Thoughts on 'into the wild'

There have been many debates about whether what McCandless did was reckless and stupid or if he was a hero setting out to achieve what others were afraid of- what do you think? would love some opinions of others that have read the book!

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Outside of McCandless getting exactly what he deserved, I have always liked Krakauer as an admittedly middlebrow real-life adventure writer. He is the modern version of victorian colonial excitement literature, and I really enjoy his books while I am taking a shit

I liked it back when I read it in high school for whatever reason, aside from the guy dying for an incredibly retarded reason. I remember I envied his sense of adventure.
Years later now that I think about it, it is the ultimate basic bitch story that normies read and talk about so they can sound fake deep.

plenty of people homestead in Alaska and live off the land without getting themselves killed
but plenty of mountain men were ill prepared and got themselves killed out in the wild.
He wasn't special at all other than he died doing what he loved - slowly wasting away from starvation

>reads Emerson once

That is also exactly what I thought when I read it in HS lmao

why is it the ultimate basic bitch story? surely he deserves some admiration for doing what most people are scared of and following his dream. (Although he was extremely naive when thinking about the effect his decision made on others as well as himself)

There is speculation that he ate wild peas and that they slowly paralyzed him, therefore he became unable to travel any distance for food and starved that way.

I'm not saying he was a basic bitch, I'm saying basic bitches and Chads like saying it's their favorite book because they love how deep and adventurous he was, but they literally just say that shit to sound cool.

i think it's stupid to think about in terms of 'was he right'
you can still appreciate the story of a uniquely lived life without condoning or condemning it

for my part, i think he was a likeable idiot

I managed maybe 10 pages before the writing made me put it down

why

I think I would have preferred the book is Krakauer didn't include so much of his own life into the story

Also Krakauer suggested the wild potato roots he was eating went mouldy and it was the mould that essentially poisoned him

It's like the book version of Grizzly Man

Who wins the trophy.

McCandless or Treadwell

Treadwell and McCandless would have actually been in Alaska around the same time I think!

Treadwell was much more prepared than McCandless, but what he was doing was so stupid that he probably wins.

OK so, hypothetical question, if I come across a hiker in Alaska/northern Canada what's the best way I could rape and kill him/her without being found out? Asking for a friend.

one starved to death, the other was killed by the animals he wanted to protect...we might just have to hold onto the trophy a little longer

If you want to do some research, look into native crime rates. they are doing that shit already.

Just do it and keep driving

out of curiosity, how many of you would go and attempt to live in the wild?

I originally bought the book thinking it was a 1:1 reproduction of his journals with commentary by Krakauer rather than a narrative told by Krakauer, who hijacked it to a degree that rankled me a bit by the end.

Ultimately he wasn't Emersonian or reminiscent of Thoreau, who both sought to entrench themselves in a curated and landscaped wilderness. Rather than seeking, McCandless was escaping, and ultimately he never found it.

Nobody deserves anything. You might get what's coming to you, but you never "deserve" it. McCandless slipped up once after years of getting by, it was an honest, stupid mistake, and not indicative of some major malfunction or character flaw.

>slipped up once

The interview with the truck driver begging him to take his supplies and offering to drive him to a store to buy him a coat suggests this might be an overstatement

This is the worry of the older generation for those they perceive as foolish and younger, and the care of a human for the lost and the weak. Not that it's a bad or incorrect line of reasoning, but it wasn't necessary. McCandless didn't die of exposure, he died of being confined to the bus after extreme sickness and the fatigue it brought about. The supplies and clothes wouldn't have helped at that point or beforehand, only the knowledge.

>wild
>actually just squats in an old bus surronded but old porn mags and comic books

>survives
>catches like 3 animals, wastes away and literally dies of starvation, civilization fairly close

I agree, I think his knowledge on food and survival without tools was limited. In the book it suggests that the roots he ate could have been mouldy due to poor food safety, nothing was sanitary I assume

The fact that he donated all his money to Oxfam (to feed the hungry) but then died of starvation is a sad irony.

This is the part that made me go 'oh this guy is a fucking idiot'.

>Christopher McCandless
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I really disliked how Krakauer padded this book with his own experiences as a young man. I just wanted to read about Maccandless' antics and backstory, but I guess Krakauer needed to write a certain number of pages to make more money, fucking hack...

Into Thin Air was much better.

agreed, I would like to have just read McCandless' journal and then some interviews with people that knew him etc...

There's a book by McCandless's sister which explains more about his background. His father used to beat them savagely throughout their childhood and their mother often told Chris he was a burden and that she wished she'd never given birth to him.

do you know the name of the book? would love to read it

The Wild Truth

Some quotations are collected (along with various other sources) here:

Thanks!

With his upbringing and the dysfunctional family dynamic he was in, being well read and pursuing a dream is much better than the stereotypical outcome of this formulation that is drugs, alcoholism etc

did you guys like the film? I think Emile Hirsch did an amazing job