Into the Wild

by Jon Krakauer | Nonfiction |
ISBN: 0385486804 Global Overview for this book
Registered by edithdoll of Winthrop, Massachusetts USA on 1/9/2016
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2 journalers for this copy...
Journal Entry 1 by edithdoll from Winthrop, Massachusetts USA on Saturday, January 9, 2016
Unregistered orphan at Dec. 2015 Boston Meet-up. This is a creative nonfiction book by journalist Jon Krakauer, I've wanted to read his work for awhile. Spoilers follow.

Krakauer goes back to re-create or re-tell the story of Chris McCandless during 1991 and 1992, after his graduation from college and self-imposed exile which ended with a trip to the Alaskan bush outside Denali national park, and ultimately his death.

McCandless renamed himself Alex Supertramp and took off, he abandoned his car in a national park due to a bad flood and took to the "tramping life," hitchhiking and jumping freight trains. He met many folks along the way while traveling -- the upper Northwest, Nevada, and South Dakota doing odd jobs/work. His ultimate goal was a solitary trek to the Alaskan bush after a visit there. Many of his friends and folks he met along his journey spoke of his brilliance and intensity. Many only knew vaguely of his plans for this journey, and of his past.

Indeed, the author (Krakauer) had full access to his family and friends, going back as far as his childhood, Jr. High and High School friends. The author notes McCandless's intelligence, intensity and through interviews records several episodes of youth including small businesses he started as a kid and as an older teen, his affinity for meeting the homeless and those living on the margins of society. Chris/Alex also as a reader appears to have fixated on Thoreau and Jack London or taken to certain more literary theories of humanity. Instead of volunteering, working with a nonprofit, or a church, Chris/Alex was more of an individual in his interests, even his strongest sport was cross country -- although he planned challenging practice routes, more of a solitary self imposed physical challenge.

Krakauer notes monomania in Chris/Alex via his interviews and compares the subject's experience to his own youthful self imposed challenge of mountain climbing. Krakauer also fills in some personal history about Chris/Alex's issues from childhood having to do with his father's previous marriage dissolving and unraveling before he officially married his own mother and started his own second family -- of which he was a byproduct. Apparently this was a trauma that haunted him and dogged their relationship but there was never confrontation only internalization, which may have motivated him to desert his family, search for "a larger purpose" and attain a self-imposed exile.

This story fascinated me since Chris/Alex was a Gen-X-er (or Post Baby Boomer). We have a lot of hard edge/cynics in our small sandwich generation and I have met many folks with wanderlust, searching for higher purpose and also several that re-named themselves or decided to work for themselves because they didn't like the 9-5 work structure of mainstream society or some combination, etc. The author cites stories about Icelandic monks as well, and it seems Chris/Alex was leading a celibate life as well, perhaps this part of his personal/life journey or some sort of cleansing from his father and/or his family history as well.

Chris/Alex's canoe trip to Mexico seemed to have deluded him into thinking he could sufficiently prepare for the solitary Alaska trip and while he did work and save for some gear, folks he met in Alaska, who gave him rides, etc., tried to warn him he was woefully unprepared. Not sure this was hubris in the traditional sense, or perhaps the inflated kind of ego that sometimes connects to mental illness; although to note, my theory only, his possible mental illness, is never broached in this book. The only thing that disturbed me was not so much Chris/Alex's fixation with Jack London, but the author's dismissal of London as a failed alcoholic. And while I know London was a former journalist who had quite a past, I'm not sure it was a fair characterization of London, or Chris/Alex's fixation on work he loved.

Upset me so much I checked with both the Jack London Society and Foundation, which confirmed he quit drinking upon marriage to his 2nd wife. And London did decide to settle down in California on a rank and wrote to support it after many years of travel he was older and ill -- still he was quite prolific in writing about his experiences not only in Alaska and the Northwest (probably his best known work, White Fang, etc.), but also to the South Seas including Hawaii. And I didn't really find any cites by the author support the alcoholic theory -- so I find it unfair both to London and to Chris/Alex, as his fixation on these stories motivated him to create "this mission" for himself.

Journal Entry 2 by edithdoll at Winthrop, Massachusetts USA on Friday, January 29, 2016
Released to another Bookcrosser at Jan. 2016 meet up.

Journal Entry 3 by southbos3279 at Cambridge, Massachusetts USA on Sunday, February 7, 2016

Released 8 yrs ago (2/10/2016 UTC) at Cambridge, Massachusetts USA

CONTROLLED RELEASE NOTES:

Jon Krakauer's writing and journalism really carries this book. However I lean toward the camp that has a bit less sympathy for Chris McCandless. It has nothing to do with his idealism - that should be admired. But he refused to heed the warnings of more experienced Alaskans about being better equipped before entering the tundra. The last chapter where his parents visit the bus where he perished is moving.

Journal Entry 4 by southbos3279 at Cambridge, Massachusetts USA on Sunday, February 7, 2016

Released 8 yrs ago (2/10/2016 UTC) at Cambridge, Massachusetts USA

CONTROLLED RELEASE NOTES:

Being released at the February 2016 Boston Bookcrossing Meetup, Panera Bread, Harvard Square, Cambridge, MA.

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