Into the Wild

Rating:
Summary: Great book
Review: Jon Krakauer has a way to write that you think you are there.

He is a brilliant writer. When you combine that with an interesting story, it makes for a winning combination.

Rating:
Summary: missing something
Review: Like so many who are missing something, incapable of articulating what that something is but driven to the fringe in search of it, Chris McCandless was more than an arrogant or overconfident thrill seeker. And to dismiss his death as a matter of incompetence is to miss the point. As in Daniel Quinn's Ishmael and Jean Liedloff's The Continuum Concept, Krakauer's Into the Wild richly, eloquently and with obvious painstaking research reveals that for some of us, civilization has left us in need of something more. McCandless, rejecting mainstream options, embraces a forgotten if somewhat overly-romanticized path. In doing so, however, he fails to take into account that while brilliant and uncommonly resourceful, he is wholly unprepared--as is anyone--to retreat into the wild alone.

Krakauer thoughtfully interweaves similar accounts of foolhardy individualism, including a fascinating personal account, to create a most memorable and saddening experience. What is perhaps most impressive is the way he pieces together McCandless' withdrawal from and intermittent return to society. I found that Krakauer, while openly sympathetic to his subject's dilemma, is nonetheless consistently fair and rounded in his characterization of McCandless. Ultimately, both like and because of the author, I feel a haunting connection to Chris McCandless.

Rating:
Summary: A Lone Young Man Vanishes Into The Alaskan Wilderness
Review: This book is an excellent "page turner" quick read. What has happened to Chris? Where is he going? How did he get there? Where has he been? Yet the biggest question of all at the end is why? Each reader has an opportunity to try to solve the mystery of why in his own perspective. Many readers will be able to identify with Chris in his search for meaning in life.

Rating:
Summary: A disturbing journey "into the wild" heart of modern man
Review: This book perfectly captures the dangers of feeling too much, thinking too much, reading too much, and being hurt too much. Krakauer, who reveals much of his own idealism in this book, investigates the death by starvation of an idealistic Emory graduate Chris McCandless, aka Alexander Supertramp. Krakauer follows the journey of McCandless, conjectures several possible reasons for his demise, interjects the stories of several idealistic young men (including himself), and interviews everyone he could find who met McCandless during the two years between his disappearance from Atlanta and the discovery of his body in a schoolbus outside the Denali National Park in Alaska. A must-read for anyone who has ever considered leaving it all or going out for a life of adventure in America. Krakauer skillfully addresses the reasons why people in America are attracted to the idea of the wilderness at a level that is extremely attractive to non-literary fans. Thoreau, Melville, Twain, and Tolstoy (among others) are quoted throughout the book from passages highlighted in books found with McCandless' body which effectively shelight on this tragic story.

Rating:
Summary: so-so
Review: This book was okay. It wasn't my favorite, but it was good. It has stories of other people who did the samething, and I was bored with their stories after the first few pages. Other than that Chris's life story after college was very interesting and there were parts I couldn't put the book down.

Rating:
Summary: "Into the Wild" questions the ideals of society.
Review: Where does our society spend the most money, time and talents? This is the question Chris McCandless and Jon Krakauer express through the tale of going into the wild. Chris came from a well-off family that spent a lot of time working for the American Dream. This ideal of working hard to support a family and to have a lot of money is the basic dream that many Americans face. Therefore, the goal that Chris was expected to reach was to go to college then law school. However, Chris leaves the security of his chosen path, giving away his money and leaving school, to prove that he can survive on a subsistent level. Many people regard this action of leaving his family and following his dream as selfish. Chris' actions were extreme and hurt the one's that loved him. On the other hand, his actions are true to what he believed in and worked for all his life, his ideals. In conclusion, I would give the book five stars becuase it made readers, like myself, question the ideals that we follow and the relationships that we have with people.