Into the Wild

Rating:
Summary: Moving Story
Review: Chris McCandless lead a life that most of us would like, but are afraid to do it. I liked Krakauer's writing. However, one chapter moved me and the next one I totally disliked. I didn't like when he talked about other adventurers and when he talked about his adventures. That kept the story from moving forward. When I got to those parts, I just put the book down. He should have kept the story moving, instead of wanting us to pat him on the back for his dangerous adventures.

Rating:
Summary: AMAZING AMAZING BOOK
Review: this book is a short read well worth your time. you will not want to put it down. its the true story of a lost disenfranchised kid who thinks he can find his answers tramping in alaska. a must read for anyone who thinks they are alone in their quest for meaning!

Rating:
Summary: Loved it!
Review: The quick pace, interesting story and talented writing-style all made it difficult to put this book down. I've read three of Krakauer's books and enjoyed them all immensely.
I'm not sure what to think of Chris MacCandless and his deadly adventure; my opinions changed frequently while reading about his life. While opinions as to why he chose such a secretive and lonely journey could be debated forever, it was the emotional torture that his parents and family endured that really tugged at my feelings. No matter what his motivation to go alone into the wild (and I do believe some mental instability played into it), there was no excuse not to contact family in even some tiny way. As we can tell from his letters, he had no problem sending communications to even the most casual of acquaintances he met along the road.
We have decided to make this the first book reviewed in a book club that some friends and I have started. I can't wait to hear the ideas and opinions of others. I know there will be much heated debate.

Rating:
Summary: Compelling book
Review: The book started out not really interesting, but as it spanned out it became a factor the realistic feeling you get when he describes the adventures that he goes on and the description of this life great writer. The middle is some what of a tease but well worth reading. Might not be a type that you will understand first time reading.

Rating:
Summary: Into the Wild.
Review: This book changed my life. PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE do yourself a favor and buy this book used or something. pass it on when you're done with it. This book is amazing.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent
Review: I had trouble putting this book down after starting it. I thought the book was well written and very interesting. It haunted me for many days after I finished it, during which time I often thought about McCandless's journey and death. While I think he took risks that most of us would not and he should have been more cautious, I do not think he was arrogant or ignorant. We all make mistakes, especially when we are young, but his mistakes (and bad luck, to some degree) cost him his life. I don't read a whole lot of non-fiction but I really enjoyed this book. It was as easy to read as a well written novel.

Rating:
Summary: how stupid can one person be
Review: what kind of idea is it to go out into the wild with out a compass, good wheather clothes, provisions, and a good gun. did any of this go through his mind when he was dying. it was him against the elementals of nature. how could he have survived, he did not have that much food and he had no tent or sleeping bag no compass map nothing, and especialy in snow come on man i think atleast he should win a darian award for his thick skull that was aparrantly to dumb to realize that its much harder to survive when you don't have anything that might help you suvive at all i don't care how good an idea it was it was stupid to go through with it. what he thought to be his heros were made up characters from books. its easier to read about survival than to go out there and survive on what you you have. You might last two three days but for a couple of months no way, never.

Rating:
Summary: very good writing, difficult story to tell
Review: I would like to comment on two separate points in this review. First, Jon Krakauer's writing and telling of the story; second, a brief comment on the main character.

Krakauer does a fine job of bringing the reader closer to an understanding of Chris McCandless. The style of writing flows well and I was spellbound and could not put the book down until I read it straight through. Although it is obvious that Krakauer is biased in favor of McCandless (in his beliefs and actions), the book is well written and extremely enjoyable. Krakauer seamlessly weaves into the story his personal experiences and shows that he is the perfect person to present the story to the reader. He succeeds in getting the reader to become absorbed into the tale as it unfolds.

Now, on to the actions of our "hero." While I admire and respect McCandless for some of his beliefs and his amazing travels and triumphs over adversity, I feel that he was immature, ignorant, arrogant and just plain stupid in regard to other things. His unpreparedness to enter the wilderness (not really wilderness since he was so close to others), his lack of understanding of nature and of his immediate surroundings, and his absolute refusal to accept advice from others reveal his childlike immaturity and simplistic approach in his quest for truth. As I say, I respect him for what he "wanted" to do and achieve, but the way he went about it showed that he was a complete fool who had very little understanding of the Nature that he so adamantly loved. Examples of this are going into the woods with no maps, no compass, no axe, improper clothing, insufficient food, the wrong type of rifle, no knowledge of how to preserve meat and a ridiculous feeling of invincibilty.

I feel badly that McCandless died in the manner that he did, but unfortunately, his death was his own fault and not an accident.

