Into the Wild

Rating:
Summary: Chris McCandless... a modern day Leo Tolstoy?
Review: Let me just start this off by saying that I am absolutely terrified of the wilderness and this really isn't the sort of thing that I would usually be into. But Krakauer's writing has an odd effect on me... even though I may not be the most outdoorsy type [aside from my backcountry skiing] I am still drawn into reading his books. My point? Anybody can read this... but at times it can almost be a little tearful.

The book is about Christopher McCandless, a college graduate from a well off family who decided to give it all up to venture across the country. And he really did give it all up... his family, his beloved car, and his entire savings.

Still, Chris finds happiness in his travels... ranging from the heat of Baja California... to farming plains in South Dakota... ultimately to Alaska.

This is a wonderful book, it really changed my outlook on some things. I think that Chris was a little weird... a little too idealistic. He was too cocky and made a few mistakes, mistakes which cost him his life. Many call him crazy, but I admire him because his story interests me a lot more than some guy driving a mini van to work at his office job from 9 - 5.

I also love Krakauer's style of writing, he provides a great narrative to Chris's story. Sometimes he gets off topic... but I think that gives his book a kind of campfire story effect that I really like.

Overall, it is an excellent book, I highly recommend it.

Rating:
Summary: The power of concept vs. objective reality
Review: This book is a truly great work of nonfiction writing by Jon Krakauer. Thank you Mr. Krakauer for telling this story, and for sharing a bit of yourself in the process. The concept of the journey into dark wilderness (and its symbolism as the unconscious) is a powerful one. For those who have dreamed of dropping out of our vulgar, materialistic society, this book is a must read.

Chris McCandless' journey is a tragic and riveting tale of a young man with high ideals who ultimately lacked the maturity and wisdom needed to succesfully implement them. A lesson I took from this story is the value of balance. Man cannot live by ideals alone; a certain amount of pragmatism/objectivism is necessary for survival in our material world. Yet how empty this world would be without the ideals and striving that give purpose to what we see and do.

On the one hand, Chris McCandless acted in an impulsive and stupid way; people die every year as a result of their ignorance and lack of preparation. On the other hand, I have to give Chris credit for not doing what a lot of us do -- talk big talk around the coffee house or pub, then on Monday return to our sterile cubicles to drone out another work day; he put his money where his mouth was. How sad that he did not prepare for his journey in a way that would have enabled him to come back, and live to journey again, sharing his discoveries with family and friends.

Rating:
Summary: Interesting, but hard to follow
Review: I would have to say that this book did not do much for me. Don't get me wrong - McCandless was a really fascinating guy, and I was interested in his story. I thought, however, that Krakauer could have done a better job of making it interesting. I found the story hard to follow because Krakauer didn't tell it from beginning to end, but jumped around from place to place. I understand that he didn't know all the facts between different locations, but I still think he could have made the book more interesting. I do have a lot of respect for McCandless for doing what he did, though.

Rating:
Summary: Alaskan Wilderness
Review: I loved this book! I enjoyed and had a great learning experience about the wilderness up North. Very Interessting and exciting! I wish i could do the same thing as Chris someday

