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Summary: An extreme young man learns lessons too late.
Review: Krakauer attempts to remain objective in his portrayal of young McCandless. The author identifies with him but remains fair in his opinions. This book does for McCandless what he himself could not do when he was alive: challenges people to change their lives. However it also shows the lessons the young man learn too late: experience is just as important as intelligence and also that people need each other. McCandless, though a little arrogant and extreme, could have contributed a lot to society with the lessons he learned had he lived. Perhaps this book does it for him.
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Summary: This work was appropriately recommended as a parting gesture
Review: Into the Wild was suggested as a good read by A.W. as a parting gesture and in realization that our relationship had ended. There could have been no more appropriate read to which I can forever look back and reference as my darkest life experience, losing the woman who gave it to me. This book is a masterpiece of sadness, and even its animated, lively moments are portentious of the despondent conclusion.Krakauer seemed to both absorb the life of Chris McCandless and relate deeper moments of his own to glean out this young man's motives. McCandless was a tragic figure, whose demise was brought about by a desire to step outside, push the envelope, and leave as many of the trappings of civilization as possible. He seemed to present an almost indestructable resiliance, yet ended with such a sad, almost sweet, weakness. The story is a human tale of the first order, loaded with an expanse of interesting characters and locations with character. McCandless journeyed with his journal, and left a record that made the book possible.This story revolves around the last years of Chris McCandless, but it feeds the achy wunderlust in all of us, and saddens the careing, family people that represents most of us. In the end, Chris was a nice, good person, who died and left us with a rich story, but far poorer for his absence in the long run.
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Summary: Heartbreaking story of searching for a dream...
Review: As many who have read this book, I picked this up after I completed "Into Thin Air." I thought that it wasn't possible that I would ever find a book that moved me as much as that novel did. I was wrong. Chris broke my heart. To witness to the adventures of such a unique young man, a true modern day adventurer and dreamer, only to see his life extinguished with such utter pain and desperation, was nearly more than I could bear. Any person not moved by this exquisite life, has truly never felt the fire in their heart to live a life less ordinary. Jon Krakauer should be applauded for what must have been a Herculean task of putting together the puzzle that was Chris' life on the road. As he did in "Into Thin Air", Jon Krakauer made me cry with the last page of this book.
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Summary: INTO THE WILD
Review: This novel is Really! Really! Good. It sends a rush to your heart. It's good at some times it's hard to read, but at others you can't let go of the book. Jon Krakauer" has told the story of this young man named Christopher McCandless, so well that you find your soul attached to the book. This novel tries to answer the question of why? What possible could have drove such a young and intelligent person to do some as foolish as this. Christopher McCandless was a young man who had everything in life he could have wanted,but yet still inside he found him self empty. The author of the novel tries to go far in depth with the sences he starts the book off talking about how This young man when to Emory University,he contacted his family. And suddenly started on his jounrney from riches to rags. After he graduated from school he was still looks for his soul.He started seaching for the truth in living as advocated by Thoreau and Tolstoy. From then on he called himself Alex. For Four Cold harsh months he lived in a abandoned bus before death and stavation overcame him. Only to be found be a moose hunter. What led this young man to this I have no idea but now there is nothing he can do to change it. People wanting to reading this book and want a second opinon, you should get it as soon as possible, this is a compelling and tragic book whose hard to put down. Also if you trying to search for your soul.It it's a simply "Sensational novel for all types of people. It's great.
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Summary: A must read book!
Review: In April 1992 a young man is foud dead in a bus. the story that arises because of this tragic may be one of the gratest adventure biographies ever writtin. In Krakauers' "Into The Wild", he tells the story of Chris McCandless. The author is defending the young man as not being suicidle, but as some one who srayed from the norm and made a few mistakes that cost MaCandless his life. The author writes infavor of the boys belifes mainly because they both shared the same kind of adventure as youth. The only acception is that the author survived his ordeal. The autors point of view is shared by every one who ever meet Chris in that he was just a kid rebeling from his parents. This book will defanatly have a lasting value and will be used to describe others who meet their end the same as McCandless. The autor dose a lot to try to tell the story to its fullest. There are quotes from friends and family telling about the man. THe main problem is that all the sources are of McCandless friends and the only negative statments are from letters that state that Chris was a fool for going into the bush alone. The autor leaves a lot of gaps, but that is because McCandless spent most of his time alone and dint always write a diary. The book is writtin in a very hard to read diolog because of all the uncommon words that were used to discribe diffrent situations. The autor is very convincing that McCandless died because of a few freak accidents thdt could have been made by even the most experianced bushman. THe book is very easy to understand even to some one who does not have the knowlage of the bush because everything is explaned very well. My understanding of the book is it is about a boy trying to escape the norm of civilized life and almost succeedes. The one main flaw in the book is that the author dosent stick to the story. In fact their are several stories told and it is hard not to mix the details of one story with another. Except for that the story keeps your attention the whole time. This book is a good but hard to follow story. A book to read if you are planing to leave civilization and one that will make one appriciate it.
