutes or hours during a hike in the mountains or for a day or two during a camping trip. Just driving by the forests on the mountains of Utah, I so long to pull over on the side of the road, leave my car just as Chris McCandless did in Nevada, and journey into the wild.

Uh, yeah.

After reading this book, I realize that I have much to learn. I do believe that nature is gentle and yet the consequences of taking it lightly are predictab...more Ah, nature. That lovely, peaceful place where we go for a few minutes or hours during a hike in the mountains or for a day or two during a camping trip. Just driving by the forests on the mountains of Utah, I so long to pull over on the side of the road, leave my car just as Chris McCandless did in Nevada, and journey into the wild.

Uh, yeah.

After reading this book, I realize that I have much to learn. I do believe that nature is gentle and yet the consequences of taking it lightly are predictable and fatal. I have thought much over the past year about leaving behind the painfully stifling existence we have created for ourselves in American cities, corporations, and in our own homes. My first choice would be to live closer to nature, to work in nature, to sustain myself in nature. That is pretty funny when I think about it because I see little chance of surviving as a vegan in nature. Hmmm.

So this book, needless to say, was a real eye-opener for me. Chris McCandless was a fascinating young man in my humble opinion, and I do believe that those who criticized him for what they labelled his "hubris" for believing that he could wonder off on his own and survive in the barren wilds of Alaska are only projecting onto him the repressed longing within their own hearts for a more intimate relationship with the movements of our planet and the ecosystems it so wonderfully supports. Yet, this book was downright creepy to me in that Chris was a man who had excellent survival skills in the outdoors. He had been surviving on the road on his own for several years with brief interludes into town to work to make money for his next foray into the wilderness. He was no novice, and he was very intelligent and instinctual when it came to nature.

Still, he died.

I won't go into what brought about his end because Krakauer, in this narrative at his gripping best, weaves a dramatic piece of nonfiction that takes off running with the reader breathlessly following from one page to the next as we (reader and author) together attempt to comprehend the tragic conclusion of the life (in this form) of Christopher McCandless. But it revealed to me just how much I have to learn and understand about the wilderness if I expect to survive (in this form) out there on my own.

As for the work itself, as I said this is Krakauer at his best. His knack for using history to inform the present and putting together a complex and unflinching rendering of the lives of real people is, in my small experience with nonfiction, unmatched. In fact, before reading his work "Under the Banner of Heaven" last year, I had almost no use for nonfiction. Not anymore. His books are as good and as suspenseful and as real as any fiction I have read. (I know some may call say that phrase "real as any fiction" is oxymoronic, but true lovers of fiction know that it has produced some of the most honest expressions of reality - namely that all reality is subjective - of which humanity is capable.) If you love nonfiction, read this book. If your thing has always been fiction (like me), read this book. It will haunt you and it will inspire you.

For now, I go into the next book. (less)

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Paul Wilder Glenn, I find it interesting that you would make such a statement of your supposed superiority to Mr. McCandless without having read the book. However...more
Dec 18, 2007 01:21pm

Erik i would do just what McCandless did, to expirence the thrill and excitement of being on my own to live and survive for myself seeing through Chris' ey...more
updated Oct 13, 2010 07:31am

Mar 07, 2008 Jeanne rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I found a review that I'd like to share. I believe that this reader's review represents how I feel and she writes it in a way that I never could have. For me, this book was less than likeable, I thought I was the only one. I was on the verge of re-reading it after hearing so many positive responses to it, maybe I didn't get it the first time...

After reading this reader's review, I am reminded that I don't want to revisit this story or get to know that character again.

here is her review-
________...more I found a review that I'd like to share. I believe that this reader's review represents how I feel and she writes it in a way that I never could have. For me, this book was less than likeable, I thought I was the only one. I was on the verge of re-reading it after hearing so many positive responses to it, maybe I didn't get it the first time...

After reading this reader's review, I am reminded that I don't want to revisit this story or get to know that character again.

here is her review-
____________________________________________________________

Mrs. Miska's review
rating: 2 out of 5 stars

We're considering adding this book to the 10th grade curriculum next year, and as such, I figured I had better finish reading it. See, I read the first few chapters a few years ago, but put it down. Picking the book back up wasn't as tiresome as I figured it would be, so that's a plus. However, Krakauer leaves me with not much more than a few nagging thoughts on personal philosophies and an annoyance with his redundancies.

I can see how a 10th grade boy might get a lot out of this book, and how it could be interesting to insert into a discussion on the Transcendentalists. I'm just wondering if the author meant to portray McCandless as a crackpot, or if his last few chapters are his [lame] attempt at showing how NOT crazy Mr. Supertramp is. Because really? It's not very convincing. Sure, I can find some sympathy/empathy for Alex/Chris, but it is brief and fleeting. Mostly this book seems to be a trip into a moderately disturbed mind that is the product of some family drama. It's a good train wreck.

