I picked up this book because I had seen the movie a few years back. It was a good movie. But the book, in addition to being far better, is a completely different experience altogether.
This
is a non-fiction account of a dangerously idealistic young man by the
name of Christopher McCandless who goes out into the wild (thus the
title) in order to find/redefine himself. He has an intense love affair
with nature while traveling across the country and forms the goal of
proving himself by living off the land in the wilds of Alaska. Like so
many others on similar life-altering quests his ultimately proves fatal
and despite getting a decent look at the person in the movie I was
ultimately left feeling the same emotions most of the individuals who
first read of the events felt: sadness and anger.
It was originally published in Outside magazine and the author, Jon Krakauer,
received a backlash of angry letters and missives expressing outrage at
the young boy's carelessness in taking on such a daunting outing
without any former training or experience. People called him stupid,
naive and woefully misguided for thinking he could survive and expressed
sentiments akin to "good riddance" as if he were a candidate for a Darwin Award.
While
I wasn't quite as angry as the readers of the article I was ultimately
dismissive at the end of the movie. I think it was a defense mechanism
protecting me from feeling too much sadness. I had no such defenses to
protect me from this book and the reason for that is because of the way
Krakauer peels away the layers of the story.
The first few chapters are rather straightforward and seem to be the primary source material for the movie. Krakauer
starts off with accounts from individuals who met the young man
throughout his travels- everyone from those who picked him up while he
was hitchhiking across country to those he formed rather close
relationships with while working spare jobs or staying put at different
locals for a while. He included all the letters, postcards and other
missives McCandless exchanged with these folks and every page of it is
deeply personal, almost intrusively so. It's one of the things that
makes the book so disarming.
But
more than that, it's clear that these people- each and every one of
them- was captivated by this young man. McCandless had a bigger impact
on their lives during the brief time they shared than so many
relationships we take for granted. Reading the things these people had
to say about him, the relationships they had with him, the deep hole
which he filled and then left empty makes one like the protagonist.
Perhaps that's why the first response is anger when remembering how the
story ends.
This
is one of many areas in which Krakauer's writing itself shines. Each
one of these individuals has enough details to make them real. He
doesn't write paragraphs describing any of them, he gives you a snapshot
of his meetings with them. An example would explain this better than I
can. In describing his interaction with an elderly gentleman who
became particularly fond of McCandless he writes:
"God,
he was a smart kid," the old man rasps in a barely audible voice. He
directs his gaze at a patch of sand between his feet as he makes this
declaration; then he stops talking. Bending swiftly from the waist, he
wipes some imaginary dirt from his pant leg. His ancient joints crack
loudly in the awkward silence."
Stunning, right?
Krakauer
then goes on to discuss why McCandless did what he did, and it's here
that the similarities between the book and the movie end. The movie
follows a linear timeline of McCandless beginning with his graduation
from college and departure out west and following him to his death in
the Alaskan wilderness. His journal entries are the main anchor for the
storyline and it gives the viewer a feeling like McCandless himself is
narrating. The book, on the other hand, begins with the account of a
man who picked McCandless up while hitchhiking into Alaska and then
jumps back in time to discuss how he got there. It's very clear that
Krakauer is the narrator and we connect with him as a journalist of
sorts who is trying to piece everything together. And while the movie
offers no explanation for McCandless' actions the book spends the bulk
of the narrative doing just that.
He
starts off with a sort-of sociological perspective looking at
McCandless side by side with other men who seemed to share his passion
and his fate. There are two accounts of men, at various points in time,
who also went out in the Alaska wilderness. One was a mountaineer who
seemed driven by a troubled relationship with his father and a need to
leave a larger legacy than he'd had. One was a man who seemed far too
simpleminded to make it as long as he did in life: a simple failure to
plan a pick-up led to his demise. The final case is the most striking
and it's clear that Krakauer planned it to be. It's the story of a
young man similar in age to McCandless who expressed the same ideals and
beliefs about how life is to be lived and left just as gaping a hole in
the lives of his family and those who knew him. As interesting as I
found all of this to be, it pales in comparison to the story of the
McCandless family themselves.
The
descriptions of Billie and Walt, the boys parents, and his sister,
Carine, are the most heartbreaking of the book. And nothing is sparred
in the narrative. Krakauer goes into great detail about his life
growing up, the observations those who knew him made, and the family
secret which ultimately drove him to sever all ties with his family.
The bravery these people display in allowing their lives to be laid bare
in this book is nothing short of astounding and it goes a long way to
explaining this boy's psyche and motivation for what he did.
There's another portion that I just have to share with you, it's too devastating and pure to leave out:
"As
she studies the pictures, she breaks down from time to time, weeping as
only a mother who has outlived a child can weep, betraying a sense of
loss so huge and irreparable that the mind balks at taking its measure.
Such bereavement, witnessed at close range, makes even the most
eloquent apologia for high-risk activities ring fatuous and hollow."
Like I said, Krakauer blew me away and I suspect I will be checking out some of his other works in the future.
The
last section of the book is Krakauer's personal story which he uses as a
parallel to explain McCandless' actions. Like McCandless, Krakauer
struggled in his relationship with his father and this turmoil led him,
he reflects, to perform a number of activities as a rebellion against
(but secretly desperate plea for) his father. Like McCandless, he is
enamored with nature and his particular method of experiencing it was by
climbing mountains. Like McCandless, this aspect of his personality
led him to Alaska where he attempted to scale the north face of a
mountain called the Devil's Thumb- an action that, like McCandless',
could have easily proved fatal.
Krakauer
dives into the details of his own personal experience on this mountain
as an explanation for the seemingly idiotic actions that so many
adolescents struggling to identify themselves as adults take. It isn't
cockiness, he explains, nor is it simple rebellion against all of the
people who may say that whatever foolhardy endeavor they've set out to
achieve is impossible. Instead, he recalls from his own experience, it
is a deep lack of understanding of the permanent nature of death and the
limitless effects that one's actions have on the world. I think it was
this portion of the book that I resonated with most. My teenage years,
thankfully, are long behind me but I admit that I had glimpses of the
overpowering emotions that I too experienced during that time in my
life. And his description of it, with his talent for wording, made me
appreciate that aspect of the protagonist's psyche on a much deeper
level than I had before.
Krakauer
states that he himself could have easily ended up just like McCandless
and in the end it was only luck that saved him. And he argues that it
was only a bad streak of the same amorphous influence that ultimately
killed McCandless.
There
were a lot of theories about what exactly caused McCandless to die-
some of which Krakauer himself originally posited. In the last chapter
he explains each of these one by one and then knocks each one of them
down with new research he uncovered after the publication of the
original article. I think it's here that Krakauer shows the depth of
his respect for the subject of his writing- his refusal to accept the
easy answer, his determination to look into every single aspect of his
death and his portrayal of himself as someone who could have just as
easily succumbed to the same fate all prove unequivocally that
McCandless was far more than just a story to Krakauer and I think that's
why in the end he is far more than just a story to us.
