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Summary: Krakauer's story of Chris McCandless
Review: Why would a talented and gifted young man walk away from his life of promise and lead the life of a penniless wanderer? Jon Krakauer, the nature/travel journalist, takes on this question in the story of Chris McCandless, who after two years of coast-to-coast travel, was found dead in the Alaskan wildreness. Krakauer retraces McCandless's steps from his childhood to his days at Emory and uncovers a smart, compassionate young man who revelled in the works of Tolstoy, Jack London, and other figures who advocated a simple self-sufficient existence, turning away from money, government, etc. He interviews several people that Chris, "Alex Supertramp" as he calls himself, met in his hitch hiking travels and discusses his journal writings. I came upon this book after reading Krakauer's newest book, Under the Banner of Heaven. I appreciated Krakauer's style of being in the story as an author/journalist, but keeping the story in its purest form.
Krakauer first encountered this story after McCandless's death in 1992. He wrote a feature story in Outside magazine, but was very interested in McCandless, so he decided to research the events more. This book is the further research. He provides some insight and answers some of the questions with his own experiences as a mountaineer and outdoor-lover.
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Summary: an amazing story
Review: Krakauer tells the fascinating story of a young man, from a well-off family, who hitchhiked alone into the Alaskan wilderness and turned up dead. It is a fascinating story, and one that Krakauer tells well. His prose is informative and flows well. He has a good sense of story. This is an amazing book--and I recommend you pick it up and read it.
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Summary: Simply An Inpiring Journey
Review: As a practice architect with a Bachelor and a Master degree from an Ivy League school, I read, write, travel, and I thought I've accomplished a lot in life. There're no challenges I'm fear to take on, until I read this book I realized how miniscule my life is comparing to McCandless's short one. I found "Into the Wild" more inspiring than most self-help books I've read over the years. My favorite quote from the book is "a challenge in which a successful outcome is assured isn't a challenge at all."
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Summary: Quest for the True Wilderness
Review: Into the Wild was a very intriguing book, it tells the entire story of Chris McCandles and even more. Jon Krakauer points out how most people have at least on some instinctual level, a yearning to go into the wilderness and forage for themselves. This book is a great book for anyone. It tells how Chris McCandles came about his fate, starting with donating all of his savings to charity and then later dumping his car so he only has a few possessions. It is a gripping story that i recommend for anyone.
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Summary: True but alarming
Review: Being a 9th grade English student, this was a very intriguing book. It caused me to reflect on my life. Some people condemned this book because Chris McCandless showed pure stupidity and arrogance by going into the middle of nowhere in Alaska. He entered with little sustenance, a bag of rice, and a book explaining edible plants and berries of the surrounding area. He dropped everything he ever knew and started a new life to fulfill his dreams. Chris gave 25,000 dollars to charity, he abandoned his car and burned all the money in his wallet. Yet people called Chris foolish for fulfilling his dream, but they don't have enough guts to do it themselves. In this book Krakauer also talked about a mountain ascent preformed by a man, the same age and with little preparation. At the end of this book it became very emotional. This book is not just for the avid lover of the outdoors. It is a good book for just about everyone. I would recommend reading this book if you get the chance.
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Summary: into the wild book review
Review: A book review for Into the Wild Starting a new life is something that just about everyone has thought of, but not many actually peruse it. The real question is how many people in the world are following their dreams to happiness? A true story about one particular man by the name of Christopher McCandless is one that leaves many pondering. He left his life in search for a new one although his new life is not one that many who chose it seems to be the way he wants to live. He kept journal entries about his journey through his new life even though his journey was not one of discovery and glory. Also most of these stories have a happy ending, this one did not because all they found left of Chris was his decomposed body. Jon Krakauer wrote about Christopher's journey and in the book Into the Wild. It started me at the edge of my seat and left me with some amazing thoughts. This is a book that I recommend too and one not just as a book but a way to look at life in a whole other state of mind. It makes you feel like taking a journey with Christopher McCandless and actually being there beside him, feeling and understanding the amazing things he went through. I give this book four stars it was not the best book I ever read but it was very good. The only parts that bothered me were that it commonly went off the subject and told parts of the story that were not really relevant.
The book definitely had its flaws. Krakauer is the narrator for the story and he seems to fill gaps in the story with meaningless other short stories from people that had met him. There were some parts in the book that I felt were just not very important. The author wrote a lot about the people that McCandless met or worked for during his journey to the life he dreamed for himself. I felt that the author spent too much time talking about the people he met and worked for and the author talked about their lives and their family. It wasted a lot of time and I feel that it didn't need to be told as through or with as much detail as the author did. It would have been better if the narrator talked more about Chris than the others around him at the time. Also it bothered me that the author did not really have a clear reason for why Chris left his life for a new one. Especially when the life he had was blooming.
I rated this book with four stars because I felt it was an extremely intense book, which kept me at the edge of my seat. It did this through the majority of the book by constantly rising and dropping the level of intensity. I liked it because I could relate to it but at the same time I could not understand what Chris was physically feeling and going through. On the other hand I related to this book because I understood his feelings of wanting to give up everything to start over. The book gave me a new look at life through someone else's eyes and through my own, mostly because it was a true story and it did not have a happy ending. I also think the book having a unhappy ending gave it a twist of reality because some time life does not always end up the way we want it to.