Clearly, I don't share the ideals of McCandless, nor do I have the same fascination with the wild, even though I enjoy the outdoors and love rock climbing. Maybe that's where this book breaks down for me. Sure, I see the flaws in our society, but his impatience for working with the system to create change just chafes me. I've spent the past several years trying to teach my students that through patience and a responsible dialogue with the powers that be, they can create positive change in their communities. That McCandless preaches the opposite - that running away from society and complaining all the while solves his problems - goes against my personality.

Of course, he dies testing out his theory, and my students succeed in creating change. But what do I know?

Regardless, I would recommend this book as an interesting character study, good for understanding one's own perspective on life. Krakauer's writing style could have used a stronger polish, but isn't terrible... (less)

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Jul 10, 2008 Palsay rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Recommended to Palsay by: Hilman

Shelves: reportation

Sejatinya, menurut saya, setiap petualangan adalah pencarian. Dan temuan atas pencarian itu selalu menjadi hal yang tak terlupakan.

Namun akan halnya Chriss Mc. Candless, penemuannya tak kan pernah dapat diingatnya sendiri, karena ia telah melebur bersamanya.

Menyisakan sesak bagi kita, orang-orang yang membaca kisahnya.

Disuguhkan dalam gaya reportase, tak membuat buku ini menjadi membosankan. Ada memang bagian-bagian yang menggoda untuk di-skip, tapi saya berusaha (keras) untuk tetap membacanya...more

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May 04, 2008 Idle Hippo rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: book-to-movies, nonfiksi

Tadinya gak terlalu pengen baca buku ini, tp pas maen ke toko buku dan ngliat buku ini didiskon 50%, ya.. sikaaat bleh.

Menceritakan tentang seorang Chris McCandless, seorang lelaki yang sangat dipengaruhi oleh karya2 Tolstoy, Thoreau dan Jack London yang memutuskan untuk berpisah dengan dunia yang dia anggap penuh dengan kebohongan dan kemunafikan. Orang yang menyalahartikan semangat dan hasrat sebagai ilmu pengetahuan/wawasan yang akan mampu membimbingnya. Kemarahan terpendam kepada sang ayah m...more Tadinya gak terlalu pengen baca buku ini, tp pas maen ke toko buku dan ngliat buku ini didiskon 50%, ya.. sikaaat bleh.

Menceritakan tentang seorang Chris McCandless, seorang lelaki yang sangat dipengaruhi oleh karya2 Tolstoy, Thoreau dan Jack London yang memutuskan untuk berpisah dengan dunia yang dia anggap penuh dengan kebohongan dan kemunafikan. Orang yang menyalahartikan semangat dan hasrat sebagai ilmu pengetahuan/wawasan yang akan mampu membimbingnya. Kemarahan terpendam kepada sang ayah membuat Chris menolak cinta dari orang2 yang menyayanginya termasuk adik dan ibunya sendiri.
Krakauer sendiri dengan bijaksana mengatakan kalau ia mungkin terlihat "berpihak" kepada Chris dalam penulisan buku ini. Disajikan dengan gaya laporan jurnalisme berdasarkan catatan/jurnal/surat yang dibuat oleh Chris dan juga wawancara dengan orang2 yang terlibat dalam dua tahun petualangannya. Krakauer menceritakan perjalanan Chris/Alex yang secara tiba-tiba meninggalkan keluarganya selama dua tahun, petualangannya hitch-hiking menyusuri Amerika, berkano-ria melewati Hoover Dam dan masuk wilayah Meksiko. Perjalanannya berakhir tragis ketika dengan kenaifan dan keangkuhannya ia mencoba "menaklukan" Alaska dengan peralatan dan persiapan yang sangat minim.
Pendapat orang terbelah dua tentang sosok Chris ini. Banyak orang yang mencerca dan menghujat kedegilan dia, tapi tak sedikit pula yang mengagumi dia, tapi harus diakui bahwa kenyataan dia mampu bertahan selama lebih dari 100 hari menghadapi keganasan Alaska adalah suatu "prestasi" tersendiri.
Trus nonton filmya, meski sedikit beda tp tetep bagus filmya. Gw anggap buku dan film buatan Sean Penn ini saling melengkapi. Gambaran Alaska, kegiatan2 Chris ketka menghabiskan kesendiriannya di sebuah bis "legendaris" Fairbanks 142 mampu melengkapi imajinasi gw tentang sosok seorang Chris yang terobsesi dengan Alaska plus bonus soundtrack yang dinyanyikan akang Eddie Vedder (cool abiiiisss)

The joy of life comes from our encounters with new experiences, and hence there is no greater joy than to have an endlessly changing horizon, for each day to have a new and different sun.

Alaska sudah lama menjadi magnet bagi para pemimpi dan orang-orang yang tidak tepat, orang-orang yang berpikir bahwa Last Frontier (Alaska) adalah wilayah yang bersih dari pengaruh jahat dan akan mampu menutupi lubang-lubang dalam kehidupan mereka. Padahal, alam liar bukanlah tempat pemaaf yang peduli pada harapan atau dambaan.

