Your thoughts on INTO THE WILD by Jon Krakauer

I just finished reading this book. What’s odd: I read horror, true crime (some of it very graphic), books on the Holocaust, etc., all the time but rarely have trouble sleeping due to one. This one, which has nothing supernatural (well- maybe a telepathic message, but probably not) and nothing criminal or gory in it, absolutely kept me up after finishing it.

For those who haven’t read it, I’ll post a couple of links where you can get the basic (true) story:

One
Two

Three

I can’t decide if I like or loathe Chris McCandless, whether I’d have wanted to have a three day conversation with him or bitchslap him senseless for the pain he caused his friends or family, or whether I see him as a modern day Thoreau or as a dumbass cocky booksmart college kid who got what was coming to him for his hubris and refusal to listen. Your thoughts?

I love, love, love Into the Wild, almost as much as Into Thin Air. They are both endlessly re-readable, and both keep me up and keep me thinking about them long after I’ve read them. I re-read both about two weeks ago.

I think Chris McCandless is neither Thoreau nor a dumbass, but somewhere in the middle. Like a great tragic hero, he was doomed from the start. I don’t think any amount of information could have kept him from his journey, although he might have lived longer or even returned eventually. He tapped into a great American vein of adventure and love of the wilderness that is represented not only by Thoreau, but also by Mark Twain, and The Great Gatsby, and Moby Dick, and even NASA. I think that there is something exquisite about Jon Krakauer’s writing that gives nobility even to dumbasses, and turned the real Chris McCandless into an archetype.

I feel for Chris’s friends and family, and particularly for the 80-year-old man he met in the desert who wanted to adopt him (I cry every time I think about that part of the story). But there is also something irresistable about someone who went on a quest, no matter how unsuccessful, that appeals to those of us who spend our days sitting in a cubicle staring at a computer screen.

I don’t know if I’d like to have a conversation with Chris McCandless, although the people who met him certainly seemed taken with him. But I do feel that knowing his story, and particularly reading Krakauer’s version, has made me a wiser person.

I haven’t read the book, but have a few comments from the perspective of someone who lives here. Not surprisingly, most folks who live up here had little sympathy for someone who went off unprepared into the Alaska bush country. That Mr. McCandless wasn’t killed and eaten by a bear long before he actually died is somewhat of a miracle in itself.

Those who underestimate this country will usually pay a heavy price, and McCandless is no exception. Had he had more knowledge of the vegetation and been better equipped (at least with a map), he may have survived (the roots of rice lillies alone can sustain someone for a long time). Nobody deserves to die, and I certainly sympathize with his family, but he didn’t do himself any favors.

This sort of thing happens more often than one would think, and to people who should know better. More recently, a couple and their child froze to death after getting their car stuck on a road that is not maintained in the winter. They had inadequate clothing for that time of year and tried to hike out in a snow storm. These were people who had lived here for many years.

It’s been a while since I’ve read Into the Wild but I remember thinking that McCandless was a smart man, but idealistic to an extreme. I know what you mean about not being able to sleep after reading the book; I had the most difficult time getting through the photos & description of his body. Wait. Were there pictures in the book? I recall them. I don’t think I’d want to have a conversation with him since I don’t know what we’d talk about and I have a feeling we wouldn’t be communicated with each other, but more at each other.

If you want to read about another man who you’re not sure if you love or hate, try “Last American Male.” Part of my problem with the book lies with the author so perhaps it’s not strictly the subject matter.

If the choices are liked or disliked, I liked Into the Wild. At college, it was used as part of a sophomore general education class and then used as pre-freshman summer reading. I liked it in the first context, but found it an odd choice for a summer read.

When read for class, discussion and questions revolved around the culture that Chris was trying to leave and the baggage that went with him, regardless of how into the wild he went. Compared with other things we read, I thought the discussions were a bit of a stretch - but did see the connection. I know that if given that book with no context (as was essentially done with the pre-freshman), I would have focused on the action in the book and what Chris was doing, rather than why he was doing it.

