Into the Wild

This book I picked up on Jill's desk two days ago and said "I'm gonna read this." I did it on a whim and I was heavily rewarded. Wow! Just wow. I have so much I want to say about this book. I hope that some of the readers have also read this book because I would love to talk about it (maybe I will even suggest it as my first book when I convince the rest of the bloggers to join me in a blog book club).

The book Into the Wild tells the real story of a young man names Chris McCandless. The book begins with his death in an abandoned bus in the Alaskan wildness. The book traces the path from when Chris finished colleges, dropped out of his families lives , began a nomadic life and ultimately perishes shortly after. This is all stuff that you would learn in the first couple of pages. In the first couple pages I needed to know how Chris died and by the middle of the book I wanted to know why Chris. After the finishing the book I have an idea of both but I can't be certain. The evidence suggests some things but the facts aren't conclusive.

What we do know is that Chris abandoned his family because of issues that he had with his father. We know that Chris was an avid reader and that he particularly enjoyed authors like Thoreau and Jack London and this added to his affinity of nature. Christ spent the better part of two years wandering the country staying in places just long enough to get by. He worked crappy jobs, slept amongst the homeless and the lowlives, and generally lived on as little as possible. Chris' lack of need for money is made even more apparent by the fact that he abandoned his car and set his money ablaze before the took off on his adventure. He traveled through the US, slipping, on several occasions, across the borders into Canada and Mexico but his big aventure was into the Alaskan wilderness.

Chris traveled to Alaska with 5 pounds of rice, a rifle, some knives and general gear in the spring of 1992. He was found dead by some hunters in september of that same year. In all Chris survived over a hundred days living off the Alaskan wilderness, hunting animals and picking edible roots and berries.

The book isn't really about what he did but why he did it. The story on the surface is simple. Stupid kid runs away from main stream life and tries to live in nature and nature wins. Alaskans after the fact were quick to lambast him for being stupid, for not understanding nature and being ill prepared. I agree he didn't have to die but this story is good because he died. If Chris had survived this would be a mildly anecdotal story and I would have said "cool" and moved on but his death makes this story so much bigger. He did what I think a lot of people would like to do. He picked up his life and just left. Chris did what he wanted when he wanted and how he wanted. He lived in nature off the land, eating only what mother nature provided him with. Overall I think that is really cool. Shit if I could do this right now I would but the reality is that I am chicken shit and I wouldn't last two or three weeks in the wild never mind over a hundred days and the truth is he would have survived if circumstances hadn't happened exactly the way they had. If you aren't interested in learning these circumstances dont read this book if like me you are intrigued and slightly curious to find out what motivation drove a man to do this then pick this up and read it. Its a short but good read