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Summary: Ignore that One-Star Review
Review: Ignore the one-star review below. What is that guy talking about? This book reveals Krakauer as a philosopher posing as a journalist, his message disguised as a chronicle of events. A study of the human spirit, and the path of personal destiny. Highest recommendation!
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Summary: Unputdownable!
Review: Tough reading - heartbreaking. As a mother of two young children I just hope nothing that devastating would ever happen to me - my children. But I still find myself on the side of the young adventurer - who has no obligation to live his life for his parents, who has only the obligation to pursue his own dreams, even if making foolish mistakes. Naive? Maybe. Young and courageous? Certainly.
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Summary: FINDING CHRIS MCCANDLESS
Review: As the mother of sons and a writer for whom reading is the greatest pleasure, I found "Into the Wild" to be one of the finest and most unexpectedly beautiful books I have read in a very long time. It is the harrowing story of the death and short life of Chris McCandless, a bright, charming, adventurous young man whose mysterious travels and untimely death left a legacy of heartbreak and confusion to those who loved him. In returning to the scene of his own admittedly incomplete reportage of the story for :"Outside" magazine, Jon Krakauer reveals his own honesty and decency as a writer and a man. The book is as beautifully written as it is fascinating. Krakauer and his readers come to know Chris McCandless as our own youthful hopes made flesh. We also come to know this boy -- and love him -- as everyone's son, perhaps even our own. Late in his troubled adolescence, Chris set out into the American "wilderness" on a journey to adulthood. He did not return. He didn't return, that is, until Krakauer, who recognized in this story aspects of his own difficult youth, embarked on an odyssey of his own in McCandless' footsteps. . With almost unbearable detail he pieces together the last year of this young man's life and derives from it a compelling pilgrim's tale of anger, fear and courage. Through those who knew him during his "lost" days, we move from dissatisfaction and yearning to spiritual rebirth that arrives gratefully, but late and despite terrible twists of fate .Chris McCandless tunneled through Peer Gynt's mountain, punted across the Slough of Despond and into the dark and icy forest. He received boons and encountered spirit guides; listened and learned from scouts and story-tellers All of them later helped the auther piece together the real story, heretofore untold, of a boy who found himself and death in the same process and in the same place. Free at last, he quietly, and even joyously, welcomed the arrival of both with valor and uncommon grace.
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Summary: Definite read for my fellow 20ish generation
Review: This is a necessary read for any person who will be, or has recently, graduated from college -- or any early-20ish person who is grasping for "direction" in life. I read this book in one sitting (airline trip from NY to Seattle), and I cannot imagine reading it any other way. I believe that any person "our" age has sometimes very similar thoughts about direction, meaning, and purpose of life. But, few of us have the courage to strike out on our own as did the character of this book. I was very intrigued by the courage of this person, and his total shunning of monetary values (I sometimes wish I personified more of these values); however, his ultimate downfall holds a lesson for all of us. Courage has to be met, at least somewhat, by a respect for certain realities -- like bodily needs and protection. I remember the oft-quoted Boy Scout creed to "be prepared." I grew up in the Northwest, spending much time in the wilderness, and I have had the opportunity to visit the wonderful Alaskan wilderness twice. Through these experiences I have learned many of the basic necessities of co-existing with nature in these areas (although I still do not have the personal courage to strike out on my own in the wilderness). The young man's own ego, and some lack of respect for the human needs in the Alaskan wilderness (and life in general) are a large part of his downfall. And this is a great lesson for all of us over-confident, intelligent, young adults. Krakauer's own background and values taints his attempt at objectivity -- but his superb journalistic background provides a perfect basis for telling this thought-provoking story. (The text itself is superbly written and makes for a very "easy" read). The reader will find himself "pulling" for the young man, and usually disappointed for him given the fact that he has access to all the necessities to survive -- but a few unwise (and over-confident) decisions brings about his own destruction. Again, this is a definite read for my fellow 20ish generation.
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Summary: Into The Wild is very much written like a magazine article
Review: I feel that Into the Wild was not a very good book. It was written as a magazine article with dialogue written very poorly. After Krakauer ran out of ideas on McCandless's death, he rambled on about other people who died in the Alaskan wilderness. Overall, this book was not a page turner and I do not like Krakauer's style.
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