Great book! Ah, jadi inget tentang seorang anak SMA yang bodinya rada-rada overweight menerima tantangan temen2nya mencoba menaklukan Gunung Tangkuban Parahu. Anak tambun ini (sekarang udah six pack!) memiliki obsesi tersembunyi yaitu memperbaiki reputasinya yang rusak berat gara-gara "tragedi gerak jalan BLA" yang mengenaskan (diledekin mulu sih). Apa yang dia dapat? malah tragedi jilid 2! tak kalah mengenaskan dari tragedi gerak jalan. Reputasi anak itu terjun bebas kejurang yang sangat dalam... Apesssss!!!
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Dec 31, 2007 Kirk rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: sentimental-faves

So I pulled this out yesterday trapped at home in a rainstorm and reread it. I haven't seen the movie, but I did read the recent Men's Journal article that questions the Alexander Supertramp cult. How readers feel about Chris McCandless and his vagabonding tends to divide into three groups: 1) People either revere him as a self-made Thoreau, an "aesthetic adventurer" as he refers to himself (ascetic, too); 2) a rather silly, naive child who starved to death unnecessarily, hurting his family in t...more So I pulled this out yesterday trapped at home in a rainstorm and reread it. I haven't seen the movie, but I did read the recent Men's Journal article that questions the Alexander Supertramp cult. How readers feel about Chris McCandless and his vagabonding tends to divide into three groups: 1) People either revere him as a self-made Thoreau, an "aesthetic adventurer" as he refers to himself (ascetic, too); 2) a rather silly, naive child who starved to death unnecessarily, hurting his family in the process; or 3) people who have mixed feelings about him. I guess I'm in the latter.

There's no doubt that the journey Alex S. undertook in 90/92 is powerfully appealing; it's also a young person's journey and is thus rife with a lot of the selfishness and solipsism of that age. One weird thing is that as I read the dates in CMcC's diary I started pulling out my old dayplanners to see what was going on that same spring/summer of 92. Turns out that on the probably day of AS's death that August 18 I was on my own rite-of-initiation quest in the U.P. of Michigan. Only I had my five-year old son with me. None of that really means anything to anybody but me, but it helped me understand what folks born in the 60s were looking for as they faced their adulthood.

Ultimately, I think the appeal of Into the Wild is Krakaeur's point of view---the way he allows his own unabashed admiration for that journey mingle with his awareness of CMcC's all-too-obvious youth. It's also an impressive piece of reporting, with the author having done an enviable job of recreating two years of travels. In the end I had a few questions I couldn't get past, some of which are resurfacing bc of the movie: 1. Is there a monomanical edge to this type of personality? JK actually uses the word once (and CMcC refers to himself as an Ahab figure) but seems unwilling to consider the psychological aspects of his character beyond cursory mentions of his strong will and fierce independence. 2. Why haven't more of the photos from that journey surfaced? I've only found four, two of which were on the back of the original book jacket and one, the most harrowing, of CMcC with his goodbye note as he prepared to lie down to die. I haven't checked out the new movie tie-in edition, but I haven't heard anything about a new afterword. 3. As I reread this, I couldn't help but think of that other Gen X cult figure, Cobain, especially when JK discusses (all too briefly, I felt) his tensions with his father. I'm convinced that a great story remaining to be told is how Gen X'ers have struggled to grow up after the heyday of the early 90s.(less)

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Sep 26, 2007 Lissa rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Into the Wild is an expansion of an article that Jon Krakauer wrote for Outside magazine about a young man named Chris McCandless. McCandless came from a wealthy family in Washington, DC, but had strong ideals about communing with nature, living a life where everything you owned could be fit on your back, and finding one's true self. Therefore, when he finished with college at Emory University, he cut himself off from his parents, donated the remainder of his college money to Oxfam ($24,000), an...more Into the Wild is an expansion of an article that Jon Krakauer wrote for Outside magazine about a young man named Chris McCandless. McCandless came from a wealthy family in Washington, DC, but had strong ideals about communing with nature, living a life where everything you owned could be fit on your back, and finding one's true self. Therefore, when he finished with college at Emory University, he cut himself off from his parents, donated the remainder of his college money to Oxfam ($24,000), and took to the road. He eventually abandoned his car, and took to hitchhiking and riding freight trains to get around the country. He became one of America's itinerants.

Eventually, in his pursuit to become one with nature and make meaning of his life, he decides to have one "final adventure" in the Alaskan bush. Chris McCandless goes "into the wild" (hence the name of the book) intending to live off the land. What ends up happening is that he starves to death.

This book presents a chronicle of these two years of Chris McCandless's life, from the time he left Emory University until his death. Krakauer has taken the time to find and interview many of the people that McCandless stayed with during that time, and the book is peppered with entries from Chris's journal and passages in books that he underlined and annotated (books by Tolstoy, Thoreau, and others like them).

This book was interesting, but I was left with the feeling that Krakauer didn't really have enough material to make a whole novel out of Chris McCandless's oddessy. There are several chapters that meander off into Krakauer's own life, and a survery of other individuals that felt it necessary to renounce civilization and wander off into the wilderness. These chapters don't really illuminate Chris McCandless's life so much and feel like filler, to make the book over 200 pages.

Krakauer clearly admires this young man. After reading the two chapers about his own youth and ambitions, it is easy to see why. krakauer clearly possesses(ed) some of the same traits as Chris McCandless, including the same reckless streak. I came away from this book with an entirely different view of McCandless.

