FREE ESSAY ON INTO THE WILD

INTO THE WILD

The text on the dust jacket of Jon Krakauer's Into the Wild makes it clear that the thread
of suspense running through this compelling book isn't necessarily tied to the fate of
its subject. 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, the jacket reads. 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. 
With the demise of McCandless already revealed, Krakauer concentrates on the forces that
drove the devotee of Thoreau, Tolstoy and Jack London to the icy environs of Alaska and,
ultimately, to his death. Krakauer's skill as an investigative reporter is impressive,
but it is his ability to reveal McCandless' inner motives that makes Into the Wild such
an intriguing book. 
Instead of coming across as just an antisocial misfit, McCandless emerges as a
disciplined, uncompromising individual guided by an earnest brand of asceticism. The same
determination that helped him excel as a high school cross-country star enables him to
survive the vagabond lifestyle he embraces after college. For McCandless, rejecting
mainstream society doesn't mean publishing a zine. He rides the rails, canoes to Mexico
on a whim and survives it all on nothing more than wits, luck and an ever-present bag of
rice. 
In an increasingly crowded world, it was difficult for McCandless to find the physical
isolation he sought, but his inward journey was more important than his external
surroundings. Krakauer, a writer for Outside magazine who obviously shares McCandless'
wanderlust, explains often esoteric inclinations in a clear, revealing way. 
In coming to Alaska, McCandless yearned to wander uncharted country, to find a blank spot
on the map, Krakauer writes. In 1992, however, there were no more blank spots on the
map--not in Alaska, not anywhere. But Chris, with his idiosyncratic logic, came up with
an elegant solution to this dilemma: He simply got rid of the map. In his own mind, if
nowhere else, the terra would thereby remain incognita. 
While McCandless viewed nature and solitude as the keys to fulfillment, he profoundly
touched those he encountered on the road prior to his fatal journey to Alaska. While
prone to introspective musings on the meaning of life, the well-read McCandless could
just as easily knock back a few shots of Jack Daniel's and entertain his new-found
friends with his piano playing. He comes across as engaging yet ultimately unapproachable
in his brash pursuit of raw, austere experience. 
Krakauer succeeds in capturing McCandless' unique personality even as he establishes
links between his subject and a loose fraternity of adventurers who also took to the wild
in search of meaning and identity. 
Over the years, Alaska has been a magnet for intrepid characters who trek into the bush,
never to reappear. For example, Gene Rosellini, the son of a wealthy Seattle
restaurateur, hoped to return to a natural state by scavenging and hunting game with
spears and snares. He endured Alaska's bitter winters clad only in rags and fashioned a
windowless hut without benefit of saw or ax. 
After declaring this experiment a failure, Rosellini made plans to walk around the world,
but he never got the chance. He was found lying face down on the floor of his shack in
1991, dead of a self-inflicted knife wound to the heart. 
This and other fascinating parallel case studies offer only a glimpse of what prompted
McCandless to commune with the harshest side of nature. Arguing that McCandless is more
of a pilgrim than a bush-casualty stereotype, Krakauer searches for others who mirror him
more accurately. 
Everett Ruess, a young adventurer described by Wallace Stegner in Mormon Country as a
callow romantic, an adolescent esthete, an atavistic wanderer of the wastelands, comes
closest. In the early '30s, Ruess embarked on a wilderness adventure in Utah and was
never seen again. Writing to his brother in 1934, Ruess foreshadowed McCandless'
feelings: I prefer the saddle to the streetcar and star-sprinkled sky to a roof, the
obscure and difficult trail, leading into the unknown, to any paved highway, and the deep
peace of the wild to the discontent bred by cities. 
Krakauer's own foolhardy, yet determined, attempts to climb an intrusion of diorite
mountain called the Devils Thumb in Alaska during his youth sheds still further light on
McCandless. Based on his own experience, Krakauer convincingly argues that McCandless
wasn't suicidal, as many have speculated. Instead, he was ruled by the heedlessness and
gap-ridden logic of youth that makes the concept of death as abstract as non-Euclidean
geometry or marriage. 
Despite his fate, it is difficult to say that McCandless died in vain. Or to deny that
his approach to life is an enviable one in many respects. Although McCandless would
probably scoff at the notion, he is a profoundly American figure, uncompromising in his
approach and thoroughly optimistic about the future. In an age when the idea of roughing
it is synonymous with a sport-utility vehicle and an expensive trip to North Face,
McCandless was in touch with the bare-bones essence of nature. He is also a reminder of
what can happen when you take an all-or-nothing approach to the wild. 
In early spring of 1992, Jon Krakauer was asked by the editor of Outside magazine to
report on the mysterious death of a young man whose badly decomposed body was found in
the wilderness north of Mt. McKinley in Alaska. The resulting article described a young
man by the name of Christopher McCandless-a young man who ended up dead in the Alaskan
wilderness because of a convoluted mixture of immense personal desire, an unforgiving
respect for nature, and a degree of unintended recklessness.
Following the Outside article, Krakauer received puzzling letters and postcards from
people who encountered McCandless during his two-year journey before his death. Coupled
with an intense curiosity about the circumstances surrounding McCandless's death and a
personal connection he felt with this young man, Krakauer set out to find answers. The
result is Into the Wild, a fascinating matrix of stories describing McCandless and his
adventurous life, mingled with tales of the author and others who, like McCandless,
possess the burning desire to compete with nature under extreme circumstances. 
After graduating with honors from Emory University in 1990, McCandless donated his entire
savings of $25, 000 to charity, loaded his scant possessions into his used Datsun, and
disappeared into the fringes of North America without saying good-bye. He was an ardent
reader of London, Tolstoy, and Thoreau, as well as other philosophers and nature writers.
He particularly enjoyed Tolstoy, adopting his principles of asceticism, living a life of
desolation and poverty. He renounced his name and former life, introducing himself as
Alexander Supertramp to the people he met during the two years before his death. His
travels are pieced together from letters and interviews with the people McCandless
encountered, along with the occasional journal entry by McCandless himself.
He left a remarkable impression on those he met. The image of McCandless is one of a
nature-loving nomad who lived in campgrounds, hitched rides, hopped trains, and tested
his will and endurance to survive in the wilderness of North America. 
The descriptions of the people touched by the wake of McCandless, juxtaposed with
Krakauer's tales of his own nearly tragic mountaineering, provide a spine-tingling and
haunting account. This book is a powerful, commanding view of the awesome effect that
nature has on the minds of young men who are committed to honor and revere the living
world.