Into the Wild

Rating:
Summary: Truly brilliant or truly crazy?
Review: Krakauer does a good job of presenting the story of Chris McCandless, his life, his travels, and his death. I enjoyed the book for the most part but got a little bored with Krakauer's constant meandering from the actual story of McCandless to the stories of other men who made similar journeys. McCandless' story begs the question: was he mad or brilliant? There is no doubt that McCandless was a well-educated man who knew what he was doing; however, the true question of the story is that of his purpose. Did McCandless find true freedom? true happiness? We'll never know for sure, but we can read his story and learn from his mistakes thanks to Krakauer's thorough research. A good read if you can get through some of the slower parts.

Rating:
Summary: Lost in the Wild
Review: This book shows an excellent illustration of a true, young man that comes from a well-off family facing his life after college. Jon takes you on a wild journey all across America, from Georgia to California to the Dakotas and to Alaska. It is a wonderful book, and falls a close second to one of the greatest books, Into Thin Air.

Rating:
Summary: Into the Wild
Review: This was one of the greatest books i have ever read. the reason why i say this is that this is one of the only non-politcal books that has ever really touched off something inside of me. not that i would ever go off into the woods and try to live off of nature. it is just that i like how it told the story from the point of view that wasn't the main person in the story, but from his journal or from people who knew him.

Rating:
Summary: Not Book Length Material
Review: I read Into The Wild after finishing Krakauer's Into Thin Air, which is easily a five-star book. This one was a letdown. Jon is a marvelous writer. He has wonderful control of the English language. He's a deep thinker and is able to convey complex thoughts and emotions through his writing. He does this again in Into The Wild, however, the whole book seemed like a stretch to me, as if he wanted to write a book, but didn't have any other good ideas at the time. So he took on the compelling story of Chris McCandless.

McCandless was a smart kid from a good family who for whatever reason left home and a promising future to try survival on his own in the Alaskan wilderness for a summer. He doesn't make it.

This is something many people contemplate doing at some time in their life. I myself spent a month in the woods as a teenager, but came back out before I starved to death. It is an interesting quirk of human nature. It is something worth writing about in article length with regard to one case, or book length as a treatise on this aspect of the human condition, showing numerous examples. But Krakauer tries to expand McCandless' story alone to a full book, and though he tries mightily, he fails to flesh it out that far.

Judging from the sales and other reviews of the book, many readers do not share this opinion. I wouldn't argue with them. I view my complaint as highly subjective, and the book is fine in all other regards. --Christopher Bonn Jonnes, author of Wake Up Dead.

Rating:
Summary: amazing emotions when one reads this book
Review: What an amazing book!! I am a nature person so just reading about the book was great. However the book is quite deep and is a sort of psychology analysis of the main character. The book offers an extreme example of a man who is sick of goverment and society. I think he was born in the wrong era. He was a fighter and truly appreaciated nature for its beauty.

Rating:
Summary: Adam's Review
Review: Into The Wild is the true story of a man named Chris McCandless who gave up his money and most possessions to start a new way of life. In college, which he excelled in academically and athletically, he began to like the workings of author Leo Tolstoy and forsake wealth and privilege for a new way of life. Four months after Chris McCandless gave most of his money away and left most of his possessions, his dead body was found in and old Fairbanks bus in the wild of Alaska. I was very interested in this book about what Chris McCandless thought he needed to do spiritually. What most struck me about how different this book is was how Chris gave away his money and abandoned his possesion to go out and live in the bush of Alaska. He felt he had no worries in Alaska and was free to do as he pleased. "I'll climb a tree"(pg.6) was one reaction from him when somebody told him about the bears in Alaska. It shocked me how unworried Chris was about going into the wilderness of Alaska and not knowing what could happen. When people tried to offer him things he said ,"I'll be fine with what I've got." He just wanted a life with very little complications. As you can tell I enjoyed this book very much. This book may not be for all people though. Like some people I was interested and somewhat agreed with the way Chris McCandless tought and how he changed his life. Other people thought he was a complete idiot for what he did. I highly recommend you to read this fantastic book about how Chris McCandless changed his life.