Throughout the account, Krakauer talks about all of the letters he received in response to his original piece in Outside, and how most of those condemned Chris McCandless for his arrogance. He tried to persuade the reader not to condemn him in the same way. He has failed to persuade me. The impression I get from this book and from McCandless's own words is that he was a arrogant, self-centeredyoung man who never failed at anything in his life. Sure, there is something admirable in his willingness to give up everything to live out his ideals fully. But there is also something supremely stupid about walking into the Alaskan bush with nothing by 10 pounds of rice, and a .22 caliber shotgun. The reality is that a simple MAP would have saved his life, but to carry a map would have been contrary to his ridiculous ideals.

I think my thoughts are closest to those of Nick Jans, who wrote:

Over the past 15 years, I've run into several McCandless types out in the country. Same story: idealistic, energetic young guys who overestimated themselves, underestimated the country, and ended up in trouble. McCandless was hardly unique; there's quite a few of these guys hanging around the state, so much alike they're almost a collective cliche. The only difference is that McCandless ended up dead, with the story of his dumbassedness splashed across the media ...His ignorance, which could have been cured by a USGS quadrant and a Boy Scout manual, is what killed him.(less)

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Apr 04, 2012 Ash rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: Everyone

Shelves: movie, kindle-ipad, adventure-travel, memoir-biography, own_nf, 2012-read, favorites

4 and 1/2 stars
A nonfiction which really touched my heart. It was written very well. A very engaging book about a young man who is adventurous and to an extent stupid too. When the book started, I did not feel pity for the man. I thought he was really foolish to have walked into the wilderness without being prepared for it. But at the end the author had me convinced that he was not a fool, but in fact very well capable of having survived in the wild. It just was his ill fate that took his life....more

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Feb 09, 2010 Jason rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Recommended to Jason by: Discussion at work, and I felt left out

Chris McCandless had Obsessive Compulsive Disorder!! This is not a spoiler; it's my interpretation of the evidence provided by the author. McCandless had OCD. Jon Krakauer's Into the Wild is objectively written (more on the written word later), and goes to great length—medically, pharmacologically, and, especially, psychologically—to explain what happened to this 24 year old when he traipsed into the Alaskan bush under-equipped with 20 pounds of gear, mostly dry rice and books.

I'm not a subject...more Chris McCandless had Obsessive Compulsive Disorder!! This is not a spoiler; it's my interpretation of the evidence provided by the author. McCandless had OCD. Jon Krakauer's Into the Wild is objectively written (more on the written word later), and goes to great length—medically, pharmacologically, and, especially, psychologically—to explain what happened to this 24 year old when he traipsed into the Alaskan bush under-equipped with 20 pounds of gear, mostly dry rice and books.

I'm not a subject matter expert, so you can drill holes through my untrained theory. However, I've lived 40 years with a close relative that has OCD. The suffering has been overwhelming for this individual and our family. I believe this gives me enough credibility to lean into the psychology, and participate in the discussion on what drove Chris McCandless repeatedly—like a ritual—into the wild.

We're familiar with the most common manifestations of OCD—washing, collecting, counting—all ritualistic behavior performed invariably by highly-functioning, competent, otherwise rational people, always against their will and better judgment, capable of being controlled, yet incapable of being stopped. Though we recognize common forms, there's myriad other shades of OCD that have been documented in professional literature. Indeed, as each individual is a unique analysand, it's reasonable to say that there's a unique OCD for every person that has OCD; or, rather, that each individual performs his OCD in a unique combination of ways. They merely manifest in common vectors. My relative has a diagnosed OCD that doesn't fit into a category, and I believe Chris McCandless probably had an undiagnosed OCD that descended upon him repeatedly, uncontrollably and made a rational person do irrational things.

Krakauer's investigative prowess is superior. The author, in fact, claims he was obsessed with this story because he, too, shared a similar 'obsession' to retreat to the woods. So, Krakauer has done his homework. He arrives at what possibly could be the real physiological reason why McCandless died, and I agree. Krakauer also provides a detailed personal profile kluged together after doggedly uncovering people who interacted with McCandless in the period before he crossed the Rubicon. However, although the author tinkers with the psychological reasons why McCandless may have behaved the way he did, he ultimately leaves the final analysis undecided. Into the Wild was written for you, the reader, to supply that analysis.

McCandless was not a social misfit, a 'green' anarchist, a criminal, a Virgina Tech “shooter.” He was completely normal, with what appeared to be a common level of vexation against his parents and angst with society. However, his acute withdrawal into the woods without a rational mix of gear and ration occurred with enough regularity that it seemed to be ritualistic with him. Indeed, the author describes these repeated withdrawals as a kind of vision quest, a catharsis, a cleansing. But what psychology explains a recurring, irrational, overpowering urge performed by an otherwise normal person? An obsessive compulsive disorder.

I'd like to launch into a lengthy comparison of Scott McCandless and my relative, but—in jeopardy to my thesis—that will remain with me. Just read the book, and keep OCD in mind, and see if you feel the same way.

