Christopher McCandless graduated, gave his savings to charity, abandoned his possessions, and finally made his way to Alaska to disappear into the wild. I came here after reading ‘Melancholic Psychosis—A Lacanian Approach’, an academic paper by Derek Hook that links the aspects of McCandless’s life to Melancholia. Into the Wild is an absorbing and thought provoking read for someone with a melancholic temperament, like me

The day we are born is already the beginning of the end. We live in a world full of expectations, and little time to enjoy the small things. We set ourselves up for failures we don’t even realize, and Ill mistakenly we belittle ourselves with belief that we could always do better. But can we? Can we be nothing more than human? I challenge anyone who thinks you can make it out alive in the adventure we call life!

McCandless didn’t make it out alive, or did he? Do we make it out alive when we live?
“Are you alive, or are you just living?”

“To live is to die, and to die is an adventure you don’t come back from. So the live is the only adventure of a lifetime!” - J. Perrault

S.O.S. I NEED YOUR HELP. I AM INJURED, NEAR DEATH, AND TOO WEAK TO HIKE OUT OF HERE. I AM ALL ALONE. THIS IS NO JOKE. IN THE NAME OF GOD, PLEASE REMAIN TO SAVE ME. I AM OUT COLLECTING BERRIES CLOSE BY AND SHALL RETURN THIS EVENING. THANK YOU. - a note taped to the door of the bus

In April 1992 a young man from a well-to-do family hitchhiked to Alaska and walked alone into the wilderness north of Mt. McKinley. His name was Christopher Johnson McCandless. He had given $25,000 in savings to charity, abandoned his car and most of his possessions, burned all the cash in his wallet, and invented a new life for himself..."

I don’t know what I was doing in 1996 to make me miss this book the first time around, but I must've been just cruising along, living my motto of "So many books, so little time." I picked up Into the Wild when I recently revisited Jon Krakauer, and I knew vaguely about the movie version directed by Sean Penn that came out last year. I couldn’t put this book down until I knew how Chris McCandless died, and I’ve been haunted by his story ever since. No young man should have to die for his idealism, however naïve we feel he’s being.

After graduating from Emory University in 1990, Christopher McCandless left home to “disappear for awhile,” and his family had no idea of his whereabouts until they were notified of his death two years later. He shook off his upper-class trappings and roamed through several states, first in his trusty yellow Datsun and then by thumb. His final destination was the Stampede Trail in Alaska, and his goal was to spend the summer in the bush, living off the land. He survived for 112 days.

When Krakauer published the story in Outside magazine in 1993, readers bombarded him with mail. McCandless was either hailed for his adventurous spirit and deified for his noble ideals, or he was branded a starry-eyed fool too stupid to survive in "the wild"--30 miles east from a major highway and 16 miles south from the main road into Denali Park.

Krakauer, an adventurer himself and a former self-absorbed, reckless youth, veers off for two chapters to explain why the young seek such extreme sports. A year after Krakauer graduated from college, he travelled alone to the Stikine Icecap region near Petersburg, Alaska, to climb the Devils Thumb. He looks back on his three weeks in Petersburg and acknowledges his hubris and an appalling innocence, not thinking about the affect his possible death might have on his family and friends. But he just couldn't resist "stealing up to the edge of doom and peering over the brink."

He comes down clearly on McCandless' side because he so readily understands this: "It is easy, when you are young, to believe that what you desire is no less than what you deserve, to assume that if you want something badly enough, it is your God-given right to have it." He understands it because he lived it. “In coming to Alaska, McCandless yearned to wander uncharted country, to find a blank spot on the map. In 1992, however, there were no more blank spots on the map--not in Alaska, not anywhere. But Chris, with his idiosyncratic logic, came up with an elegant solution to this dilemma: He simply got rid of the map. In his own mind, if nowhere else, the terra would thereby remain incognita."

McCandless’charm, intelligence, and enthusiasm endeared him to the outer fringes of society. The people he met on his journey--the commune dwellers, the employers, the drivers who gave him a lift and a place to stay for the short term--were all grateful for the time he allowed them to spend with him. They gave him money, their lunch, hunting gear, and advice. They begged him to call home, to stay and work, to come and live with them. But this just wasn’t part of his plan.

n  n  
n  
n   The very basic core of a man's living spirit is his passion for adventure.n

Christopher Johnson McCandless began roaming in 1991 after graduating college.

He gave away his savings ($25,000) to charity, got rid of all his material possessions, burned his remaining money and just left.

n  Don't settle down and sit in one place. Move around, be nomadic, make each day a new horizon.n

He didn't tell anyone where he was going, what he was doing - just up and left, leaving a stunned sister and confused family behind.

