Into the Wild - Jon Krakauer

Spoilers with-in

The short book Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer is the story of a young man named Christopher McCandless. I read this story in just two day, this is not a testament to the writing quality, Jon Krakauer writes articles for Magazines and the writing in this book feels much the same as a two hundred page magazine article. That is not to say that the writing is bad, its just not difficult if that is what you are looking for.

Another reason for having read the book really quickly is the actual story that it tells. My reaction to McCandless is still uncertain even though I finished the book over a week ago. McCandless abandoned a comfortable life after he graduated from college to live out the beliefs of Leo Tolstoy. A Russian writer who believed in giving up wealth and seeking experience in the common, more specifically with the common people, regrettably he didn’t live up entirely to his belief system non-the-less McCandless was inspired. He gave up his status and became a tramp living on the road, hitchhiking every where and living off the land when ever possible.

I personally admire and respect that. It is not often that someone attempts to truly live what they believe and for an extended period of time at that. I for one have often thought of giving everything up and living off the land, but I know that people depend on me, my wife and daughter but also my parents and brothers and sister. McCandless refused to acknowledge that people depend on him, he didn’t acknowledge that there is a debt of love that we all owe in some respects and if we were to vanish the pain that causes.

This is the place where my respect breaks down. Abandoning society and family for the sake of experience can only go so far. Something that has been handed down to me from my family is that most people in life are transitory figures the only ones that truly matter, and that you must make time for is your family. They are the only one who will be there in the end.

There is another aspect that threw me off of McCandless, the way he died. He went into the wilderness with poor provisions and died possibly because of ingesting some poisonous plant. I do admire that he was able to keep himself alive by hunting and foraging for several months, to me that alone shows that he was a very capable man. But he was arrogant, he didn’t buy a map that could have helped him, and he didn’t take more than ten pounds of rice into the bush with him. While I understand money may have been an issue the map would have been an essential piece of equipment that almost certainly would have made the difference between life and death.
Having been a bit of a woodsman, I found this story to be disturbing, partly because I could see myself in McCandless’s shoes. It is a very thought provoking story and well worth the read even if it doesn’t take long.