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Into the Wild | 
 enlarge | Author: Jon Krakauer
Publisher: Anchor
Category: Book
List Price: $13.95
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Avg. Customer Rating:  1205 reviews
Sales Rank: 3445
Media: Paperback
Edition: 1
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 224
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.3
Dimensions (in): 8 x 5.1 x 0.6
ISBN: 0385486804
Dewey Decimal Number: 917.98045
EAN: 9780385486804
ASIN: 0385486804
Publication Date: January 20, 1997
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: Expedited shipping available
Condition: few bent corners Used - Good Default Text
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Amazon.com Review
"God, he was a smart kid..." So why did Christopher McCandless trade a bright future--a college education, material comfort, uncommon ability and charm--for death by starvation in an abandoned bus in the woods of Alaska? This is the question that Jon Krakauer's book tries to answer. While it doesn'tcannotanswer the question with certainty, Into the Wild does shed considerable light along the way. Not only about McCandless's "Alaskan odyssey," but also the forces that drive people to drop out of society and test themselves in other ways. Krakauer quotes Wallace Stegner's writing on a young man who similarly disappeared in the Utah desert in the 1930s: "At 18, in a dream, he saw himself ... wandering through the romantic waste places of the world. No man with any of the juices of boyhood in him has forgotten those dreams." Into the Wild shows that McCandless, while extreme, was hardly unique; the author makes the hermit into one of us, something McCandless himself could never pull off. By book's end, McCandless isn't merely a newspaper clipping, but a sympathetic, oddly magnetic personality. Whether he was "a courageous idealist, or a reckless idiot," you won't soon forget Christopher McCandless.
Product Description
In April 1992 a young man from a well-to-do family hitchhiked to Alaska and walked alone into the wilderness north of Mt. McKinley. His name was Christopher Johnson McCandless. He had given $25,000 in savings to charity, abandoned his car and most of his possessions, burned all the cash in his wallet, and invented a new life for himself. Four months later, his decomposed body was found by a moose hunter.How McCandless came to die is the unforgettable story of Into the Wild.
Immediately after graduating from college in 1991, McCandless had roamed through the West and Southwest on a vision quest like those made by his heroes Jack London and John Muir.In the Mojave Desert he abandoned his car, stripped it of its license plates, and burned all of hiscash.He would give himself a new name, Alexander Supertramp, and , unencumbered by money and belongings, he would be free to wallow in the raw, unfiltered experiences that nature presented.Craving a blank spot on the map, McCandless simply threw the maps away.Leaving behind his desperate parents and sister, he vanished into the wild.
Jon Krakauer constructs a clarifying prism through which he reassembles the disquieting facts of McCandless's short life.Admitting an interst that borders on obsession, he searches for the clues to the dries and desires that propelled McCandless.Digging deeply, he takes an inherently compelling mystery and unravels the larger riddles it holds: the profound pull of the American wilderness on our imagination; the allure of high-risk activities to young men of a certain cast of mind; the complex, charged bond between fathers and sons.
When McCandless's innocent mistakes turn out to be irreversible and fatal, he becomes the stuff of tabloid headlines and is dismissed for his naiveté, pretensions, and hubris.He is saidto have had a death wish but wanting to die is a very different thing from being compelled to look over the edge. Krakauer brings McCandless's uncompromising pilgrimage out of the shadows, and the peril, adversity , and renunciation sought by this enigmatic young man are illuminated with a rare understanding--and not an ounce of sentimentality. Mesmerizing, heartbreaking, Into the Wild is a tour de force. The power and luminosity of Jon Krakauer's stoytelling blaze through every page.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 1200 more reviews...
Hacia rutas salvajes October 11, 2008
Este bestseller permitio a Krakauer obtener la reputacion de notable escritor de aventuras. Este libro se basa en la historia real de Christopher McCandless, un joven proveniente de una familia acomodada de la Costa Este quien, tras graduarse en la universidad, dono todo su dinero a obras de caridad y se embarco en un viaje por el oeste americano bajo el nombre de "Alexander Supertramp". Dos anos después, McCandless fue encontrado muerto en la desolacion de Alaska. En su libro, Krakauer traza paralelismos entre sus propias experiencias y motivaciones y aquellas que guiaron a McCandless a su tragico final. Krakauer también narra la historia de Everett Ruess, un joven artista a que desparecio en el desierto de Utah en 1934, cuando tenia solo 20 anos.
Nestor Vallester
www.tesmel.com
 Enchanting October 7, 2008
This book was amazing. It goes much further into the idealism of "going into the wild" then the story of Alex himself; unlike the movie. Recommend to any person ever willing to pass on the idea of society and return to our roots.
 Into the wild review October 1, 2008
This book was okay it wasn't all that great, but if you like an autobiography then this is the book for you.
 Hubristic fool September 23, 2008
Unfortunately, I find this to be one of the most idiotic stories I have ever read. It is the story of a young man with no respect for the enormity of nature. His story is akin to waiting on a beach to watch a category 5 hurricane make landfall. I feel sorry for Chris' family
I love Krakauer's other books.
Into the Wild September 10, 2008
this is the story of chris mccandles. candles inherits money, then lights it on fire out of principle. he then travels the country excoriating people for not doing the same. in between stints working at mcdonalds, he ventures off into the wild with nothing but a gun and fishing pole. after almost dying repeatedly, he decides alaska is the only wilderness tough enough for him. he walks down a trail off the highway, wades across a stream, then starts writing a journal. he gets hungry and decides to go back, but is blocked by the ice-melt swollen stream. not realizing that getting upriver to a crossing point is now a matter of life or death, he goes back to his campground. something very bad then happens to him and he can't get out. the best parts of the book are the several chilling accounts of how seemingly innocuous mistakes cost some very tough people their lives all alone in the wilderness. the author will make you feel like you're about to die, that's how well written it is.
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