Rating:
Summary: Into the Wild
Review: I read the book, "Into the Wild," by Jon Krauker. This book tells the mystery story of a man Christopher Johnson McCandless. This man gave all his money away and left most of his possessions behind. He does not tell his family anything and the next thing they knew Christopher was dead in Alaska. This story is an unraveling mystery about what happened to Christopher the four months before his death while he was on the road. But this is also a mystery of why a man, with everything going his way, would drop everything, disappear, and keep his family worrying about where he went off to.
What was so touching about this book was how Christopher touched many people's lives. For example, Christopher gets help from a man, Ronald Franz, (not his real name.) Ron gives him rides, food, and clothes. They also spent a lot of together. Ronald gets very attached to Christopher, so when Christopher left, Ronald Franz was heart broken. "Astoundingly, the eighty-one-year-old man took the brash twenty-four-year-old vagabond's advice to heart. Franz placed his furniture and most of his other possessions in a storage locker, bought a GMC Duravan, and outfitted it with bunks and camping gear. Then he moved out if his apartment and set up camp on the bajada." This is just one of the people's lives Christopher touched. The way he affected people is heat warming. There was hardly nothing bad sad about Christopher.
I was glued to this book. It is not just a touching story or mystery. It is an adventure that makes the reader think about life and what is worth living for. The author, Jon Krakauer, did fantastic job getting all this information about Christopher McCandless, who never stayed in one spot. Christopher was always moving. Jon Krakauer's great imagery and writing makes the reader feel like they are in the book, retracing the steps of Christopher McCandless. "On the northern margin of the Alaska Range, just before the hulking ramparts of Mt. McKinley and its satellites surrender to the low Kantishna plain, a series of lesser ridges, known as the Outer Range, sprawls across the flats like a rumpled blanket on an unmade bed. Between the flinty crests of the outermost escarpments of the Outer Range runs an east-west trough, maybe five miles across, carpeted in a boggy amalgam of muskeg, alder thickets, and veins of scrawny spruce. Meandering through the tangled, rolling bottomland is the Stempede Trail, the route Chris McCandless followed into the wilderness.
This tragic story of a man's escape is full of excitement and suspense. I highly recommend this book to anyone who is willing to sit down and dive into the great detective work of Jon Krakauer.

Rating:
Summary: Weird!!
Review: I have read many reviews now and i am not happy that not one has mentioned his journeys before he got to Alaska! Krauker does a horrible job on telling the story and makes it really boring to the reader. McCandless was an idealistic young man. Don't get stuff tangled and twisted, he was not bright , he left unprepared to go into the wild

Rating:
Summary: Enjoy
Review: Krakauer does a fine job examining McCandless's journey into Alaska, and in exploring the psychological reason's for his doing so. This book is well worth the read. It is true human drama - sadness, humor, and, in the final outcome, the inability to understand what motivates people. It's an easy read. Enjoy.

Rating:
Summary: good, but repetative
Review: this book was excellent and engrossing in the begining, but near the middle and end, krakauer kept on repeating the same story and ideas, and it just got boring

Rating:
Summary: A Bit Scattered but Fastinating None the Less
Review: It's hard to beleave when reading this gripping page turner, that this book is a true story, based on one mans incredible adventure. This is one of the very few books that tells you on the front cover that the main character dies. (Don't worry I'm not giving away the book) Krakour's point was not to focus on McCandlesess death, but his amazing and brave adventure that few would dare to follow.

Rating:
Summary: A story of a free spirit.
Review: Into the Wild is a wonderful story about a free spirit. It is an adventure for the 20th century. Have you ever wondered what it would be like to give up all of the things that society has termed essential. I have...but only imagined it...McCandless actually did it...!

This is a story about/or an attempt to understand spirits like Chris McCandless. This is a young man who grew up in a middle to upper class family, graduated - I'm assuming - in the top of his class at Emory University, and is loved by everyone that he meets. It's not about a young man who grew up in a unstable home, but one that always felt the tug of adventure and the desire to push one's emotional and physical well being to the ultimate limits.

Krakauer tells the story using McCandless's own words (from his journal) and from interviews with family and those he met on his journeys...Krakauer also trys to give us insight into why McCandless would do the things he does by using his own personal experiences and stories of individuals of history that did the very thing McCandless had just done.

Although I wish that Krakauer could tell us what really was going on in McCandless's mind...one must remember that McCandless is dead...and thus an impossibility...Krakauer does an amazing job with the little information that is available...He also gives us multiple theories, of why, throughout the book.

This is a must read for all...(My grandmother who is 86 years old picked it up of the coffee table and started reading it...she borrowed it and loved it....maybe for not the same reasons as myself, but for her own...)