Into the Wild

Genre: Non-Fiction

I gave this book ***

This is the true story of Christopher McCandless who, in his early 20’s, decides to traverse the great Alaskan wild. Unbeknownst to his family (at least initially), McCandless travels west and meets generous, kind people along the way whom he befriends and contacts by phone and post card intermittently throughout his journey. He abandons his beloved car, gets rid of most of his worldly possessions (including burning the last of his cash, $23 and change) and takes off into the bush with his backpack, 10 lbs. of rice, a gun and some ammunition, a camera and several books. He survives for about 100 days and then meets his death from starvation.

This book was written by Jon Krakauer (in his own right, an adventure seeker) and he initially wrote an article about McCandless’s journey for Outside magazine. It was this article, and the controversy that it stirred (many called McCandless foolish for being insufficiently prepared for his journey), that prompted him to write this book. I am a firm believer that every story needs to be told, but the format in which we tell it, however, doesn’t have to be a book. This is nowhere clearer than in this book. There’s a lot of information about the different people whom McCandless meets along his journey. We meet his sister and parents towards the end of the book, and we even learn about Krakauer’s own experience as a great adventurer. Aside from a couple of corrections from his original article and explanations as to some of his travel decisions, there isn’t any new information about McCandless, his experience or his reasons for doing what he did. What we do know is that he was a bright, social kid who loved the great outdoors and wanted to challenge himself physically. We also know that he objected greatly to overabundance of anything and really admired the likes of Henry David Thoreau and Jack London who claimed to live off the land (but in truth didn’t). Additionally, we know that McCandless changed his name to Alexander Supertramp. This, along with choosing to completely depart from society, to me, tells a story of a young man who is trying to find himself. And, unfortunately, there are those who look in the great outdoors and end up finding themselves, as in Krakauer himself, and there are those who encounter great obstacles, never to return. McCandless’ death is a tragedy no matter the cause. This book, I think, failed to expand on this story further because maybe there isn’t more to tell.