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Type of bind: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 917.98045
EAN num: 9780385486804
ISBN number: 0385486804
Label: Anchor
Manufacturer: Anchor
Quantity: 1
Page Count: 224
Printing Date: January 20, 1997
Publishing house: Anchor
Release Date: January 20, 1997
Sale Popularity Level: 1762
Studio: Anchor
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Amazon.com:
'God, he was a smart kid...' So why did Christopher McCandless trade a bright future--a college education, material comfort, uncommon ability and charm--for death by starvation in an abandoned bus in the woods of Alaska? This is the question that Jon Krakauer's book tries to answer. While it doesn't—cannot—answer the question with certainty, Into the Wild does shed considerable light along the way. Not only about McCandless's 'Alaskan odyssey,' but also the forces that drive people to drop out of society and test themselves in other ways. Krakauer quotes Wallace Stegner's writing on a young man who similarly disappeared in the Utah desert in the 1930s: 'At 18, in a dream, he saw himself ... wandering through the romantic waste places of the world. No man with any of the juices of boyhood in him has forgotten those dreams.' Into the Wild shows that McCandless, while extreme, was hardly unique; the author makes the hermit into one of us, something McCandless himself could never pull off. By book's end, McCandless isn't merely a newspaper clipping, but a sympathetic, oddly magnetic personality. Whether he was 'a courageous idealist, or a reckless idiot,' you won't soon forget Christopher McCandless.
Product Description:
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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Rated by buyers 
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John Krakauer's book got over 1,100 comments at Amazon.com and was made into a recent movie, so the story of Chris McCandless' death in the Alaska wilderness interests many.
I connect with the story in several ways, as follows:
1) A difficult father/son and inter-family dynamic can propel a young man on an outward "heroic journey." After college I moved 1500 miles from home partly from this desire to find an independent place apart from my extended family.
2) Young people often desire a taxing travel journey as a means to self discovery. I've known many young people who took extended solo trips and my own cross-country journey from after college was this kind of journey that included the desire for new experiences and risks.
3) The long-distance runner is accustomed to enduring pain in pursuit of victory. McCandless was a hard-core competitive runner who relished the challenge of enduring the accompanying pain in cross-country running. He refused to accept necessary survival equipment people offered him partly because he wanted to do things the hard way. Having run cross-country and track, I can relate to this "no pain, no gain" impulse.
4) The individual who confronts wild natural beauty in solitude can secure deep inner rewards. Many of my pivotal memories involve solitary experiences with nature, so I understand the draw of the solitary encounter with the wild.
5) Being destitute and at the mercy of circumstances allows us to connect with exhilarating experience - this weird juxtaposition of self-reliance and dependence on the kindness of strangers. I've experienced this several times when our car broke down far from civilization and people "miraculously" came along to help us.
6) Some kids are just wired differently than "normal." McCandless was strong-willed and refused to let anyone tell him what to do, especially his parents. He also thought he was smarter than others. Some people just make up their mind what they're going to do and nothing can deter them.
7) Some young people, for whatever reasons, reject societal values and mores. History reveals examples of people who share this solitary inclination: highly intelligent, injured by others, idealistic, on a mission. Krakauer mentions medeival Irish monks as fitting this category.
8. It is a quality of youth to think nothing is impossible and to be willing to take risks. Later in life after some risks have caused painful damage, we become more cautious and self-protective.
9. People who are intelligent and capable often find that sucess comes easy. They get used to having confidence that they can overcome any obstacle. The harder the challenge, the more they relish the opportunity.
So, I think McCandless had a mix of these qualities and characteristics, some positive and some detrimental. It's great to have confidence, so seek solitary connection with nature, to be willing to suffer pain and discomfort in the heroic journey. However, it is detrimental to be over-confident in refusing wise counsel.
Sometimes these qualities can become a dangerous mix - the ignorance of youth mixed with the over-confidence of youth often leads to trouble. It is the fortunate young man who makes it through to his 30's without suffering damage. But when the dangerous qualities are present in extremes, it is usually a prescription for disaster, as was the case for McCandless.
He was extreme in his cut-off from his family and from his past identity as an educated, comfortable, upper-middle-class person. He was extreme in his desire to do things the hard way, such as eating only rice for weeks at a time. He was extreme in refusing help or advice from people. His desire for solitary connection with the wild was extreme.
Apart from these extremes, he might have survived as a rugged outdoorsman like many rock climbers, skiers and mountaineers. However, his extremes led him to tackle an Alaska survival project that included no safety net. The result was almost predictable. Was McCandless' journey heroic or suicidal? I don't think it was intentionally suicidal, because I think he realized he was placing himself in a risky situation. He knew enough to know he could die if things went wrong.
He was smart enough to research hunting skills, but not smart enough or patient enough to gain actual hunting experience before placing his life at the mercy of his hunting abilities. He knew enough to take a gun, but not enough to know what kind of a gun was needed, much less how to be proficient in using a gun for survival.
I've seen profiles of survival fanatics in Alaska who actually do what McCandless attempted to do - they live alone by their wits in wild Alaska. But to succeed, these people very first gain years of wide experience in all manner of survival skills. They learn what it ... Read More
Rated by buyers -
Great book. I didn't like that the author dips into his past about how he relates to Chris for a couple chapters. Other than that, I thought it was great and informative.
Rated by buyers 
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WHAT A WASTE OF LIVE AND HURT TO THE ONES LEFT BEHIND.TO GO INTO NOWHERE WITH NOTHING TO SURVIVE WITH...NO REAL REASON FOR THE EFFORT TO GO ON HIS OWN IS EVER FIGURED OUT.LEAVES YOU GOING..WHY???SAD AND DISTURBING.I EXPECT THE MOVIE WIL BE MUCH CHANGED AND ADDED TO ALSO TO MAKE IT WORTH WATCHING..BUT WILL IT BE TRUE TO THE PERSON?
Rated by buyers -
Into the Wild was just great.....I have always wanted to trek and adverture about, but find myself too old and not enought motivation.....Krakauer does a great job again of persuading me to be careful....after reading his into thin air, i wanted to visit everest but just stay at base camp.....
Rated by buyers -
I was taken aback by this book and found it captivating and haunting. I have a son the same age as Chris and debated giving him a copy because its so tempting to sample the taste of tramping while adding huge risk to a young life, but on the other hand see the tempentations of the call of the wlid and how it could call an adventerious young man. The author is supurb at the detail necessary to truly make Chris's actions believeable. This is a book I will think about for a long time.
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