Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of Into the Wild
Book Review: A disturbing, unusual life
Summary: 4 Stars
Why do people push themselves to the extreme limits of safety? Krakauer attempts to get to the bottom of that question as it relates to Chris McCandless's life and death. Was he simply a wilderness-loving idealist? Was he getting back at his parents? What was he really searching for? Krakauer is uniquely qualified to tackle this story, as he has a good bit of experience attempting the extreme himself, including his own youthful Alaskan mis-adventure (which is fascinatingly described in this book).
Hauntingly and memorably written, Krakauer's telling of McCandless's adventures and philosophies will cause the reader to take a good look at him- or herself. Ultimately, however, I don't think Krakauer answers the questions raised by McCandless's life terribly convincingly. For instance, I still don't have a clear understanding of why he regarded his parents with such unabated scorn. I didn't like this book as much as Krakauer's Into Thin Air: A Personal Account of the Mt. Everest Disaster, but it was valuable, nonetheless, as a thought-provoking, quick read.
Book Review: A fine piece of journalism
Summary: 4 Stars
Chris McCandless's story is one of intrigue. McCandless was a fearless, searching, hopeful young man who took off after college with little money to his name, and who eventually embarked on a wilderness survival adventure that cost him his life. Krakauer did a magnificent job of telling chris's story. It seems as though chris's adventure was researched with great care. The quotes cited from all of Chris's reads give more depth to Chris's character. The only thing that somewhat took away from the McCandless story was a little too much personal commentary from Krakauer (I am esp. referring to Krakauer's own climbing adventure - while interesting, I didn't feel it belonged). Overall, the McCandless story was presented in a way that was truly inspiring. It filled me with a desire to meet this enchanting kid and to plan a solo survival adventure of my own. I highly reccommend this book if you are interested in wilderness survival, man v. nature, and man v. society.Book Review: A good complement to a much better movie
Summary: 4 Stars
It's rare that I'm motivated to both read a book and watch the same movie, but the Into the Wild movie was so impressive that I checked this book out from the library as well. It fills in a lot of additional information in the storyline, but also has a few major shortcomings.
It was impressive to see the book elaborate so much on the McCandless family's history. Krakauer went into much more detail in building up Walt and Billie as success stories in the American Dream, having both come up from working-class backgrounds in the West and Michigan respectively to run a lucrative consulting firm. At the same time, he emphasized their tragic flaws in detailing how they carried on an affair and had illegitimate children, then hid the truth from those children. I got the impression from both the book and the movie that there was a lot of self-centeredness and resentment around the household, both from Chris and from his parents. We didn't see much more from Carine, though; she was a narrator who tried to be fair to both parties in the movie, and also didn't seem to take much of a side in the book.
Chris himself was also filled in around the edges a lot in the book. The reader can see how his academic prowess came long before Emory, at Woodson High School--although his stubborn nature also did, as he had one F on his transcript in a physics class where he did not follow the format on lab reports. His political views are shown as conflicted, as many young, intellectually curious men and women are; his tending to the poor is supplanted with an unusual combination of founding (re-founding? Newt Gingrich was there once) the Emory College Republicans, railing against religious right leaders, and railing against "rich kids at Emory" in general (even if he was one himself.) It has been debated on here whether McCandless' foolishness was a sign of liberalism or conservatism, and whether Dennis Kucinich supporter Sean Penn was trying to prove a point about materialism and upper-class suburbia in the movie, but some of the answers are right there. McCandless is shown as emotionally distant, not much for human relationships or romance, and preferential of books over human friendship during his time at Emory, just as he was in the remaining two years of his life. His spartan lifestyle is also exposed, as he had a bare-bones living in his Atlanta apartment, without even a telephone. His trying relationship with his family is shown in even more detail; one has to wonder what led him to not have a potential "internship" with his parents' consulting firm during one of the summers that he instead drove across America the first time--an opportunity that would surely have helped him achieve his goals of attending Harvard Law School and becoming a great human rights attorney (not to mention he may have many more gaps of meaningful employment to explain from his final trip, had he returned alive.) It is intriguing that the book explains how he nearly blew his cover and revealed his whereabouts to his parents, and that we find out what happened to his washed-out car (it is used as a police car.)