Rating:
Summary: Into the Wild
Review: I'll admit that I (figuratively) devoured this book and was mesmerized by this extraordinary, tragic story. But I've thought about it for a while now and I've come to the conclusion that I just can't agree with what Chris did, and am not so certain that Krakauer was justified in portraying Chris in such a sympathetic manner. He does seem to have been a bright and unique individual, and his disdain and attempt to disaccoiate himself with our corrupt, flawed society has to be commended. But the fact of the matter is, that in attempting to buck convention, Chris went about it in a very Western manner: selfish, individualistic, disrespectful. I could go on about this for a long, long time; but I'll only touch on the last aspect. In the book, Krakauer states that he received numerous letters following the publication of his article in OUTSIDE. One was to the effect that Chris had no respect for Nature; Krakauer contends that he did, and tries to defend Chris on this point. I have have to disagree with Krakauer completely. Chris' actions denoted a profound disrespect for Nature, an attitude that unfortunately has been an habitual flaw in weltanschauung of our "civilization." His death therefore is nothing more than a tragic waste.

Rating:
Summary: over the abyss
Review: Book review: Jon Krakauer's, Into The Wild

My sister and I enjoy the outdoors and undertaking various adventures, especially above the timberline. As a tradition, we get together to make our annual October ascent up to the summit of Mount Whitney. A few Harvest Moons ago and after one of these trips, my sister gave me a book by a relatively unknown author at the time named Jon Krakauer titled Into The Wild. We had just read Krakauer's book, Into Thin Air, and as I much enjoyed this riveting adventure-documentary, she said that I would enjoy this earlier release. I anticipated an interesting, high-quality adventure story. It was strikingly more than that to me. Krakauer articulates a painfully moving story that avails one not to stop reading.

What began as an article for Outside magazine is a story about twenty-four year old Christopher McCandless. Chris was a college graduate with an array of uncommon abilities who came from affluent, yet "stifling," Annandale, Virginia. Immediately after college in the summer of 1990, McCandless traded a seemingly bright future for a "raw transcendent experience" venturing throughout the western United States as a vagabond until his death twenty-eight months later. Ultimately, hunters at a small camp near Mount McKinley in Alaska found his emaciated body.

Krakauer begins by relaying the account of an Alaskan man who, as the last known person to see Chris, recollects picking up a hitchhiker in Fairbanks, Alaska, drives the "congenial and well-educated" hitchhiker to his desired location, and then feels perplexed as he watches this young man begin walking down the Stampede Trail near Healy, Alaska. Next, the author relates the brief story of the haunting discovery of McCandless's body. From there, Krakauer then effectively backtracks to include McCandless's personal and family history, travels, and stories from people Chris met and "kept [. . .] at arm's length" during his two-year "odyssey" following his graduation, with honors, from Emory University.

The reader accompanies the author as he traverses Chris's tour de force revealing what must have been for Krakauer, as evident by brave, expository interviews with many people especially Chris's family, a tenacious, exhaustive, and emotional effort toward research; it is obvious that the author chased down the details "with an interest that bordered on obsession."

As a wilderness-adventure journalist and journeyman mountaineer with extensive backcountry-adventure experiences abroad including Alaska, the author, Krakauer, relates the results of his research well with qualified and sincere insight. In general, many people can perceive wilderness adventurers, usually posthumously, as heroes; otherwise, many people tend to see adventurers as brash, heedless risk-takers. In fact, many people mistakenly refer to these "risk-takers" as having a death wish. This understanding, as well as his being intimately apart of the unique and intense mind of the wilderness-adventurer community, is a tremendous asset for the author toward understanding the heart and mind of Chris McCandless. With his finger on the pulse of this very complex breed of human being (of good heart), Krakauer confronts the common mistake of those who neatly stereotype McCandless as reckless and arrogant - "a wacko" with a death wish. In agreement or not, the author perspicaciously offers that Chris's "life hummed with meaning and purpose [. . .] the meaning he wrested from existence lay beyond the comfortable path: McCandless distrusted the value of things that came easily. He demanded much of himself."

Essentially, Krakauer refreshingly poses hypotheses throughout Into The Wild to the unanswerable question at the end: Did Chris intentionally commit suicide or was this a tragic accidental death? Because McCandless' situational cause and effect is family based, and with its finality, this story hits a nerve. Indeed, the pleasure or nuisance of Into The Wild is that, because seemingly obvious pieces of Chris's personality can not fit neatly into a corresponding slot. It is plainly evident by the many forums of correspondence that, as this book normally begins as an entertainment, commonly becomes one of an equidistant self-reflection of family relationships and an exploration of personal moral values.

Krakauer's qualifications allow him to recognize insightfully McCandless's young idealism that greatly contributed toward his death and constructively heads-off dismissive knee-jerk characterizations of Chris, and those like him of the impulse to engage in dangerous activities, without stoking speculative conclusions. The author effectively explores an enigmatic personality and of his reckoning truth. A stirring read even for the armchair adventurer, the author "will leave it to the reader to form his or her own opinion of Chris McCandless" and of his odyssey into the wild.

For whatever it's worth:

Concerning reasonable fulminating viewpoints, it is apparent to me to conclude that Chris did not have any desire to commit suicide; he accepted fate's death (as well as fate's life) per his constructed parameters, but hoped for rescue from (even if self-created) peril. This became for him necessary to obtain truth [. . .] from God and/or his family and for him there was no other way.