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List Price: $13.95Amazon.com's Price: $11.16 You Save: $2.79 (20%)Prices subject to change.
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Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 917.98045
EAN: 9780385486804
ISBN: 0385486804
Label: Anchor
Manufacturer: Anchor
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 224
Publication Date: January 20, 1997
Publisher: Anchor
Release Date: January 20, 1997
Studio: Anchor
Sales Rank: 2261
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Editorial Review:
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 his cash. 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 said to 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.
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't—cannot—answer 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.
Average Rating: 
Rating: -
Krakauer, with his experience of extreme adventures and good understanding of psychology, has done an excellent work of investigation.
Methodically, he allows the reader to better understand this tragic story, clearing alongside McCandless of foolishness and irresponsibility suspicions. He highlights the intelligence and deep determination of an unusual person.
This story just keep triggering questions like "would the kid have been able to clear his psychological issues ... Read More
Rating:  -
"What a waste." That's how I must sum up my reaction to the death of Chris McCandless from starvation, after he found himself unable to walk out of the Alaskan bush once he'd decided it was time to return to civilization. McCandless - or "Alexander Supertramp," as he preferred being called - walked into the bush in April, determined to experience living off the land in total isolation. By that time he'd been out of contact with his family for two years. Yet he died inside the sleeping bag his mother ... Read More
Rating: -
Just finished this one. I think there is something in all of us that wants to get in touch with the great big world outside, a hunger, a keening...and it's especially true with US corporate types challenged to find the balance. While Alex McCandless embraced this search early in his life before he had other responsibilities, and he was reckless about it, the picture here is one of a man who - by looking inward - comes to terms with his need for external relationships. The book was recommended to me ... Read More
Rating: -
I saw the movie before I read the book. Having read "Into Thin Air" before reading "Into the Wild", I was already a big fan of Jon Krakauer. "Into the Wild" did not disappoint. If you have a wandering spirit, this book will inspire you. In our current fallen culture, the fact that there are still those who are willing to venture out on their own personal "vision quests" is reassuring to me. Thank God we still have a few who maintain the warrior spirit in a culture full of couch potatoes and X-Box athletes.
Rating: -
I purchased this book after watching the movie and, believe me, the book was just as haunting as the movie. The book is written exceptionally well and I found this book difficult to put down. Naturally, I read the book in three days. However, there were parts of the book which did not belong.
Krakauer's narratives of others who went into the desert, and especially Krakuaer's own narratives of his personal exploits did not belong in the book. His narratives quickly disrupted the natural flow of the ... Read More
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