Into the Wild
Author(s): Jon Krakauer
Publisher: Anchor
Publication Date: 1997-01-20
Pages: 224
Binding: Paperback
List Price: $13.95
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Editorial Reviews
Product Description
In April 1992 a young man from a well-to-do family hitchhiked to Alaska and walked alone into the wilderness north of Mt. McKinley. His name was Christopher Johnson McCandless. He had given $25,000 in savings to charity, abandoned his car and most of his possessions, burned all the cash in his wallet, and invented a new life for himself. Four months later, his decomposed body was found by a moose hunter. How McCandless came to die is the unforgettable story of Into the Wild.
Immediately after graduating from college in 1991, McCandless had roamed through the West and Southwest on a vision quest like those made by his heroes Jack London and John Muir. In the Mojave Desert he abandoned his car, stripped it of its license plates, and burned all of his cash. He would give himself a new name, Alexander Supertramp, and , unencumbered by money and belongings, he would be free to wallow in the raw, unfiltered experiences that nature presented. Craving a blank spot on the map, McCandless simply threw the maps away. Leaving behind his desperate parents and sister, he vanished into the wild.
Jon Krakauer constructs a clarifying prism through which he reassembles the disquieting facts of McCandless's short life. Admitting an interst that borders on obsession, he searches for the clues to the dries and desires that propelled McCandless. Digging deeply, he takes an inherently compelling mystery and unravels the larger riddles it holds: the profound pull of the American wilderness on our imagination; the allure of high-risk activities to young men of a certain cast of mind; the complex, charged bond between fathers and sons.
When McCandless's innocent mistakes turn out to be irreversible and fatal, he becomes the stuff of tabloid headlines and is dismissed for his naiveté, pretensions, and hubris. He is said to have had a death wish but wanting to die is a very different thing from being compelled to look over the edge. Krakauer brings McCandless's uncompromising pilgrimage out of the shadows, and the peril, adversity , and renunciation sought by this enigmatic young man are illuminated with a rare understanding--and not an ounce of sentimentality. Mesmerizing, heartbreaking, Into the Wild is a tour de force. The power and luminosity of Jon Krakauer's stoytelling blaze through every page.
Amazon.com Review
"God, he was a smart kid..." So why did Christopher McCandless trade a bright future--a college education, material comfort, uncommon ability and charm--for death by starvation in an abandoned bus in the woods of Alaska? This is the question that Jon Krakauer's book tries to answer. While it doesn't—cannot—answer the question with certainty, Into the Wild does shed considerable light along the way. Not only about McCandless's "Alaskan odyssey," but also the forces that drive people to drop out of society and test themselves in other ways. Krakauer quotes Wallace Stegner's writing on a young man who similarly disappeared in the Utah desert in the 1930s: "At 18, in a dream, he saw himself ... wandering through the romantic waste places of the world. No man with any of the juices of boyhood in him has forgotten those dreams." Into the Wild shows that McCandless, while extreme, was hardly unique; the author makes the hermit into one of us, something McCandless himself could never pull off. By book's end, McCandless isn't merely a newspaper clipping, but a sympathetic, oddly magnetic personality. Whether he was "a courageous idealist, or a reckless idiot," you won't soon forget Christopher McCandless.
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Customer Reviews
Boring
I feel the same as one of the other reviewers; why summarize the story on the cover and tell me what happens?I couldn't get to the end of this book, to be honest, I couldn't even read past page 55ish. I tried, I kept reading as much as I could and as far as I could, but this book isn't worth my time.
I will not finish the book regardless of how strongly I feel about finishing everything I start. And, I would never recommend this book to anyone.
Wonderful inspite of it's tragic ending
This is not normally the type of book I read,but I am so glad I did.It's moving, and amazing. The story being recounted is quite interesting. (Later I saw the movie which seems very true to the novel, but is far more boring and slow moving than the novel- although the casting seems perfect.) Kraukauer is a beautiful story teller and lets you see the full character (smart but stupid, selfish but loving) boy who only wants to "walk into the wild" You can tell he loves him, but also wants to tell the truth. He is sensitive to those left behind and wants to depict Supertramp's final adventure as he might want it told himself. The book is interesting, and will make you sad, angry, and annoyed. It will remind you of the differences in humans, and how some people can be lost even unto themselves. The book pieces together fragments of the final months, year of Supertramps life to build a story of who this person was up to the tragic end.Poorly Equipped Dreamer
It's ok to be a dreamer. It's ok to want to 'find yourself.' It's really ok to hike and backpack. I've done it myself, but I would never, never enter a wilderness area without, at least, a topographical map. Chris McCandless' story is nothing short of tragic.Jon Krakauer does a fine job of getting you into the mind of this doomed traveler while also taking you into the adventure and beauty of the wilderness.
Beauty, goodness and hope. . .
I'm saddened to see so many people writing with little or no compassion for Chris McCandless, and such a limited effort to understand his quest.
Most of us know what he was running from -- problems at home, a society struggling with issues of materialism and morality. But an understanding of what he was searching for -- inner peace, closeness with nature, a quiet and beautiful place in which to think -- eludes many of us, just as it eluded him.
It could be lovely, could it not? Wild strawberries spilling down the riverbank, red poppies flaming the hills, cobalt mountains loping along the sky, like waves in a gently rolling sea. I am blessed to live in such a place, where I can reflect and write in perfect solitude, and I appreciate the beautiful life I have. I live a little like he did, but without his extraordinary deprivation -- the berries, the bag of rice, no way (as he perceived it at that time) to get out.
Jon Krakauer mined this tragedy for the beauty, the goodness, and the hope that could be found in it -- and this bounty was rich! -- and I applaud his book and his wonderful writing, as I applaud the deeply moving film Sean Penn waited so patiently, for ten years, to create.
I agree with some of the points other reviewers have made -- that the particular venture Chris McCandless chose was ill-advised, that he had not adequately prepared for it, and that his family need not have been abandoned and left in the dark.
But we have all screwed up in our lives and hurt people around us, at least once, have we not? Well, I certainly have.
When other people use poor judgment and make mistakes, it's so easy to judge, to criticize, to close our minds. That's the easy way out, isn't it?
Whether we see Chris McCandless as a crazy kid, or as a courageous and intensely spiritual young man, we do know that he died afraid and alone. For that reason, if for no other, I think we need to reach for all the understanding and compassion we can give.
Arlene Sanders
Blue Ridge Mountains, Virginia
www.ArleneSanders.com
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