I would recommend this book to just about anyone over the age of fifteen. Also to people who like mystery, suspense, and thrillers books, and this is a true story. This book helps you see life and relive it through Chris McCandless's eyes. If you want to know the real life true story about Chris McCandless then this is a book for anyone. I think others will enjoy this book as much as I did because it tells the true story about a man who died fulfilling his dream.
Over all, the book Into the Wild was a book that touched me. I feel that it could do the same for anyone that reads it. It was not the greatest book that I have read, but it defiantly gave me a new way to look at life and not take it for granted. No matter how bad life might be, the grass is not always greener in a new life. It is a shame that Chris McCandless had to find that out the hard way.
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Summary: tragically reckoning truth: will invade your dreams awhile
Review: 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. Soon after receiving Into The Wild, I opened to the introduction one afternoon and then noticed the Sun rising of the following day as I closed the back cover. Since, I have read it many times for I find it compelling in that way. 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' 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. Often, many people mistakenly refer to these "risk-takers" as having a death wish. With this understanding as well as his being intimately apart of the unique and intense mind of the wilderness-adventurer community, the author has a tremendous asset 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 normally is difficult for a reader to form conclusive (and possibly self-separating) ideas as well as possibly confronting awkward parallels between events of McCandless's life and ones own. It is plainly evident by the many forums of correspondence, that, as this book normally begins as an entertainment, it 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, himself, and/or his family -- and for him there was no other way.
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Summary: Great story, tough point to prove...
Review: Krakauer does a great job of telling the story of Mr. McCandless and relating to similar, past events - including those of his own life. His main goal, it appears, is to tell the story in the context of man's longing for adventure and his desire to interact with nature. Krakauer's biggest challenge, however, is more along the lines of proving McCandless was not an absolute fool - entering Alaska arrogant and unprepared. Regardless, Krakauer is a great writer and this is a fine book. Another great example of non-fiction as literature.
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Summary: Gloomy, but honest.
Review: I have never read a book quite like this one. It brooded like a ghost that haunts dwarf aspens growing along muskeg on a windy Alaskan afternoon. Who cares about the death of foolish young man who selfishly forsakes all who love him to live in the wilds of Alaska by himself, and that without adequate preparation? If God cared, why did he let the young man die so needlessly, so close to rescue, while his parents and others were praying for him? These are some of the questions that came to mind as I read this fascinating, sad, and truthful story. I am glad that Krakauer granted Christopher the dignity of telling his story. Krakauer's own "flash-back" scene of foolish outdoor escapades as a young man, itself a remarkable adventure story, helps explain his interest. I grew up partly in Southeast Alaska, and sometimes confused it with heaven; Krakauer corrects that mistake. This is more a Jack London Alaska, with a bit of Tolstoy thrown in. Tolstoy, too, was an idealistic, tormented man, driven to an ill end. In some ways, this book could be described as an American Death of Ivan Ilyich. (One of the books Christopher read in the wilderness.) Krakauer doesn't follow up on the lead, but it strikes me that Christopher's final message, was one Ilych might have written, had he been able: "I have had a happy life and thank the Lord. Goodbye and may God bless all!" Ironically, Christopher's suffering drove two people who loved him away from God. But it seems Christopher himself may have had some kind of experience with God as he was dying, to make his story a bit less the tragedy and riddle for him that it remains for the rest of us.
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Summary: The Death of John Johnson.
Review: I have never read a book quite like this one. It feels brooded over by the ghost of dwarf aspens growing along muskeg on a gloomy Alaskan day. Who cares about the death of foolish young man who selfishly forsakes all who love him to live in the wilds of Alaska by himself, and that without adequate preparation? Well, who cares about any of us? If God cared, why did he let the young man die so needlessly, so close to rescue, while his parents and others were praying for him? These are some of the questions that came to mind as I read this fascinating, sad, and truthful story. I am glad that Krakauer granted him the dignity to tell his story. Krakauer's own "flash-back" scenes of foolish outdoor escapades as a young man help to explain his interest. I grew up partly in Southeast Alaska, and sometimes confused it with heaven; Krakauer corrects that mistake. This is more a Jack London Alaska, with a bit of Tolstoy thrown in. In some ways, this book could be described as an American Death of Ivan Ilyich. Of course Tolstoy himself was also a tormented, idealistic, foolish soul. The Death of Ivan Ilyich was one of the books Christopher read in the wilderness. Krakauer doesn't follow up on the lead, but it strikes me that the young man's final message, when close to death, was one Ilych might have written, had he been able: "I have had a happy life and thank the Lord. Goodbye and may God bless all!" Sometimes, great suffering drives those who witness it away from God, as it drove two people who loved Christopher, while those who suffer understand better than we who do not. Perhaps Christopher had some kind of encounter with God in those last days, that made his story no longer seem quite the tragedy and riddle for him that it remains for the rest of us.
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