Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer
The movie scared me, so I decided to read
the book. It didn’t help. The first thing to say is that it is worth a read.
Krakauer does a good job of piecing together fragments of Chris’s journey but
makes it clear that he can’t do put all of it together thanks to a lack of
documentation. I still feel a bit divided about Chris’s story. He is not a
likeable young man; a job Emile Hirsh did an excellent job of portraying. If
you are especially close to your parents, you will have a difficult time
understanding Chris’s actions. And even if you aren’t close to them, you
probably will view Chris as a stuck up rich kid who was on a rebellious streak.
To describe Chris’s death as a tragedy is loaded with meaning and I think (although
one should not speak ill of the dead) tragedy might be a bit too much. A
tsunami is a tragedy; the recent Malaysian air crash (not to mention the one
that is still missing) was a tragedy. Chris’s actions that lead to his untimely
death were preventable. However, the book works because Krakauer has a personal story sort of confirming his claims that him and Chris were alike in some ways. That Krakauer is able to understand Chris’s initial actions because he took the same risks.
WARNING: This isn’t a book for the faint hearted.
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