Title: Into the wild
Writer: Jon Krakauer
Publisher: Pan Macmillan
Pages: 224
Year: 2011
IBSN-13: 978-0330351690
Mark: 8/10
SYNOPSIS
Jon Krakauer's Into the Wild
examines true story of Chris McCandless, a young man, who in 1992 walked deep
into the Alaskan wilderness and whose SOS note and emaciated corpse were found
four months later, internationally bestselling author Jon Krakauer explores the
obsession which leads some people to explore the outer limits of self, leave
civilization behind and seek enlightenment through solitude and contact with
nature. A 2007 film adaptation of Into the Wild was directed by Sean Penn and
starred Emile Hirsch and Kristen Stewart.
PERSONAL ASSESSMENT
JUSTIFIACTION
I think that, as a lot of people have done, I saw the
film before reading the book. I usually wait for reading the book first and
then I watch the film, but when that film came to me I didn’t know that there
was a book. I saw the film thousands of times and I have a love-hate relationship
with it, and it happened to me with the book too. This book has been in my
wishlist for years, but I have never bought it. One day I found out that one of
my friends has it and asked her (like three or four years ago) to lent it to
me, but she always forgets. So, this year she decided to give me the english
version of the book because of my birthday. Thus, when I finished the book I
was reading I submerse in this book.
PLOT
The book is like a long newspaper article. In it Jon
talks about the adventures of Chris McCandless -or Alex Supertramp- from the
time when he was graduated, and he left everything behind to set out on a trip
and, even though that he doesn’t admit it, to discover himself until SPOLIER his death SPOILER CLOSED. Jon intertwine the
Chris’ diary entries with the tales of the people who spent those days with
him, with his own experiences, with other similar cases and with his own
(Jon’s) suppositions.
ATMOSPHERE AND WRITING STYLE
Here comes the problem. His is a press writing style,
that’s why it doesn’t have the ‘novel’ form. He leaps backward and forward in
each chapter, he intertwines his own reflections, stories of him and other
hikers that died. I thought that it was going to be more like a novel, with the
interviews to the people who met Alex along his trip. I think that it would
have been easier to be submerse in the history because all that he had added,
in one hand it helps you to understand the history but, in the other hand it
gets you away from that empathy feeling.
Something that I like about the book was the beginning
of the chapters, a lot of them have maps of the place with the important spots
marked, and every chapter starts too with a quote related to the theme that
that chapter was going to talk about.
GENERAL COMMENT
I general, I like the history. I empathize with Chris
to an extent, because a lot of his actions seemed irresponsible to me. I
understand his breakup with the world where we live, but he finds out that no
matter how much we hate the system, we will always be a part of it. The
solution to that is not to break away and became a hermit, if you don’t like
the system then fight to change it. But really, he gave everything up because
he wanted to find himself or just as a way of punishing his family? Because, not
matter how bad is your relationship with your parents, you can’t leave home for
years and not contact them, and besides when they receive news from you are to
discover that SPOLIER you are dead. SPOLIER CLOSED. That is not fair.
The adventure he is living is beautiful, the people he meets are very nice, it
makes you wanna grab your backpack with few books and clothes and leave
everything behind. But being more trained. What you can’t do is, without any
knowledge of plants or botany, to take a book from the library and believe
yourself to be an expert. You can’t go to the mountains without any preparation
or knowledge and EVEN WITHOUT A MAP OF THE PLACE. What happened to him was
because of lack of maps. Because every person knows that in summer (especially
in Alaska, for fuck’s shake) the heat produces the melting of the ice and the
swelling of the rivers. We don’t need a master’s degree to know that. And the
worst part of it? SPOLIER He realized that
he wanted to come back to his family! SPOLIER CLOSED. And quoting the
book ‘happiness is only real when shared’.
So, to sum up, on one side I admire him for having the
courage to leave everything behind and, on the other side he pisses me off
because he was so irresponsible and arrogant.
-Saru
