Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer

Into the Wild by, Jon Krakauer

I decided to read the book “Into the wild,” by, Jon Krakauer for my eco art book review. The reasoning for why I choose this book is kind of ironic in that I was sitting at work one day trying to figure out what book I wanted to read and write about when a co-worker of mine happened to walk in a slap the book down right in front of me for he had just finished reading it and then persisted to say I should read it so we could both talk about it, so in a way the book came to me.
Well fist off a little back story for the people who don’t know the story which just so happens to be a major motion picture as of recent. The book is a about a guy named Chris McCandless who severs all ties to his family and sets off to the west after graduating college and donating the remainder of his trust fund to OXFAM. He also in a further attempt to get away from his old like adopts the name “Alex Supertramp.” The book is basically just a record of this young man’s life from pieces put together through his journal which primarily consisted of record of what he ate and the stories of a few people that Chris aka Alex meet on his travels until finally meeting his demise in Alaska. The book also at times would side track a little and the author would tell stories of his life and of other peoples who have set out and done practically the same thing Chris did.
At times reading this book I did find myself saying, “hey thats pretty cool,” or “hey that’s not a bad idea,” but over all I found reading this book to be sort of hard for I ultimately found myself disagreeing with many of Chris’s ideals. Now do not get me wrong I found his want to be one with nature to be very appealing and almost poetic in a way, but how he went about doing seemed very arrogant. I say this in that you can go out and be one with nature but you do not have to completely severe all human contact and become a hermit essentially. He was also very ill prepared for many of the tasks that he undertook and I believe that he was very lucky not to have met his down fall a lot sooner than when he finally meet his death in Alaska. It is also my belief that all these undertaking gave him a false sense of security which lead him to believe he could do anything without any help. Which also leads me into the small fact that throughout most of the book the author Jon Krakauer continually speaks of how people helped him along the way, by giving him a place to stay, or shoes or a machete est.…and also most importantly human interaction by having long in depth conversations with others. And yet he would continually leave the people he meets wondering what happened to him, just as he did his parents at the beginning of the story.
All in all the book was a very well written book I believe other then the few occasional reflection stories of the author which was his way of trying to identify with Chris I believe I don’t think they need to be in there. But I would have to say that going off and doing what Chris did one needed to be more prepared and also not be so arrogant. He needs to have a little more respect for the environment he wished to traverse. He was consistently putting his life in unneeded danger and then encouraging people do the same. One story told was about an old man that grew so attached to Chris that he ended up selling off his house and everything and started living off alone with seldom human contact. And I don’t care what society you are in a elderly person should not be encourage to seclude himself for the simple fact of , “what if” something happens and no one is around to help him. At least if one is younger you can have a better chance of coming out on top. Truthfully in the end it comes to ones upbringing and their ideals, I spoke earlier about how my co-worker gave me this book to read and discuss it well we found that both of us were harping on the same tactics in which Chris utilized but found my co-worker still envied him where I did not.