Rating:
Summary: into the wild
Review: Into the Wild was an excellent book that delved deep into the mysteries concerned with the dissaperence and adventure of Chris McCandless. McCandless was and young man who, shortly after graduating from college gave up a comfortable life to a way of vagrency, and eventually ended up stranded in a abandoned bus in the heart of the Alsakan wilderness. Krakauer relates his own experiences and feelings to help the reader understand fully as possible what drove Chris to abandon his family and all his possesions. He tries to recreate the last two years of McCandless's life on the road by way of detailed accounts from some of his friends that he met on his way top alaska. Krakauer reveals the harshness and severity of nature and shows how simlple mistakes can prove extreamly costly. Krakauer also tries to defend McCandless from some of the critics, who attacked him for what he did. By doing this krakauer does not completely discount the possilbilities put forward by the critics and takes in their views enabeling the read to easily form thier own opinions.

Rating:
Summary: What A Wonderful Book
Review: I recommend this book for anyone who has ever had even a touch of wanderlust. The author traces the journey of a misunderstood youth and takes the reader along each exhilirating, tragic step of the way. The story is sad and profound and hopeful all at once. A rare feat of writing! Also recommended by Jane Goodall which is how I came upon it.

Rating:
Summary: extravagant suicide
Review: In April 1992, a young Emory University graduate named Chris McCandless, who had just given $25K to Oxfam and changed his name to Alex Supertramp, walked into the Alaskan wilderness with a couple books, a bag of rice and a .22 rifle. He starved to death about 113 days later. I'm not sure there's any way to say this without sounding harsh, so I won't try, it is hard to believe that the human gene pool wasn't strengthened by his death.

Jon Krakauer seems to have set himself a formidable career task--to explain to the average Joe why people venture out into nature and do profoundly idiotic things. I fear the task may be more than he, or anyone else, can accomplish. He goes to great lengths to try to render Chris McCandless sensible to us, dismissing the notion that he was insane out of hand, comparing his own youth to Chris's adventure, contrasting Chris to early explorers who met similar deaths, but in the end, he seems to be arguing a losing case. It seems likely from his behavior that Chris McCandless did have some kind of mental illness or else he was so profoundly disrespectful of the might of the wild, that in some sense, he deserved to die.

As I write this, in June of 1999, there's a young fella I work with who is heading off to Alaska with several friends for a six week hike across a patch of wilderness that no humans may have ever previously walked across. He's a nice enough kid, bright (graduated from Bates & when he gets back he starts a Doctoral program at Dartmouth), sociable (he's going with friends), stable (he seems likely to get married in August) and, most of all, realistic. He and his friends have made thorough and complicated preparations for this trip: they are taking everything from bear spray to antibiotics; they are being resupplied by air in mid trip; they'll have survival beacons, etc.. In short, they recognize that this is a hazardous venture and have taken sensible precautions to minimize the dangers. I still want him to make my kids the beneficiaries of his insurance policy, but I don't think he's acting out some kind of death wish.

Chris McCandless' expedition stands in such stark contrast to this model, that, if he was sane, then I for one feel he did little more than commit suicide.

Grade: C

Rating:
Summary: Into the Unknown
Review: If it's true that we should not care any for where we lay our head, that as the sparrows are cared for, we shall be cared for, this short book stands as a testament to despair, to wild abandon. Giving away his money, possessions, and status in a society transfixed in place, possessions, and status shows the unique quality of hope that Chris "Alexander Super Tramp" McCannless had.

My initial attraction to read this short book had to do with my fascination for the life and works of Simone Weil, who, although a much more gifted writer and thinker that SuperTramp, met a similar fate of starvation for a cause. No, she went further than Chris, she died for a cause (even if that cause was bulemia) whereas Chris died from mistaken judgement. At least, that is how Krakauer presents Christ--I mean, Chris.

This is definitely the book for discussion groups and late night talking with friends. Krakauers accessible writing craft led to an equitable presentation of a complex individual.

Also, it's the kind of book to put into the hands of someone who is not a fast reader or who doesn't read that much; this book will make a reader of her or him.