New words: cordillera, contumacious, lumpen, eremitic, desideratum, serac, coppice.

I award 4 stars for a well-paced, well-presented, investigative journey with a language that was engaging and highly readable. It could have earned the 5th star, but there were absolutely no maps, sketches, pictures, or images of a story that certainly warranted them.

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Jan 17, 2010 Aerin rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: nonfiction, americana, the-luxury-of-loneliness

I tried to read Into The Wild once, many years ago as a teenager. I remember thinking "This book is about a crazy person," and setting it aside.

Much more recently, I saw the film, which changed my viewpoint on the story completely and piqued an interest in rereading the book. When I finally found my old copy in a dusty corner of my basement, I set all of my other books aside and read the entire thing that evening.

This is a biography of Chris McCandless, a young man (he was my age, 24, when he di...more I tried to read Into The Wild once, many years ago as a teenager. I remember thinking "This book is about a crazy person," and setting it aside.

Much more recently, I saw the film, which changed my viewpoint on the story completely and piqued an interest in rereading the book. When I finally found my old copy in a dusty corner of my basement, I set all of my other books aside and read the entire thing that evening.

This is a biography of Chris McCandless, a young man (he was my age, 24, when he died) who gave up a comfortable life and a promising career path to live as a wanderer, and eventually a hermit in the Alaskan wilderness. It's hardly a spoiler to say that he died of starvation after less than four months in the wild; the book makes no secret of it from page 1, and the front cover proclaims it as well.

People like McCandless are interesting, not just on their own merits, but because of the wide-eyed admiration they so frequently inspire. The biographer, Jon Krakauer, never tries to hide his bias in glorifying McCandless, and Sean Penn, who produced the recent film, depicted him in a glowing light also. The book is a best-seller and thousands of readers, too, feel inspired by McCandless.

I personally am of two minds. On the one hand, McCandless does embody that romantic urge we all have to shuck off the duties and restrictions of modern society and live life on our own terms. But at the same time, he was clearly selfish (especially as far as his family was concerned), distant, arrogant and ill-prepared. His death, while tragic, was a direct result of his willful lack of preparation. Is this really a person we should idolize?

McCandless himself offers very little insight. Although Krakauer's research is excellent and thorough (which is part of the reason I gave this book 5 stars), McCandless's own diaries were stilted and without much introspection. He was evasive and aloof even to the closest friends he made on the road, and he cut of all communication with his family and friends back home. We don't really know why he did what he did. We can only project our own feelings and desires on to him. Krakauer does this often, comparing McCandless's life to his own youthful pursuits. Penn's film offers a different, but still personalized view. Reading the book, I couldn't help but compare myself to McCandless also, to find things I both recognized and despised in his actions and my own aspirations. Because McCandless is dead, he can't set the record straight. He serves as a mirror of our own biases and ideals.

I loved this book. Neither the book nor its hero are flawless, but both are fascinating and complex, and have kept me reflecting for weeks.(less)

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Dec 30, 2007 Aaron Crossen rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: journalism

Really enjoyed it. McCandless had in him an exceptionally large dose of the passions that at one point or another consume most young men, if only for a brief period. His strong distaste, bordering on hatred, of modern American life, with all its easy pleasures is idealistic rebellion at its purest.

While he chose nature has his release from the artificial trappings that he rejected, I think many men, myself included, share or at least empathize with his idealism. In my frequent solitude, I've of...more Really enjoyed it. McCandless had in him an exceptionally large dose of the passions that at one point or another consume most young men, if only for a brief period. His strong distaste, bordering on hatred, of modern American life, with all its easy pleasures is idealistic rebellion at its purest.

While he chose nature has his release from the artificial trappings that he rejected, I think many men, myself included, share or at least empathize with his idealism. In my frequent solitude, I've often considered the arbitrary, temporary comforts that material things bring and the silly, meaningless routines that working adults follow until dying in a much less poetic manner than McCandless (or any other adventurer).

Most men - most people - don't try to understand or transcend the more humdrum aspects of daily life and live out a philosophy or ideal like McCandless. His case is exceptionally rare, especially in a time where the course of one's life - especially a youth's life - is supposed to be predictable. Birth. High school (preferably a private one). College (preferably a 'nice' one). Job for 35 years. Retire. Take a cruise. Die. But McCandless' journey was extreme by any measure.

I think people can find some kind of basic, almost primal pleasure in whatever they choose to do. For Buddhist monks, this could be as simple as sweeping the monastery floor. For disaffected college-aged adults, this could be as (comparatively) complex as an hour in the batting cages or even a game of catch. And here, I am speaking specifically of the satisfying the yearning that McCandless felt so strongly - the complete detachment from the forms that govern life that results not from the dissection of the routine and quotidian, but from a more simple, subtle satisfaction that continually eluded him. He felt his yearning was satisfied in the Alaskan wilderness. And there is certainly something special about the Alaskan wilderness, but the feeling he was after is universal, I am sure of it. A euphoric escape from the banalities of existence and the inevitable frustrations those banalities bring - bills, the mortgage, and so forth. Something altogether rapturous. McCandless wanted the rapture to last forever, but by the end of his story (and the end of his life) I think he had recognized that moment could never be realized forever. Perhaps he had stumbled onto the sublime: that feeling is temporary, not permanent, and cannot be realized emotionally or existentially, but must be incorporated into one's very being, into one's intellect. I think that's why he left the bus.