I didn’t think Chris was much of a Thoreau - mostly because of his naivete. I didn’t loathe him, but only loosely identified with him. All in all, I thought he was one of the weaker characters in the book - which is really quite an accomplishment seeing that the books about him. This may have to do with what SpoilerVirgin says - he’s such an archetype tht I didn’t really see him as a character, mostly a character outline.

But all in all - glad I read the book.

I thought it was a fascinating book (I love Keroauc’s road novels), but at the end of it, McCandless wasn’t someone I would have hoped to have met. Like SpoilerVirgin said, there’s something attractive about someone on a quest, but McCandless’ quest ultimately caused a lot of people pain for stupid reasons.

There’s a picture in the first few pages of a McCandless sitting outside the bus; presumably, from what it says in the text, this was the picture he made when he knew he was going to die and was basically a farewell shot. I’ve actually tried to find other pictures since reading the book and haven’t; apparently his family never allowed the photos he made on his odyssey to be made public, which I can understand.

The bus has become a major destination for the pilgrims and the simply morbidly curious and there are lots of photos of it on the web. The best I’ve found were the ones on this page , which are in color and both interior/exterior.

I used to work with the mentally ill and McCandless’s “stunt” would have seemed like the actions of a bipolar fellow in high mania, except that mania usually lasts for a few days at most and his journey lasted for years. Ultimately it was just too senseless a waste to admire, but damn it made for an interesting story.

I am not an expert on the area, but isn’t a bear attack pretty unlikely?

That said, he was extremely stupid in his actions. He should have been prepared for the country. As I recall he took 25 pounds of rice and nothing more with him. (A driver also gave him some sandwiches and other food.) He didn’t have a good map. However he did extremely well, possibly with a lot of good luck and some bad luck at the end. I can understand why he didn’t take a map, but I can’t understand why he went where he did. He wasn’t that far out. He lived in a bus. I can’t understand why he made the bus his home while he was still healthy. From Krakauer’s account he want to go into virgin territory but felt there wasn’t any left. So he left out the map. But where he went was really into the wild. And why stay in a bus? And who goes out anywhere in Alaska with a .22? The whole thing confuses me, but I still have respect for what McCandless did.

I loved it. I thought that by the end of the book McCandleness was portrayed as someone who wasn’t completely foolish and that even a seasoned botanist could have made the mistake. He WAS right about the caribou.

It was a moose.

I knew I’d mix that up.

“It’s a MOOSE, goddam it, a MOOSE!”

Truman Capote’s funniest line from MURDER BY DEATH

I always thought he was a borderline sociopath. He was able to completely walk away from his family and then replicate that process again and again when he would get strangers to become attached to him and then he’d leave.

:eek:

In Alaska? I repeat:

:eek:

We have bears eating dogs right here in Anchorage, let alone out where he was probably the only slow-moving meal of substance around.

Two stupid questions about Alaska (it’s my thread so I can hijack at if I wanna):

Do polar bears ever wander out of the Arctic?

And the really stupid one- when it’s deep winter, is it possible to tell where the outback begins and the Arctic circle begins?

  1. Yes, but not often.

  2. I’m don’t understand the question.

I’m not speak da Angtlisht too good, neither.

If you were, say, an insanely narcissistic kid who wanted to travel Alaska by snowmobile in winter, how would you know when you had left the Outback and entered the Arctic? The foliage where McCandless died wasn’t that thick so I wouldn’t think there’d be a treeline to speak of in winter but rather plains, etc…

My favorite think in any of the articles about McCandless is what the woman who wrote the Anchorage Press article pointed out- on the cover of the Outside Magazine in which the story of McCandless’ death premiered, the other stories for the magazine are listed. One is

“Are you too thin? Fat can be your friend”

All I meant was McCandless not being killed by bear wasn’t a miracle. Yes bears are a danger but how many people are killed by bears on average in a year in Alaska. One?

You’re right, not that many when compared to the number of visitors and people that live here. However, given that he had a moose carcass in the vicinity and that he was probably giving off a fairly heady aroma, it’s likely he would have attracted predators.