I have done neither, but even an aged Boy Scout like me knows enough to survive a while on roots and berries and what I shot and trapped and what fish I caught. Late Spring and Summer would be the easy time of year. Had he lasted through a Winter I’d be impressed, but he barely lasted until the beginning of Fall.
Alexander Selkirk, the model for Robinson Crusoe, lasted four years.
Ronald Franz (not his real name), the elderly man who wanted to “adopt” McCandless asked that a pseudonym be used in the book. His affection for McCandless is (or was) apparently genuine.
Well, at least we agree that Crash shouldn’t have been nominated. 
As for Atonement, I just ddn’t see much there there. Maybe it’s because the trailer (which I had seen several times before) basically gave away the whole story, but I came away from the movie disappointed.
But I won’t hijack the thread further. I will just say that regardless of my feelings toward McCandless, Into the Wild deserves an Oscar win.
Well prior to that he had realized that enough was enough and had tried to go back to civilisation, but turned back when he saw how swelled the river had become. Half a mile away was the system to get him across the river. It was on the map.
He also knew that he was using more calories foraging food that what he was consuming and realzied he was already starting to starve and was becoming desperate. At that time he could have made it to the cabin. The poisonous plant was simply the last straw later on.
ETA: I’m fairly confident he would have starved to death even if he hadn’t eaten a bad plant.
Surviving on roots and berries and fish during Spring and Summer is precisely what McCandless did. There was evidence around the bus that McCandless had been successfully subsisting on wild potato for several weeks.
However, it has been since noted that in late Summer, H. alpinum concentrates toxins in its seeds in order to discourage animals for eating it. It appears that McCandless had been ingesting the seeds of this plant as well as the roots. Apparently the toots of the wild potato H. alpinum are noted as edible and non-toxic in several texts; with no mention of the toxicity of the seeds.
Foolishness and naïveté may have played a large part in McCandless’ death, but it is possible that McCandless died of starvation due to poisoning by a plant commonly listed as “edible and non-toxic”. Could have happened to the most expert survivalist or Boy Scout. (Into the Wild p. 190-195)
I just want to know one thing of all the folks quailing at the thought that “he deserved it.”
If he survived, came out of the wilderness, told his own tale, and made a mint, would he have deserved that?
Well, he would have made a mint by telling his tale so I guess it would depend on how good an author he was to determine whether he deserved it.
Now if he had found a big crate of unmarked cash while he was tramping around the woods, then no he wouldn’t deserve that.
Why not? His death can’t be judged due to the “Quiddity Glomfuster Rule” that bad actions must be assumed to be the result of mental illness. So, why could a windfall not be judged as a deserved windfall for “sticking it to the man” being out there all alone without society, except for the parts he wanted.
And while I am here, the “he bucked society, he must be a gawd” theme is pretty sad. The only way you can support that view here is through a mechanism that would not exist without a society that had enough spare resources to create the internet. Yea, you! Way to non-conform!
I’m not really sure I understand your meaning in the first paragraph and not sure whom you’re addressing with the second.
eta: dropzone, I didn’t say that you should be impressed. All I said was that he didn’t seem to wildly overshoot his abilities.
Sorry for the double post, but I was at work and have some catching up to do. So the author praises his subject and you find this telling. I’ll admit that I have had nor formal education in marketing, but I’d guess your quote, from a man trying to make a buck, might sell better than the following:
Quote:
When I [ explicitly not Jon Krakauer] decided to go to Alaska that April, I was an angst-ridden youth who read too much Nietzsche, mistook passion for insight, and functioned according to an obscure gap-ridden logic. I thought climbing the Devils Thumb would fix all that was wrong with my life. In the end it changed almost nothing, of course. I came to appreciate, however, that mountains make poor receptacles for dreams. And I lived to tell my tale.
There was, however, an entitled twit that didn’t. If I really thought that he was so much smarter than me, I could only point and laugh. Instead, I’ll tell you his story and I’ll make a mint while he moulders in his grave. And some other shit too, but that doesn’t matter, because I got the contract.
The author was incidentally praising him. ISTM he was saying “I went through a phase like that. I don’t think I had a death wish”. The previous paragraph to the one just quoted:
But yeah, he might just be trying to sell books.
A former poster, for any bad behavior, insisted that mental illness be the first assumption. I have seen a lot of that in this thread, but should not have linked it specifically to your post.
To the meat of your statement, why not believe that all of his actions are the result of going it alone. Whether he finds survival, salvation, death, or a bale a fine ganja in the woods, any of those are the result of his being there. He either deserves them equally for his presence there or deserves none, despite it.
Again, paragraph 2 was not directed at you. It was more toward the attitude that Ravenman expressed, but that was not limited to him. I should not have mixed that into your reply.
Well, I’m not contradicting myself because I said “neither”. Your “making a mint” counter example doesn’t fit, ISTM, because that mint would be made from actual authoring and promoting of his work. That’s a completely different kettle of fish than finding money or accidentally eating the wrong plant.
eta: but clearly you see it differently. I assume that you think say recreational parachutists who die in mishaps deserve it?
Deserve really is a loaded word. I see the results as a direct consequence of their actions. For **dropzone’**s definition, yes, they do. Just like when I used to run roads at 120 mph, if I had died, I’d have deserved it. The poor fuck I might have taken with me, not so much.
Heh, you can’t help sneaking morality back into it. By dropzone’s definition you’d have deserved it 55 mph. You wouldn’t have died on that road if you’d just stayed in bed that morning. Ditto for the poor slob you smashed.
I was willing to give the slob a pass, you dragged him back in.
I don’t have the book handy, but IIRC it was actually there for the very reason McCandless used it. It was one of many discontinued buses from Alaska cities that was used to take supplies and workers to the various lumber camps and mines and what not, and when they’d outlived their usefulness as transportation they were left in the wilderness to provide shelter to hikers and hunters and hubristically ill prepared Emory graduates.
(Unless you’re asking how did they get it there physically, in which case I’ve no idea if it was driven or hauled.)
Absolutely.The mundane has been getting short shrift in daily life and written word.
That angle was actually played up more in the movie than the book, which I liked.
As a matter of fact, somewhat ham-handedly, Sean Penn slammed home that that was the major theme with something I don’t remember being in the book.
I don’t get all the love for Hal Holbrook here. I liked him, but I thought the guy who played Keener’s husband was at least as good, and no one talks about his performance at all.
And, apparently, he’s a nobody (acting wise).