Intelligent people (like McCandless and Krakauer) eventually make peace - or at least a ceasefire - with society, with the system. Some embrace it, chasing ideals or material pleasure or self-satisfaction or to kill off their personal demons. McCandless' rebellion was a fierce one, but ultimately, he made his peace. What he would've done to sustain that peace is anybody's guess. But his peace, and the peace of many others like him, is an uneasy one. Predictably, I'm predisposed to play the role of the armchair historian. And so I can't help but ask myself if the methods by which we organize the society we live in are not at the root of the matter, and more importantly, how many more McCandlesses are there? How many more souls will the system alienate and eventually destroy? Could a pragmatist, a realist working within the system and relishing every minute of it convince me his beliefs were honest? I don't know anymore. I'm really not questioning whether or not our society can sustain itself. To me, it's obvious that the system works. But assuming that McCandless' frustrations are either irrelevant or obscure is to misunderstand what it's like to be an American, and even a human. (less)

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Jun 26, 2007 merryxmas rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I found this book in a drawer at my old job and started reading it. The first 100 pages are phenomenal! You really feel exuberant reading it and you find yourself cheering him on for the awesome adventures he takes. Then it starts painting more of McCandlesses background and I no longer feel that he is some back to nature davy crocket getting in touch with his spiritual side but rather a self-centered brat who had everything handed to him and not only threw it all away but alienated himself from...more

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Sep 04, 2012 Mark rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Recommended to Mark by: Simon Fastnedge

Shelves: autobiography-biography, books-to-unsettle, the-natural-world, travelogue, heroes-who-are-up-their-own-bums

Being a man who has always lived very close to the sea I have always admired and loved it but I am also very conscious that i have a very healthy sense of its danger and power and uncontrollable force. This book is the extraordinary account of one who loved Nature but who did not appear to have gained that equally important respect. A young man, wanders into the wilds of Alaska so as to commune with nature and 'discover' himself, a few months later his desperately emaciated corpse is found rotti...more Being a man who has always lived very close to the sea I have always admired and loved it but I am also very conscious that i have a very healthy sense of its danger and power and uncontrollable force. This book is the extraordinary account of one who loved Nature but who did not appear to have gained that equally important respect. A young man, wanders into the wilds of Alaska so as to commune with nature and 'discover' himself, a few months later his desperately emaciated corpse is found rotting in an old bus which served as a hut for hunters and travellers through the widerness.

The narrative is written, very sympathetically, by a journalist/adventurer who tries to come to a genuine understanding of what Chris McCandless, the lad in question, was trying to achieve. McCandless, though already dead from the beginning of the narrative, is a fascinatingly alive character. As I read his story I was attracted and infuriated in fairly equal measure. He is self-absorbed and opinionated to an astonishing degree; one example being how he lectures a man in his late eighties to go off and get rid of his possessions and explore in the time left to him. The truly extraordinary thing is, the bloke goes ahead and does it. McCandless was certainly supremely confident and rather arrogant in his own self-posession but there quite evidently was something startingly powerful about the lad.

It is particularly noticeable how all but one of the people interviewed for the book who had actually met Chris spoke incredibly movingly about his gentlessness, his goodness, his attractiveness; the fact that they truly loved him and they felt the world had lost a great soul. This was from people who sometimes had had quite short experiences and yet had been wowed by his personality. Those who only knew of him through his death dismiss him as one ill-prepared and ridiculously naive or arrogant and self-aggrandizing. This speaks volumes about the simple wisdom of not making judgements until you actually encounter the person about whom you are holding forth.

Having said all that however, and in danger of totally undermining my last point, I would say that McCandless appeared to rampantly over-estimate his abilities whilst underestimating nature's power. He took with him no map or compass and therefore was unaware that had he walked just five or six miles from the place where his dead body was eventually found he may well have found a place to cross the swollen river which appeared to imprison him in the wilderness and indeed slightly further on again, by the help of a simple map, he would have found greater opportunities to be rescued.

It is an incredibly enthralling account of one man's attempt to live at one with Nature. McCandless is not one who sought to disregard or dismiss Nature but indeed hoped to embrace and luxuriate in it. The tragedy is that in wanting to strip himself of all 20th Century accoutrements he perhaps muisunderstood that the very accoutrements he cast aside were the substitutes for a knowledge and expertise that 20th Century men have lost sight of. His limited and rather amateurish preparations, though they might appear irresponsible and stupid, seem more to have been the result of an over-reliance on the romanticism of Jack London's journey and love affair with the Wild. You know the Jack London who, as Krakauer points out, died obese and drunk in his home far from that wilderness that he himself had only visited once.

