Into the Wild

Rating:
Summary: Irritating and disappointing
Review: I was very disappointed by this book. If you take away all of the pages of text detailing what Chris M. *might have been thinking* or *might have done* you are left with little more than what you could learn from newspaper accounts of his mysterious disappearance and untimely death, and it is obvious that this story should never have amounted to more than a magazine article. I found the author's writing style (bizarre vocabulary choices that just looked like he was showing off) very annoying at times

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Summary: Heart-breaking, powerful and sincere
Review: The cold, unforgiving climate of Alaska; the warm, giving heart of a 22-year old; and his tragic but uplifting journey into the wild. Jon Krakauer has written an intimate and sincere account of Christopher McCandless' short-lived journey. The book, which is marked along the way with letters and diary entries of McCandless or "Alexandra Supertramp", provides honest insight into the young man's hopes and dreams. McCandless, seemingly comtemptous of his well-to-do roots, chose to abandon family and society to pursue a path that he believed was the basis for the existence of the human spirit - the passion for adventure. His journey into the wild began in June 1990. He started in Atlanta and passed through Houston, Detrital Wash, Grand Junction, Carthage, Cut Bank, Seattle, Astoria, Orick, Dawson Creek. He reached Alaska in April 1992. Four months later, his decomposed body was found in an abandoned bus there. Krakauer has threaded together a compelling read, gathering information from McCandless' family and the people McCandless met along the way and whom were ultimately left with deep-lasting good impressions of a kid who was brave enough to heed the call of the wild. Some Alaskan hunters, however, said McCandless was a naive kid who showed inadequate respect for the forces of nature and thus suffered the consequences. I leave with you excerpts from a letter that McCandless wrote: "So many people live within unhappy circumstances and yet will not take the initiative to change their situation because they are conditioned to a life of security, conformity and conservatism, all of which may appear to give one peace of mind, but in reality nothing is more damaging to the adventurous spirit within a man than a secure future. The basic core of a man's living spirit is his passion for adventure. The joy of life comes from our encounters with new experiences, and hence there is no greater joy than to have an endlessly changing horizon, for each day to have a new and different sun."

Rating:
Summary: Another gift from a gifted writer
Review: While reading "Into The Wild", I alternated between total enthralment (is that a word?) with the plight and mindset of Chris McCandless and total boredome with what I perceived to be needless history and background. His story alone was what made me want to get through the book, and I saw no need for Krakauer, a gifted and justly popular writer, to muck the story up with chapters detailing other men who had set out into the wilderness only to meet their mortality. Still, I have no qualms about recommending the book to my friends and family. McCandless' journey into the baren Alaskan wilderness resonates, specifically, in the minds of men searching for something intangible, something that transcends life.

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Summary: Krakauer fails to remain objective in his analysis.
Review: Jon Krakauer is a sensitive and intelligent writer. His research is excellent. It is obvious that his demeanor is such that people speak to him openly. His book is a wonderful exposition of the life and final times of this complex young man. However, Krakauer lacks the knowledge and experience to fully assess the motivations and actions of Chris McCandless. He projects too much of his own youthful lust for adventure into the character of Chris and fails to see the essential element of McCandless which is a young man who simply doesn't fit inside of his skin and is seeking a way out of it. McCandless anger against his parents is a projection of his discontent with himself. He invents a new persona in each new location and maintains friendships for periods just brief enough to keep the illusion from paling. In spite of his failure to correctly analyze Chris's motivations Krakauer writes an excellent description of McCandless. He doesn't include solely the things that reinforce his personal analysis. It is a fine book, probably worth reading several times to truly see and understand the disaffection so prevalent in Chris McCandless' generation

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Summary: I knew Chris since he was 3 . An extraordinary account.
Review: Jon Krakauer captures the heart of Chris (Alex). I know his family well and love them all dearly. I think of them as my closest friends. I've heard the story from their side and have wept with them. One might say "It was inevitable". Others say it was a waste. Others say it was stupid. It was none or all of the above. But it took a writer with the power of Jon to tell it. He has been to that special place on the marge of civilization and came back. Alex failed; Jon tells why

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Summary: A Warning
Review: Only a book so well written could be such a clear warning to the outward bound in our society. McCandless' journey into Alaska is reminicent of John Muir's: both wished to live and breathe the natural world, and both relied on the natural world for sustanance. When McCandless was found dead, Alaskans criticized him for being woefully ill-prepared to face the outdoors. After reading this book, however, many feel that McCandless' journey was a release, and that he ultimately triumphed over civ. Krakauer's book is a warning: civilization is a self-perpetuating mindset that allows people like McCandless to face the real world with no map and boots from K-Mart and expect to survive, and even in failure, to be praised for it. I urge everyone to read this book, and to face their own journey with more humility than Chris McCandless

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Summary: Jack Kerouac could've been Chris McCandless's mentor.
Review: This book was one of the better books I have read in the past year. I was drawn to it like iron to a magnet. If you are an adventurer this is the kind of book for you. If you are confused and wish to set out in search of yourself this is the book for you. It's a compelling story, albeit sad one too but it's make you realize and come to understand was is really truly important for an individual to live his or her life. Not cars, not money, not a big house in the hills, but a cleansed soul free of all the hatred bred by American society today

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Summary: So What?!
Review: "Alexander Supertramp" disdains his wealthy and secretive family and sets off to Alaska to shed them like so much snake skin. At the conclusion of the book, one cares as much about Christopher McCandless as the common garter variety. This story of teenage angst and invinciblilty leaves the reader non plused. An exceptionl magazine article in Outdoor becomes a drawn-out, cathartic writing by Krakauer. Download the article from Outdoor's archives and you will be very pleased

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Summary: What is man looking for when he goes into the wild?
Review: What is man really looking to find when he goes up against thebrute, unforgiving forces of nature? Into the Wild does a great jobexplaining why one must venture out into the great outdoors to come face to face with his true self. It's a great story, and because the author has first-hand experience similar to that of Chris McCandless, his writing has a special empathy that cannot be affected. As someone who has lived in New York City for several years, I found this read almost as refreshing and head-clearing as a real trip into the wild.

Rating:
Summary: An excellent account of a tragedy many dismissed as folly.
Review: Krakauer, through riveting prose, well-researched reporting and review of cases of individuals who in the past have sought to test their characters in the wilderness, constructs a revealing and not unsympathetic portrait of a young college graduate from a wealthy, suburban family, who seeks enlightenment in the back woods of Alaska, only to starve to death. Krakauer is a meticulous journalist and has a gift for giving the reader a strong sense of place. He retraces the path of the young, ill-fated Chris McCandless through the Western U.S. and on to Alaska, and is not afraid to add his own spin to the story by recalling one of his own rather reckless experiences in the wild. He makes a strong case that McCandless, though perhaps naive, was not as foolish or as arrogant about nature as the general facts about the story make him seem. By the end of the book, Krakauer has not only given the reader insight into what made McCandless tick, but examined the odd, often contradictory impulses that drive some to seek solace by immersing themselves in nature