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Jon Krakauer

Into the Wild: Jon Krakauer Paperback – 1 July 2011

by Jon Krakauer (Author)

4.3 18,199 ratings

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Jon Krakauer's Into the Wild examines the true story of Chris McCandless, a young man who walked deep into the Alaskan wilderness and whose SOS note and emaciated corpse were found four months later.

In April 1992, Chris McCandless set off alone into the Alaskan wild. He had given his savings to charity, abandoned his car and his possessions, and burnt the money in his wallet, determined to live a life of independence. Just four months later, Chris was found dead. An SOS note was taped to his makeshift home, an abandoned bus.

In piecing together the final travels of this extraordinary young man's life, Jon Krakauer writes about the heart of the wilderness, its terribly beauty and its relentless harshness. Into the Wild is a modern classic of travel writing, and a riveting exploration of what drives some of us to risk more than we can afford to lose.

From the author of Under the Banner of Heaven and Into Thin Air. A film adaptation of Into the Wild was directed by Sean Penn and starred Emile Hirsch and Kristen Stewart.

'It may be nonfiction, but Into the Wild is a mystery of the highest order.' – Entertainment Weekly

Print length

224 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Pan
Publication date

1 July 2011
Reading age

18 years and up
Dimensions

22 x 15 x 2.5 cm
ISBN-10

0330351699
ISBN-13

978-0330389709
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Product description

Amazon Review

What would possess a gifted young man recently graduated from college to literally walk away from his life? Noted outdoor writer and mountaineer Jon Krakauer tackles that question in his reporting on Chris McCandless, whose emaciated body was found in an abandoned bus in the Alaskan wilderness in 1992.

Described by friends and relatives as smart, literate, compassionate and funny, did McCandless simply read too much Thoreau and Jack London and lose sight of the dangers of heading into the wilderness alone? Krakauer, whose own adventures have taken him to the perilous heights of Everest, provides some answers by exploring the pull the outdoors, seductive yet often dangerous, has had on his own life. --Amazon.com

Review

Terrifying . . . Eloquent . . . A heart-rending drama of human yearning. ― New York Times

A narrative of arresting force. Anyone who ever fancied wandering off to face nature on its own harsh terms should give a look. It's gripping stuff. ― Washington Post

It may be nonfiction, but Into the Wild is a mystery of the highest order. ― Entertainment Weekly

An astonishingly gifted writer: his account of 'Alex Supertramp' is powerfully dramatic, eliciting sympathy for both the idealistic, anti-consumerist boy - and his parents. ― Guardian

A compelling tale of tragic idealism. ― The Times

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Pan; Main Market edition (1 July 2011)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 224 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0330351699
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0330389709
Reading age ‏ : ‎ 18 years and up
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 22 x 15 x 2.5 cm

Best Sellers Rank: 4,708 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- 16 in Outdoor Survival Skills
- 38 in Walking, Hiking & Trekking
- 70 in Travel Writing (Books)

Customer reviews:
4.3 18,199 ratings

About the author

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Jon Krakauer

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In 1999 Jon Krakauer received an Academy Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. According to the award citation, "Krakauer combines the tenacity and courage of the finest tradition of investigative journalism with the stylish subtlety and profound insight of the born writer. His account of an ascent of Mount Everest has led to a general reevaluation of climbing and of the commercialization of what was once a romantic, solitary sport; while his account of the life and death of Christopher McCandless, who died of starvation after challenging the Alaskan wilderness, delves even more deeply and disturbingly into the fascination of nature and the devastating effects of its lure on a young and curious mind."

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Jim Bowen

Polarising

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on 4 April 2023

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I won’t lie, this well written book will polarise people who read it.

This book is about Chris McCandless, came over all “Kung Fu”, and decided to travel the Earth after graduating from Emory University. He ended up starving to death in a discarded School Bus in rural Alaska. It traces his travels, as best can be ascertained.

It’s polarising because you’ll either view him as wilfully reckless (he seems woefully underprepared for the final stage of his trip, or as someone whose luck ran out.

I suspect that what you get out of the book is a reflection of who you are, as much as it is of McCandless. Quite why people made pilgrimages to his death site is, however, beyond me.

One person found this helpful

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Cathy

Thought provoking tale

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on 13 June 2016

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I listened to the audio version of this book and Philip Franklin does a great job with the narration. I haven’t read Jon Krakauer before and I enjoyed the author’s writing style and the gradual unfolding of Chris McCandless’ story. I’d never heard of Chris McCandless before this and I found the story fascinating, tragic and scarcely credible in parts. If this had been fiction I can imagine the reader or listener berating the ‘hero’ for his lack of foresight and preparation before embarking on such a dangerous and uncertain journey.

Jon Krakauer explores Chris’ McCandless’s life, and death, through his family, Chris’ own notes, photographs and letters, plus the people he met on his travels, most of whom felt a compelling pull towards the young man and came to love him.