This is powerful, moving, well written but ultimately frustrating because it would never be able, owing to the death of McCandless and his privacy before this, to truly understand or fathom his mindset. The real tragedy is that i couldn't help but think, encountering as we do the profound effect he had for the good on the vast majority of people with whom he came into contact, what might he have achieved in his own life and in those around him had he got back from what could have been life changing but ultimately was this life destroying adventure.

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Mar 23, 2011 Velvetink rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: biography, wishlist, film, film-dvd-saw-it, 2011-read

Now I have the book - library borrow. (is much thinner than I imagined).

Just caught up with the film Into the Wild directed by Sean Penn & written by Krakauer - the true story of Chris McCandless' journey into the wilds of Alaska, which was released in September of 2007. The wild scenery was breathtaking, the cityscapes gritty & reminiscent of Kerouac's trainhopping, along with the storyline to some extent. I have not got hold of Krakauer's book yet and missed the first 15 minutes of th...more

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Jan 15, 2011 Laurel rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: non-fiction, travel-adventure

[If you don't already know the basic story of what happened to Chris McCandless, then this review will contain spoilers].

After graduating with honors from Emory University, Chris McCandless opted out of law school and instead donated all of his savings ($24,000 worth) to charity, abandoned his possessions, gave himself a new, silly name (Alexander Superstar) and without telling his family (something I found quite troubling) spent two years on a journey of self-discovery as he traversed across th...more [If you don't already know the basic story of what happened to Chris McCandless, then this review will contain spoilers].

After graduating with honors from Emory University, Chris McCandless opted out of law school and instead donated all of his savings ($24,000 worth) to charity, abandoned his possessions, gave himself a new, silly name (Alexander Superstar) and without telling his family (something I found quite troubling) spent two years on a journey of self-discovery as he traversed across the United States. His journey ended in tragedy after a three month solo adventure into the Alaskan wilderness.

Whether you admire McCandless for his passion, idealism and sense of adventure, or you believe he was nothing more than a self-absorbed numbskull -- this IS an interesting story.

I personally found myself oftentimes confused as to whether I even liked McCandless. I kept getting annoyed at his multitude of immature decisions, and had to keep reminding myself that I, too, thought I was invincible when I was 24 years old. And whether you ultimately end up liking him or not, the fact of the matter is, the poor kid died. I saw some other reviewers have said they feel no sympathy for him because his death came at the fault of his own errors and irresponsibility. But how many people can say they have never made poor decisions in life? Who hasn't, at some point, been over-confident, foolish and irresponsible? I know my number of lifetime slip-ups is fast approaching a gazillion. :) Does that mean we each deserve to die for sometimes being careless? Of course not. The difference is, most of us live to tell our story and learn from our mistakes. Chris McCandless did not.

It's worth noting that despite his inexperience, he DID survive three months in the wild with no significant problems. Ultimately, what killed him was one simple mistake: he ate some poisonous potato seeds. The seeds blocked an enzyme in his stomach, causing him to slowly starve to death. While this seems a careless mistake to the more advanced outdoorsman, McCandless at least had the foresight to purchase a book of botany before his adventure, which he brought with him. The book listed in detail which plants and berries were and were not edible. Unfortunately, however, it mentioned nothing of the toxicity of this particular seed.

Of course, if he'd brought a map with him (I mean, who knowingly goes into the wilderness without a map?), he'd have known civilization was not all that far away, and could have tried going for help. If he'd brought enough food with him, he may have been healthy enough to fight off and eliminate the toxin on his own, or perhaps would not have even eaten the seed in the first place. But, he didn't do these things, and it cost him his life.

Jon Krakauer tells this story well, and the details of McCandless' life and experiences are meticulously researched. My only complaint would be that, at times, for comparison's sake, the author often went off on long side stories about other adventurers who never made the journey back home. I found these stories interesting, but somewhat distracting. I kept wanting him to stay focused and get on with the details of McCandless' story instead.

Overall, this is a fascinating (albeit depressing ) book. I noticed one reviewer commented on the fact that it was ultimately a cautionary tale, and I would agree. Though McCandless himself would likely not concur, his story is not only a lesson about following one's passions, ideals, and dreams, but of how equally vital it is to do so responsibly.
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Jan 19, 2008 Sarah rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I think this book (and I guess the movie probably...I haven't seen it) are interesting, especially if you identify at all with the character (ie. young, white, male, risk a lot to find meaning). It's obvious reading it that Krakauer finds a lot of connection and I was annoyed by the constant theme of comparing McCandless to other similar stories and then separating him from the crowd. Just tell the story and let us make our own comparisons or judgements! Overall Krakauer seems to be defending Mc...more

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Jan 19, 2008 Jamie Fairbanks rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: Anyone

I first heard about Christopher McCandless in college or shortly thereafter, some years after he died, via a song by Harrod and Funck, who were college favorites. But then I knew nothing about him except from the lyrics of their song "Walk Into the Wild" (they change his name slightly to Chris McCandle).