Many of the characters he meets along the way--Ron Franz and the hippies, for instance--are carried almost verbatim from the book to the movie, and they are also executed well here. The book doesn't have Hal Holbrook delivering a phenomenal Franz performance, but it does allow the reader to emotionally connect with the minor characters, and sense their anxiety over Chris's abandonment of his family. The farms of South Dakota are also portrayed well, as Chris's work ethic in comparison to other wanderers is described in more detail. Much more detail is given to how poorly McCandless planned the Alaskan expedition, how he died, and how the natives of the state reacted (rightly and wrongly) to his blunders.
But the glaring flaw of the book is much of its midsection. There was absolutely no reason that it had to talk about many other travelers, whose circumstances were only tangentially related to McCandless' (or even Krakauer's.) Those chapters completely distracted from the book and added almost nothing to it.
However, due to the outstanding content of the rest of the book, which supplemented the content of the movie very well and both helped me loathe McCandless' disrespect for his family (as much as their own failings stood out) and his haphazard planning and execution of his trip, but also allowed me to identify a lot with his free spirit and intellectual nature, these chapters only subtract one star from an outstanding work.
Book Review: A good novel for advanturous types
Summary: 3 Stars
Into The Wild by Jon Krakauer is a powerful piece of literature about a young man, Christopher McCandless, who abandons his possessions and goes into the wilderness of both the Western United States and Alaska in 1992. He wanted an adventure in the wilderness even if it meant certain demise. The book retraces his steps by starting out describing his death and then it goes back to all the people that met him along his journey while sometimes going back further to when he was a young man. The book pieces together his motivation from when he started out to when he was found dead in an abandon bus in the Alcslean wilderness.
When Christopher is hitchhiking in Alaska, he gets picked up by a truck driver. They talk and Alex says he is exploring the Alaskan Wilderness and that he only has a ten pound rice bag for food and nearly no navigational equipment. The truck driver offers to buy him some new gear, but McCandless refuses. While in the truck, Alex later revels that he hasn't spoken to his family in two years. Alex also reveals that he has a hatred for modern society. The truck driver drops him off in the wilderness and he has to fend for himself with nearly no navigational equipment and little food. Three months later, McCandless is found dead in a bus. The book later goes back to all the people he got in touch with along his journey.
The book pieces together its information from a journal that he kept and letters he wrote to the people he met. I didn't enjoy this particular writing style because every chapter would either discuss a different person or go back to his life when he was younger. This seemed very disjointed; however, it did pull you in to the investigation of what happened. Although it was interesting to hear how he touched people's lives and to hear their stories, I felt that it was just a bunch of short stories put together. I also didn't like how the book started out with his death. I would have liked it better if I figured that out later on in the book. Although it has some minor flaws, saying it was a bad book would be wrong. I enjoyed hearing about his travels hitchhiking around the country and how he ultimately makes it up to Alaska. I also enjoyed hearing about his life and why he gave up all his money, car, and other possessions to go out into the wild. The book is filled with adventure and excitement, and I recommend anyone to read this book. I will end with part of a letter Christopher sent to a man along his journey. "So many people live within unhappy circumstances and yet will not take the initiative to change their situation because they are conditioned to a life of security, conformity, and conservatism, all of which may appear to give one peace of mind, but in reality nothing is more damaging to the adventurous spirit within a man than a secure future. The joy of life comes from our encounters with new experiences, and hence there is no greater joy than to have an endlessly changing horizon, for each day to have a new and different sun." (56-57)
Book Review: A good scenario of the old "man vs. nature" theme
Summary: 4 Stars
A fine, although depressing, book about a very idealistic young man who ventures up to live in the wilds of Alaska, without any companions, food, equipment. A good scenario of the old "man vs. nature" theme. Also, if you missed reading Tino Georgiou's masterpiece--The Fates, go and read it. I'm reading it at a rapid pace because it's so addictive. There is something about his books that bring you in and get you hooked. and I'm loving this one. Highly Recommend!