Like his favorite heroes, he set off for an adventure. Eventually he left behind his car in the Mojave Desert and lived under an assumed name, Alexander Supertramp.

n  It's not always necessary to be strong, but to feel strong.n

He kept his journals with him, he worked when hungry and slowly, but surely, made his way to the Alaskan wilderness.

Along the way he met many a wonderful person - of which he touched their lives and even months later, they remembered and knew of him.

n  “Happiness [is] only real when shared”n

But, what's shocking most of all is how he was found.

Alone. Emaciated. Dead.

His story has captured the hearts and minds of millions, he is gone but he will be remembered.

n  When you forgive, you love. And when you love, God’s light shines upon you. n

Whew.

There's a lot to unpack here.

I have never read this book, I have never seen the movie but I know his story.

I remember my mom telling me parts when I was a child, my teachers filling me in during history lessons and even friends talk about this unforgettable book.

So, when it became available at the library, I had to check it out.

And wow.

I really didn't know what to expect (and this certainly wasn't what I thought I was going to read) and yet, it was perfect.

This was told through a third party - someone who read about McCandless's story back when it was a minor blurb in a newspaper and was curious where it began.

So, the author picked up the thread and followed it - eventually reconstructing the year before McCandless's death and the reason behind him leaving everything behind.

This book was so well-written.

It completely encapsulated this young man's life and death. This is one of those books that once you finish it, you are spoiled for everything else for a long, long time.

n  Sometimes he tried too hard to make sense of the world, to figure out why people were bad to each other so often.n

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ME HA GUSTADO MUCHO
El libro es una especie de biografía sobre la vida de este chico, Chris McCandless, que murió en Alaska.
Pero no solo eso, nos pone ejemplos de precursores de Chris McCandless, que se lanzaron no solo a la aventura en territorio inhóspito, sino que las zonas mas desiertas, agrestes y salvajes, eran una especie de liberación tanto de su espíritu, como de las cadenas de la civilización.
El autor hace incapié en su propia aventura o experiencia cuando era joven y se fué también a Alaska a escalar el "pulgar del Diablo", las penurias que paso, su fuerza de voluntad hasta que al final consiguió su objetivo.
En fin, un libro muy entretenido, en el que cada uno puede sacar distintas conclusiones o visiones, desde que fué un imprudente y estaba poco preparado, hasta que adoren a Chris McCandless, por como siguió su sueño de vivir en las zonas salvajes y en libertad, despojandose de todo lazo con la civilización.

For the past three years, I have had an urge to do something dangerous, like climbing mountains, going on solo trips, or even something as simple as a rope challenge (to cure my severe acrophobia). I've been experiencing a serious existential crisis, and I guess that naturally led me to seek such activities. I wanted to understand this urge and make sense of it. I just wanted to wake myself up, feel alive, and escape the mental rut I was stuck in. This book hit close, very very close, I dare say.

Jon Krakauer intertwines Christopher McCandless's story with his own reflections and thorough research, creating a narrative that is profoundly moving and thought-provoking. McCandless's motivations and the call of the wild were very relatable. While escapism might have been part of McCandless's intent, Krakauer shows us it would be too simplistic to limit it to just that. McCandless was trying to make sense of the world in his own way, as we all do. One thing that stuck with me, and I’m sure with everyone who read the book, is that even at the very hopeless end, he didn’t turn bitter or resentful. There was no spite in him; he was definitely made of better stuff than most. That really moved me .I aspire to be that way!
Also, I wept a lot :(

Kudos to Krakauer for bringing this story to all of us and making an impact on many lives.

“Some people feel like they don't deserve love. They walk away quietly into empty spaces, trying to close the gaps of the past.”

n  “Rather than love, than fame, than money, give me truth.”n

Christopher McCandless graduated college in the spring of 1990, and then he left his future behind. Maybe he would have come back to that future, his family, a career, the life that most of us live. It's impossible to say. After two years of wandering our country's West, mostly by foot, he successfully hitchhiked to Alaska and walked into the wild along a broken path called The Stampede Trail (a dream of his, the draw of the wilderness). He did not come out.

n  “And now after two rambling years comes the final and greatest adventure. To the great white north...become lost in the wild.”n

Early in, Krakauer mentions the surprising number of people who were affected by the story of Chris's life and death (after reading the 1993 article first written for Outside Magazine). Since this would be the second time I've read this book about Chris's two-year journey, I admit that I am one too. I don't know exactly why his story resonates deep feelings within me, but I think it's many things. What Chris did and how he died is polarizing. Some admire, others fume. He gave his savings to charity, drove west, and told no one he was leaving, not even his sister (whom he typically shared most everything with). Just why he cut his parents from his life is up for debate, but it seemed mostly to do with a toxic relationship and a personally damaging secret held by his father. If Chris did nothing else, he lived for truth. At a young age, it's easier to believe in absolute truths, but nevertheless, scars had been formed.

