Chris McCandless didn't want to prove anything to anyone; he just wanted to be free and live as he saw fit. So far, from the image of the bohemian and thoughtless teenager, Jon Krakauer portrays him to us as an intelligent and obstinate young man with remarkable abilities to gather people around him. He leaves those who have met him during his travels with a feeling of great sociability, which contrasts significantly with the need for solitude that he regularly showed, a slight desire to owe not...

"The very basic core of a man's living spirit is his passion for adventure." Christopher Johnson McCandless began roaming in 1991 after graduating college. He gave away his savings ($25,000) to charity, got rid of all his material possessions, burned his remaining money and just left. "Don't settle down and sit in one place. Move around, be nomadic, make each day a new horizon." He didn't tell anyone where he was going, what he was doing - just up and left, leaving a stunned sister and confuse...

okay. lets address the elephant on goodreads, which is the common theme of essentially bashing chris mccandless in reviews. i have seen so many ranting about how irresponsible and selfish and arrogant and unprepared he was. and i mean, theyre not wrong, but that honestly has nothing to do with the book? what i love most about this is how objective krakauer is. he neither praises nor critiques mccandless, but presents the facts regarding an unfortunate event in a very interesting and fascinating ...

In 1992, roughly around the same time Chris McCandless was living out his final days in the Alaskan wilderness, I would have been enjoying the summer holidays before embarking on my final year at school, contemplating the big wide world and what I was going to do with the rest of my life. It wasn't until watching Sean Penn's film in 2008 I would learn of Chris's story, a story that moved me, immensely.I always presumed Jon Krakauer's book would be some huge epic, but was surprised on finding out...

I certainly identified with McCandless in my formative ‘wilder’ years—if you’ll pardon—in that I romanticized a way of life unencumbered by concern for consequences. Not that I would have phrased it so back then. Krakauer reverently details a spirit of freedom and druthers at the expense of adventurous acumen. Wandering quixotically into the wilderness with reliance on ancestral instinct naively neglects that many of those ancestors—with more keenly honed instincts—died prematurely under similar...

"I now walk into the wild."- Christopher McCandless (1968-1992)I live a life, I suspect, that is much like yours. Wake up, go to work, come home, eat dinner, go to bed. At the end of this weekly desert, there might be a drink or ten to celebrate the victory over another five days of soul-crushing drudgery.I am a desk jockey. A paper pusher. I mean that literally; I sit in my office, and when people peer inside, they will see me moving a sheet of paper from one side to the other. It looks, to the...

This book is a wonderful cautionary tale. I will probably read it again with my daughter when she is old enough to discuss it. Unfortunately, I'm afraid the reason most people will read the book and see the new upcoming movie, is for a different reason. Chris McCandless (in the book, and from what I understand in the movie), is a hero and courageous for flying in the face of everything he grew up with to find a better way. A young man unhappy with the materialism, hunger, and waste in the world;...

We are all heroes to ourselves. McCandless was, Krakauer is. This doesn't vary. All that varies is how we define heroism and how much, or how little, we are prepared to do to for that stance.In order to get people, usually young men, to sacrifice their lives we tell them of those that went before and tell them they were heroes who died for their countries, died for their principles, died even for their dreams. Impractical dreams that are the province of the young. And those who would be heroes n...

I love Jon Krakauer. I didn't find one single thing about the Alex McCandless even remotely interesting. He came across as a spoiled brat with no concept of reality - basically because of his priveleged upbringing. But somehow, he blamed his parents for that void of myopic self absorption. I live in Alaska and I've lived in Idaho and Colorado and Oregon . . . basically AROUND people who love the great outdoors. I am more comfortable in a heated coffee shop READING about the great outdoors. Still...

Overall, I was pretty disappointed with this book. The genesis of the book was an in-depth magazine article, and I suspect that the article was superb. But I just don't think there's enough here to warrant an entire book. As evidence, I point to several lengthy chapters that have nothing to do with the underlying story--they discuss other people who have gone "into the wild" and, surprisingly, Krakauer includes a whole chapter about himself.My other problem is that I found myself unable to ident...