Into the Wild | Jon Krakauer | Thoroughly Human

Into the Wild | Jon Krakauer | I went to the woods ..

books:

Into the Wild

	Into the Wild Jon Krakauer Anchor, 1997 - 224 pages average customer review:based on 1217 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

In April 1992 a young man from a well-to-do family hitchhiked to Alaska and walked alone into the wilderness north of Mt. McKinley. His name was Christopher Johnson McCandless. He had given $25,000 in savings to charity, abandoned his car and most of his possessions, burned all the cash in his wallet, and invented a new life for himself. Four months later, his decomposed body was found by a moose hunter.  How McCandless came to die is the unforgettable story of Into the Wild.

Immediately after graduating from college in 1991, McCandless had roamed through the West and Southwest on a vision quest like those made by his heroes Jack London and John Muir.  In the Mojave Desert he abandoned his car, stripped it of its license plates, and burned all of his  cash.  He would give himself a new name, Alexander Supertramp, and , unencumbered by money and belongings, he would be free to wallow in the raw, unfiltered experiences that nature presented.  Craving a blank spot on the map, McCandless simply threw the maps away.  Leaving behind his desperate parents and sister, he vanished into the wild.

Jon Krakauer constructs a clarifying prism through which he reassembles the disquieting facts of McCandless's short life.  Admitting an interst that borders on obsession, he searches for the clues to the dries and desires that propelled McCandless.  Digging deeply, he takes an inherently compelling mystery and unravels the larger riddles it holds: the profound pull of the American wilderness on our imagination; the allure of high-risk activities to young men of a certain cast of mind; the complex, charged bond between fathers and sons.

When McCandless's innocent mistakes turn out to be irreversible and fatal, he becomes the stuff of tabloid headlines and is dismissed for his naiveté, pretensions, and hubris.  He is said  to have had a death wish but wanting to die is a very different thing from being compelled to look over the edge. Krakauer brings McCandless's uncompromising pilgrimage out of the shadows, and the peril, adversity , and renunciation sought by this enigmatic young man are illuminated with a rare understanding--and not an ounce of sentimentality. Mesmerizing, heartbreaking, Into the Wild is a tour de force. The power and luminosity of Jon Krakauer's stoytelling blaze through every page.

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Thoroughly Human

When one examines the short but eventful life of Christopher Mccandless it would be very easy to either dismiss him as an ignorant (possibly suicidal) fool, or an enigmatic icon of self reliance and non-compromise. Jon Krakauer, equipped with an understanding of searching souls born of experience, reaches the perfect equilibrium. He does not make the young man more than what he was, but he does not dismiss him as an idiot. Jon understands that Chris was thoroughly human, he wasn't all the things he set out to be, he was in the process of becoming, as are we all. This account is written with economy, lucidity and most importantly passion. For without passion, the driving force behind the wandering young man, it would be impossible to empathize with this enigmatic, restless soul.

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I went to the woods ..

That the force that is nature will ultimately change those of us who are enthralled by it. Its not surprising tht the protagnist in "Into the Wild" gives up so much to live primtively in the northern climes of Alaska .. its Thoreau revisited. The author never fails to please those who understand his messages.

Good Book

Book is good, the movie is even better. The book does not have personality like the movie does. You did not feel for the main character, unlike the movie that made me cry in the end. Although the book is interesting, there are additional outdoorsmen stories.

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