Two months later, Chris (now calling himself Alex) lost the use of his car in a sudden flash flood within the desert near Lake Mead. The loss of this last major material possession only served to spur him forward. The simplicity of one day and the beauty that nature offers became his ideal existence, as he traveled by foot, by thumb and rail. For two years he cut a circle thousands of miles long across the western States before finally heading north. You'd think a person like Alex, a rolling stone, would make no friends along the way. But he touched many, and within such short time frames. With those he trusted, he shared his true name, and more. Correspondence, postcards, and his values. When he finally walked into the Alaskan wilderness, Chris had already experienced a majority of what he had sought. He did not simply dream. He lived.

n  n    ”HAPPINESS ONLY REAL WHEN SHARED”n  n

Very different from the movie but still very good.

4.5

Krakauer makes the basic facts of Christopher McCandless's trek into the Alaskan wilderness and his death nearly 4 months later clear from the outset. Even though I'd heard a lot about this case, that's just the beginning of the story. His motivations, especially since graduating college a year earlier, are what make this story interesting. As some of McCandless's ideas about living a new kind of life off the map come into focus, Krakauer continues to highlight the harsh realities McCandless chose to face. While what McCandless was trying to do might be appealing to some, Krakauer reminds readers that McCandless was ill-prepared for the dangers. Ultimately, of course, the new life he had fashioned was cut short by tragedy. 3.75 stars

This is a great book and I was totally enthralled. Krakauer’s writing is spectacular. It is such a personal story, made so not just by the author detailing his own experiences mountaineering, but also by incorporating McCandless’s family in the suffering and loss of their son. Yet somehow Krakauer keeps it all grounded, presenting a strategically balanced view of McCandless himself despite what I must imagine to be a profound desire either to glorify him in his admirable quest for self-reliance, or to vilify him for the reckless audacity he demonstrated along the way. Or perhaps both.

Because that’s the thing about McCandless’s story. It isn’t so much that it’s difficult not to form an opinion of him one way or the other; it’s that any opinion formed is bound to be fluid, rapidly shifting from veneration to condemnation and back again. It’s fair to say McCandless was an estimable guy, not just talking in rhetoric about the societal evils of homelessness and hunger but actually going out and attempting to do something about it. It’s also fair to say he was kind of an asshole, treating his parents with relentless cruelty on account of some unrealistic moral standards he for some reason held them to. But he wasn’t an asshole for going to Alaska, seemingly unpreparedly, and succumbing to what he should have known better to avoid. For that he was only a kid, a kid who took big risks (as kids are wont to do), but ultimately a kid who just got unlucky.

One thing I kept thinking about while reading this book is the idea of self-reliance. Because it isn't really an absolute, right? There are degrees to which one can be self-reliant. I mean, even Thoreau went into town periodically to buy tools or to barter for whatever. Does that invalidate his approach? Did McCandless take the concept to an extreme by forsaking a map because maps are drawn by other human beings? (The answer to that is YES.) But by the same token, what is wrong with categorizing our own lives as “self-reliant” if we are able to perform all of our daily tasks without the assistance of others? I don’t really endorse this argument, by the way. I’m only saying that I think there is value in striving toward a state of self-reliance, but I simultaneously hold that survivability will certainly drop to zero the closer one actually comes to completely attaining it.

3,5...
Cumva, parcă filmul a fost mai bun, fără toate divagațiile autorului și mini biografia lui întinsă pe 3 capitole. Cartea e mai dezlânată, încercând să prezinte o versiune polifonică și non-cronologică sfârșește prin a fi o tocăniță cu de toate, și adesea am găsit-o confuză. Dar merită citită.

Not a fan! I think the author has too many biases to portray this story. I don't think Mr. McCandless' story is objectively conveyed. I don't like how the author interjects his life stories into it as well. I read the book to hear about Mr. McCandless, not Jon Krakauer. If Jon Krakauer wants to write an autobiography, fine, but don't use this man's story to make your fame. I don't like the way the book was organized. It wasn't organized chronologically by his adventures and quite frankly, I had a hard time figuring out where we were on the timeline. I think this man probably had an interesting story (Mr. McCandless, not Jon Krakauer), but I think the author ruined it for him. I'm disappointed that I couldn't have heard an unbiased version.