Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer

Thanks to my love for his masterpiece, Into Thin Air, I was already on Krakauer's side before I even picked up its predecessor, Into the Wild. I knew it would be a story that would tempt, scare, and awe me.

The Storyline

Starting from the book's cover, the outcome is apparent to the reader: the protagonist, a 24 year-old Emory graduate, dies. Where does the story unfold from here?

McCandless' Letters to his Road Friends

Krakauer reveals the perspectives of the people who became integral parts of McCandless' quest: the electrician who dropped him at the mouth of the Stampede Trail outside Healy, Alaska; the hunters who found his body; the jack-of-all-trades who employed and befriended him in South Dakota throughout the two year journey; an old man who felt so connected as to ask to be his guardian; and the tormented family still writhing in painful loss at home in Virginia.

It's an investigation where the main mystery is the state of the human condition, and the reader asks, “What compelled Chris?” It is through the tales of these personal encounters with McCandless that the reader can decide if he was narcissistic and stupid or in touch with something most of us try not to channel.

McCandless mailed many letters to road friends, kept journals and wrote thoughts in book margins, which help the reader to deduce further his mental state. One such letter to his friend, Ron (an older man whom McCandless met in Salton City, California), illustrates his passion to inspire those bound by habit to security to do something invigorating:

“So many people live within unhappy circumstances and yet will not take the initiative to change their situation because they are conditioned to a life of security, conformity, and conservatism, all of which may appear to give one peace of mind, but in reality nothing is more damaging to the adventurous spirit within a man than a secure future.”

The Author's Presence

Not only does Krakauer question these real-life characters in their surroundings but describes every landscape and lifestyle vividly, enough to prove he's been there and absorbed McCandless' experiences viscerally.

Jon Krakauer's National Bestseller

And if the craft and accuracy of his writing aren't enough to prove Krakauer is the right person assigned to the story, then the final affirmation comes from his own stories about paternal relations and outdoor challenges of the body and soul that relate to McCandless. It's through his own solo experience in the Alaskan wild, climbing the Devil's Thumb and traversing the Stikine Ice Cap, that Krakauer impresses the drive of man's primal allure and connection to that which has great potential to kill him.

Chris' Art of Travel

Many say McCandless took on more than he could handle and underestimated the magnitude of Mother Nature, but had he survived [and sidestepped his tiny, fatal mistake] would people have considered him so childish?

Is survival the test of someone's philosophical or inexplicable purpose?

The essence of the narrative, what McCandless sought for those two years as a vagabond, is a means to happiness. If you don't mind a good spoiler, these two excerpts demonstrate the evolution of his viewpoint from journey to final words:

[In his letter to Ron while en route to Alaska] “You are wrong if you think Joy emanates only or principally from human relationships…We just have to have the courage to turn against our habitual lifestyle and engage in unconventional living…”

[Note found in the margin of Doctor Zhivago by Boris Paternak, the last book he read] “HAPPINESS ONLY REAL WHEN SHARED”

What was certainly magnified by Krakauer's text was the reality that we humans harbor primordial desires, and it seems we're on a sliding scale with respect to how much we allow these feelings to be heard and acted upon.

It is my belief that travelers and the like-minded are more responsive to those “calls of the wild.” Unconventional living forces a constant reevaluation of one's life [and one's mortality], and when we are closer in mindset to our own expiration, it seems we connect closer to the motivations of our primitive ancestors.

Thanks to the realities described by Krakauer, we can assume McCandless died understanding a lesson that seemingly takes half-centuries to comprehend; one could call it a priceless lesson, but since his life was the cost, was it justified?

Case in point, it's a good book. Read it.