Basically, I’m not sure what to think. Here’s a highly academically intelligent young man who had a privileged upbringing, protesting strongly against world hunger and the wastage of food. He was angry at his father who lead a double life for several years, which is understandable. Perhaps it was a combination of these things, coupled with the books he was fond of reading by authors such as Jack London, Tolstoy and Thoreau to name just a few, which fired his imagination and passions for the idea of travel and survival in remote and unforgiving areas, ultimately the wilderness. He believed a person should own nothing apart from whatever they could carry. No longer would he answer to Chris McCandless; he was now Alexander Supertramp, master of his own destiny.

The story begins on April 27th, 1992 as Chris, or Alex as he now calls himself, is hitching from Fairbanks, Alaska and is offered a lift by Jim Gallien. He wants a ride to the edge of Denali National Park so he can just walk into the bush and live off the land for a few months.

Chris’ death was a tragedy which could have been avoided if he’d prepared for his stay in the wilds of Alaska with practicality and learned enough about endurance in such a harsh environment. That he chose not to, shows a lack of common sense, an underestimation of the wilderness and what it takes to survive.

Chris’ idealism and intensity caused a tremendous amount of hurt and suffering. It seems he had no thought of how his lack of communication would affect his parents, Walt and Billie, and Carine, the sister he supposedly loved. I can only imagine how distraught his family must have been during the whole time Chris was missing from their lives. Then, to learn he died in such dreadful circumstances had to have been beyond devastating.

During the course of the narrative Jon Krakauer does an impressive job of delving into the mindset of adventurers drawn to the ‘call of the wild’, including himself. It’s apparent, and understandable, that he feels a fascination for, and identifies with, Chris McCandless, given the parallels between their lives. He doesn’t claim to be an impartial biographer, quite the opposite. I don’t, however, agree with the view that Chris’ mistakes were innocent ones. He deliberately went into the Alaskan wilderness rashly, unprepared and without the basic necessities or any kind of reserve or support should he find himself in an emergency situation, despite all advice to the contrary.

In the end, Chris lived his life the way he wanted to, mostly isolated from people and minus the pointless, as he saw it, trappings of a materialistic society, and paid the ultimate price. It’s still a very sad end to such a short life. I found the recounting of the last few weeks of his life, via the journals he kept, very poignant. Especially since it seems Chris was ready to return to civilisation and, had he possessed the relevant map and knowledge, would more than likely have made it. Jon Krakauer’s theory on the cause of Chris’ death seems the most reasonable explanation and makes a lot of sense. I’ll be checking out more of this author’s work.

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Mark

A good read.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on 8 April 2023

Verified Purchase

A new story to me and quite an interesting one if not dragged out a bit at times to fill the pages but otherwise eye opening for the mind of young men.

One person found this helpful

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Amazon Customer

Incredibly thought provoking. The ultimate experience

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on 7 December 2012

Verified Purchase

Into The Wild challenges many assumptions. Is it truly possible to go back to basics and to survive in the wilderness without the trappings of modern society?
I found this book to be a good read, well researched and well written. The glimpses of other people's wilderness experiences and of the books that Chris McCandless read up to his death are enlightening.
At the end of it you are still left asking 'why?'. It is unsettling. Here was a young man who had a comfortable upbringing, a high-achiever who opted out of the life path that already seemed to be mapped out for him.
I think part of his motivation was the negative. The need to move out from the shadow of an ultra-achieving parent, the need to assert your own personality, an almost 'I'll show you' attitude as he displayed his own independence, perhaps exacerbated by a late discovery of the skeleton in the family cupboard.
But there is also a degree of irresponsibility - covering his tracks, effectively penalising those who cared about him, and the episode where he drove his car illegally far into the parklands, abandoning it in the gulch after a flood.
After time spent tramping the country, trying to improve his skills along the way, he seemed to be looking for the ultimate 'back to the wild' experience. Just what is this ultimate experience? Is it driving a well-stocked 4x4 down the tracks, parking up where other people might pass, telling friends and family where you are, putting the steaks on the barbecue and opening a few beers, taking a radio, maps, a decent hunting rifle, all the paraphernalia that modern society can provide? Or is it something else? I think Chris McCandless wanted this ultimate experience on his own terms. It meant he had to put his life in danger, and this led him to ignore advice and to take more risks than he needed to. For the experience to be real there had to be a significant risk of death. This meant no comforts, no easy escape routes. And it meant he really could die.
Was Chris' behaviour just a proxy for some kind of long drawn out suicide? I don't think so. He accepted the risk of death, even embraced it. Perhaps death would be the ultimate 'I told you so', but true success would involve surviving the experience; and at the end he was hoping for rescue. If he had a better map, better local knowledge, better understanding of what foods to eat, maybe the outcome would have been different. If...
This book inspired me to try to engage more with nature, but not to try to do what Chris McCandless did.

10 people found this helpful

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