Then this fall "Into the Wild" with Sean Penn at the helm came out in theaters with Emile Hirsch playing the tormented Alexander Supertramp. I went to see it and the movie stayed in my head for d...more

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Oct 24, 2007 Pam rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I thought it fitting to take this book with me while I was going to go hiking and camping in the Grand Canyon. I find the story to very interesting and didn't think that the author 'romanticized' Chris McCandless adventure. He told the story of a young man greatly influenced by Thoreau, Emerson and Gogol. Who hasn't wanted to leave behind their worldly things and live life 'simply'?

The thing that saddens me about this is that it is quite obvious that Chris had issues with society and with his p...more

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Oct 11, 2007 Antoinette Maria rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

The writing was good, but lacking a little perspective. The tone very much conveys how much he empathizes with the protaganist (the who didn't take risks when they're young approach) and points out the perhaps valid reasons he had to not get along with his family. But he gives the guy a pass on his self righteousness and stupidity. I ended it feeling not exactly deserved to die, but I didn't feel sorry for him either. I do wonder what I'd think of this book now as opposed to when I first read it...more

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Sep 19, 2007 Penny rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

An absorbing book, but also quite a downer. In 1992 Chris McCandless, a young man recently out of college, hiked out into the Alaskan wilderness -- a few months later (as Krakauer tells us from the beginning of the book), his body is found: he starved to death. For the rest of the book, Krakauer tells us Chris's story, and speculates why he, and others, are drawn to immersing themselves in the wilderness. A number of the stories Krakauer tells are gripping -- one of them is about his own experie...more

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Dec 25, 2012 Frances rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: non-judgmental people who like a good story

Shelves: reviewed

I was almost turned off this book by some of the GR reviews. I like reading reviews, but I’m glad I don’t care what other people think. I’m not a huge fan of non-fiction but, as far as I know, Jon Krakauer is an excellent non-fiction writer. I heard McCandless’ journey through Krakauer’s writing. I will probably pick up another one of his books.

I wonder sometimes why we react to fictional characters and non-fictional “characters” so differently. A person’s journey to find their truth and travel...more

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Nov 06, 2011 Stacy rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: books-read-2010, nonfiction

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. When I read Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer, as I have twice now, I find myself criticizing the subject rather than the writer. The book is the story of Chris McCandless, a twenty-four year old man from a well-to-do family who hitchhiked to Alaska to live in the bush. He died there, leaving behind a family he hadn't spoken to in more than two years and newly-found friends and acquaintances he met along his travels.

The book chronicles his approximately two-year hike across the United States. He hit...more When I read Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer, as I have twice now, I find myself criticizing the subject rather than the writer. The book is the story of Chris McCandless, a twenty-four year old man from a well-to-do family who hitchhiked to Alaska to live in the bush. He died there, leaving behind a family he hadn't spoken to in more than two years and newly-found friends and acquaintances he met along his travels.

The book chronicles his approximately two-year hike across the United States. He hitchhiked, tented, slept in the desert, and somehow settled on the idea that a summer in the Alaska bush would—if not change it—give his life a deeper meaning. In his mind, he was following the path of the writers he loved, most notably Jack London. But he also emulated Tolstoy in his lofty ideals: McCandless was one who seemed to believe, as his father put it, “that you should own nothing but what you can carry on your back at a dead run.” Chris reveled in scrounging for the next meal.

To me, as someone who has been poor and will be poor for the foreseeable future, McCandless's endless romanticization of the hobo lifestyle smacked of unbelievable self-absorption and hypocrisy. He was the son of a man who had top-secret security clearance and a mother who worked alongside her husband to create a successful business. He had excelled academically all through school and could have the job of his choice or create his own business fairly easily. Only someone as well-to-do with such an easy path paved before him could believe he was a better person than the “plastic people” with whom he was forced to share breathing space (such as the people with whom he briefly worked at McDonald's) by hoboing around the country.

But perhaps I am being harsh; McCandless was young and no more hypocritical than I was at his age. And Krakauer, by telling his own story of his relationship with his father, which led to his harrowing climb of Alaska's Devil's Thumb, brings the reader to a more compassionate view of McCandless: he was young and brash and ill-prepared and perhaps even foolish, but he was not stupid, and his death was the result not of his dramatically heeding a “call of the wild,” but of two small errors that turned out to be pivotal and irreversible.

At any rate, Krakauer is a fine, fine writer, and he tells McCandless's story as only a young man who had a similar relationship with his father as Chris did to his can. Yet in the book he is gentle with Chris's parents, writing about them as non-judgmentally as he does about Chris. It's clear that the wisdom he came to in his own life somewhere along the line parallels that of Chris's, only there's a point where Chris's line stops and Krakauer's keeps going. Krakauer was lucky to have survived his own brush with death and not only live to tell the tale, but forgive his father—something McCandless will now never have the opportunity to do. (less)

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topics	posts	views	last activity
Movie	13	31	5 hours, 5 min ago
'My loneliness, my kingdom'	4	44	May 09, 2013 08:33pm
Candless is Helpless	11	202	May 07, 2013 06:58am
What makes it interesting ?!	83	370	Apr 28, 2013 04:53am
If Chris had a companion and necessary supplies in the wild, could he have survived?	15	113	Apr 22, 2013 02:21pm
how i felt about the book	23	187	Apr 16, 2013 01:16pm

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