_Into the Wild_ by Jon Krakauer
After reading Jon Krakauer’s _Under the Banner of Heaven_, I thought I’d try another one of his recommended novels. This 2007 novel, _Into the Wild_ follows the story of Chris McCandless who walks away from his family, possessions, and way of life in hopes of finding his ideal future. With natural parallels made to Jack London’s _Call of the Wild_, Krakauer retraces McCandless’s journey once he has walked away from everything he’s known.
McCandless’s journey takes him across the United States, leaving behind lasting impressions with those who crossed his path. He seemed to be well-liked, charismatic and intelligent. While he is often described as lacking in street smarts, he presents himself as a hard-worker and realistic despite his propelling search for a utopic world. These contradictions within him make the story compelling to follow.
Of course, when McCandless is found dead in the wilderness of Alaska, it’s no surprise and the varied critics of his lack of preparedness to expect a different ending are unsympathetic. As Krakauer explores the area around where McCandless finally starved to death or died from toxic plants he had eaten, it is ironic to learn that just a few miles down river he could have gotten back to civilization or found better shelter with the chance of finding food.
In some ways, though it is a tragic ending to a young man’s life who clearly was searching for something more fulfilling in his life, it is somehow fitting and almost romantic that he did die this way. Krakauer suggests that McCandless had started to realize a way of making his ideal world and the real one work together, but it will forever remain a mystery as to whether or not such a character would really have been able to find a way to be satisfied or not.
Of course, readers/critics must feel for his family that he left behind and though some might make him out to be some sort of hero, the reality is that he was a troubled soul looking for a way to reconcile the realities of life and his dreams of one he aspired to make true.
Perhaps from this in-depth explanation of the novel, you can guess how I felt about the book. I found it engaging and a very easy read. Again, I like Krakauer’s style of mixing different lines of stories that all connect back to the main one. I hear there is a Sean Penn movie out about this book, so I may take a look at that. All-in-all, I recommend reading it as it also brings out philosophical questions, which are always of interest to me. 🙂
More to come…
-T
