Helpful Score: 12
As usual, a thoroughly enjoyable and thoughful non-fiction book by Jon Krakauer. I read anything by this author. I have never been disappointed yet. In this book, Krakauer covers the sad, true tale of a young adventurer who pushed himself until he died. Krakauer wrote the original article about Chris McCandless in Outside Magazine before he went on to write this book. He does a good job of piecing together the last 2 years of Chris' life by throrough research, speaking with his family and anyone who was in contact with Chris, and actually going to the places covered by Chris in his travels. Krakauer also devotes a couple of chapters to his own wonderlust as a young man in attempting to climb a mountain. I found this to be very interesting as well, having already read Into Thin Air, about Krakauer's climbing of Mt. Everest during a tragedy filled season which killed 7 climbers.
Helpful Score: 8
Really touching and sad story of a upper middle class young man who in 1992 went into the wilderness of Alaska with a desire to live off the land. And he did, however at the end of summer, his body was found in an abandoned bus where he apparently died of starvation. The author, Jon Krakauer bases the story on his own experiences and Chris McCandless's journal found in the bus. The story reminds me of times in my own adolesence when I had a romantic view of living in the wild, living off the land, the thoughts that I could accomplish anything. Good read. It is now a movie also, which I have yet to see.
Helpful Score: 8
Christopher McCandless goes into the wild but does not come back alive.
Such extreme personalities always seem to intrigue the adventure seeking mountain climber Krakauer, so true-to-form he investigates and reconstructs McCandless back story to delve into the hanging questions. What compels McCandless, a young man with apparently everything going for him, to discard anything he can't carry on his back and to head off into the wilds of Alaska? And what might he have learned?
Jon Krakauer knows how to write a compelling investigative story. Short read, engaging, but not a classic or Krakauer's best. Sean Penn directs an even better movie based on his own adaptation of story.
Such extreme personalities always seem to intrigue the adventure seeking mountain climber Krakauer, so true-to-form he investigates and reconstructs McCandless back story to delve into the hanging questions. What compels McCandless, a young man with apparently everything going for him, to discard anything he can't carry on his back and to head off into the wilds of Alaska? And what might he have learned?
Jon Krakauer knows how to write a compelling investigative story. Short read, engaging, but not a classic or Krakauer's best. Sean Penn directs an even better movie based on his own adaptation of story.
Helpful Score: 6
* * * ½* . Looks into the trip a young man foolishishly took into the Alaskan wilderness uneqipped. The book attempts to examine his actions by comparing it with other famous excursions with similar fates, and gives an explanation into the irony of his untimely demise.
I could have done without the author's personal reflections regarding his own near death experiences. Nonetheless, the book is still a deep, brooding work.
I could have done without the author's personal reflections regarding his own near death experiences. Nonetheless, the book is still a deep, brooding work.
Helpful Score: 5
A little slow in the middle but an interesting look at the innerworkings of a man's mind and heart as he goes to / runs from something bigger than himself. The author's life and similar circumstances perhaps shed some light on a true mystery: why did Chris McCandless die in Alaska?
