This was the August book that my long-distance book club chose. The theme we based our choice on, in the spirit of back to school, was “books that are on high school book lists that you never read.” And to be perfectly transparent, I was not overly into reading this one. When it won the vote, I went into it with the least excitement I have had for a book with this club so far. But that’s part of the charm of book clubs, right? To get to you try books that you wouldn’t necessarily pick up on your own.

Into the Wild is a nonfiction account of the life of Chris McCandless, who, at 22 years old, gave away his savings, abandoned his family and belongings, and set off into the world to create a new person of himself. This book uses a variety of sources, including interviews with people who he’d crossed paths with, letters he wrote to friends/family, and excerpts from journals he kept during his travels, to piece together what drove/inspired him to make that decision, the two years of his life on the road, and the last months of his life in the Alaskan wilderness…before he died of starvation.

To start, I need to give a couple caveats to this review. One, I am not really into nature writing. A Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson was probably the least favorite book I read in high school (by a long shot) and I never understood what the big deal was with Thoreau (like seriously, he just came across as a mooch who tried to escape life/responsibility and couched it as “self-discovery” and “nature philosophy”). So I am fairly pre-disposed to not sympathize with McCandless, who idolized and imitated Thoreau, and to judge this book harshly as a nature-writing piece. Just…personal background to give you an idea where I’m starting from.

“It is impossible to know what murky convergence of chromosomal matter, parent-child dynamics, and alignment of the cosmos was responsible…”

However, all that being said, and all my misgivings about the book from the start, I have to say that I was pleasantly surprised by this reading experience. It was a quick read, which helped, and I did skim though a number of the longer descriptions of nature. (This makes me feel bad to say…I don’t hate nature, I would just rather go for a walk in it than read about it. And I’ve never been into extreme outdoor activities, so I just don’t have the mindset to understand the call of climbing mountains and living off land that could kill you at any second.) Krakauer is clearly a skilled writer and his own love of nature and experience with researching and writing nonfiction accounts in a clear and engaging way comes through strongly. I liked the weaving in and out of the story in a non-temporally-linear fashion. It kept things more interesting to jump back and forth between McCandless’ past, his family’s histories, his travels preceding the doomed Alaskan adventure and the Alaska time itself. I also like how even-keeled the story was. I felt that Krakauer did a great job presenting both a defense of McCandless as an inexperienced youth and a reasonable critique of some of his greatest fails/delusions. This was particularly well done when compared to others with similar tales, including his own personal one. He noted that some of the differences came down to luck – that he survived and McCandless didn’t is not proof that either was better or worse prepared, it just proves that nature is fickle and unpredictable. And no one would be knocking McCandless’ decisions if he hadn’t died. But at the same time, he does list through the lack of preparations that, had he taken, might have saved McCandless’ life.

“It is easy, when you are young, to believe that what you desire is no less than what you deserve…”

I can also see why this is a story that is assigned to high schoolers. There is a clear and easy discussion evoked by McCandless’ life about the perceived invincibility of the young. The fact that he had survived difficult and dangerous situations in the past should not have served as conclusive proof that he could do so again. And though he did do a good amount of preparation prior to setting out in Alaska, there was still much more that he overlooked or dismissed out of hubris. Someone commented to me that when they read this in high school, they remember the group being split between being sorry for McCandless and thinking he achieved exactly what he set out to. Honestly, that’s fascinating to me because neither of those are what I would have said (or would still say). I really cannot fathom the amount of self-involvement that would lead to something like this – abandoning family and friends completely, with little to no communication shows, to me, such a lack of respect for those people that helped him along the way. From his parents to the people that provided for him in his travels (which essentially amounts to him being a mooch - hello Thoreau). I feel like you can easily explore/commune with nature, live removed from people, etc. but do so in a way that is not so…privileged. So many people would give anything to have what he left behind, and though I’m not saying that’s a reason to stay in a situation that doesn’t make you happy, I just think there are so many better ways to handle it. Plus, so much of what others gave him came from the fact that he appeared clean cut and was intelligent (despite all the clear judgement/condescension that he spit out at everyone who didn’t live as he felt we all should – o hypocritical, because the ability to choose one’s own path in life is exactly what caused him to rail against his family/life in the first place). But I guess that’s me saying this as a mostly adjusted almost-30-year-old…perhaps I would have felt differently as an impulsive young adult, whose brain was still developing. Also, just based on reading this, McCandless’ extreme views, black and white opinions, and up and down attitudes and need for aloneness/companionship really scream “he could have used a therapist/counselor” and where were his parents/teachers? He could really have used guidance in regards to healthier coping mechanisms and a chance to talk through some of his feelings about his family.

Anyways, that mostly is just me railing about the McCandless’ decisions and story, which obviously is true and unchangeable. And I guess is not really a fair way to judge the book itself. So to end, I’ll get back to that actual point. Despite my skepticism of this book, and my clear judgement of McCandless, Krakauer wrote this tale in such a way that I was much more engrossed than I had planned on/wanted to be. So credit where credit is due. If you are into nature writing, natural philosophy (or really any kind of philosophical introspection), self-discovery or real life “mysteries” I think this would be a great book choice. If you aren’t – it’s still not a bad read. And I would definitely pay a little to be a fly on a wall in a high school classroom while students discussed this novel – I’d love to hear their actual thoughts and see how their POVs differ from mine.