Troubles and Triumphs

Jon Krakauer’s Into the Wild detailed the life and death of Chris McCandless; a young man who decided to radically change the way he was living to invent a new life for himself. Just after graduating from College McCandless donated $25,000 in savings to charity, burnt his remaining money, abandoned his car as well as most of his worldly possessions and began a new life. McCandless hitchhiked around the United States, and in doing so, he decided he would embark on an adventure; living out in the Alaskan bush for several months all alone. In leaving home, McCandless became totally disconnected from his family and his past. One day he just packed up and left without telling anyone. Chris totally changed his identity, calling himself Alexander Supertramp, and set out on his adventure.

John Krakauer was able to collect a great deal about the life of Chris McCandless through Chris’s diary, letters Chris wrote, and talking to the people Chris met along his journey. It is amazing how much insight into McCandless’s life was uncovered. Krakauer simply lays out the details he’s discovered of McCandless’s life for the reader to interpret. He allows the reader to take away what ever life lessons they want to from the troubles and triumphs of McCandless. That being said, Krakauer was quite emphatic when it came to information about McCandless’s views of society. McCandless felt that our society was too sheltered and that people were living dull and unhappy existences that could be different with a radical change in lifestyle.

Jon Krakauer does an excellent job of putting you in the mindset of McCandless, an idealistic youth seeking the meaning and beauty of life through the raw allure of nature. Krakauer definitely does Chris McCandless’s life justice in expressing the energy of a tangled soul pointed north. Krakauer also compares McCandless to several other men who have lost their lives in similar accidents in the Alaskan wilderness. Krakauer jumps back and forth from early in McCandless’s life to the end of his life throughout the book. In doing this the book can sometimes seem confusing. Also Krakauer sometimes goes to great depths to describe some things that he may not have needed to talk so much about. Other than those few points, my view of the book is that it is very well written and always kept me entertained.

Into the Wild is arguably one of the most famous contemporary non fiction biographical nature novels out there. This is definitely for good reason. The Motion Picture adaptation of the book became extremely popular, thus, popularising the book even more. Chris’s story is definitely one that is inspiring to the masses. Being free of the chains of society, taking hold of your life without any limits or boundaries and making the most of each day, being one with the world we live in and in harmony with the land. It isn’t a surprise why Chris’s story became so famous.

Be careful when you fist pump

"Alaskan hunters know the easiest way to preserve meat in the bush is to slice it into think strips and then air-dry it on a makeshift rack. But McCandless, in his naiveté, relied on the advice of hunters he'd consulted in South Dakota who advised him to smoke his meat, not an easy task under the circumstances."

This passage was taken from John Krakauers Into the Wild. Upon reading about how Chris lost the majority of the meat due to the fact that he did not know how to cook it properly, it reminded me of a man Krakauer compared chris too. It was Carl McCunn, an amateur photographer, who got  man to fly him out into the woods where he would live for the summer. The problem was McCunn did not arrange for a flight back. Running out of food at the end of the summer and growing hungrier with every day, McCunn was in serious need of some help. He heard a plane come over head and waved a bright orange sleeping bag. The plane spotted McCunn but when he raised on arm in the air in celebration, the pilot assumed he was alright and left. McCunn later looked on the back of his gun license where it said two arms up if you are in distress and one if you are alright. Both men had the chance at salvation. McCunn a trip out of the wilderness and McCandless more than enough meat to last him for many meals. Even though McCandless died from the mould in the way he stored his berries, this would have strengthened him enough so that he could have made it out of the wild alive. The men were so wrapped up in the idealistic view of the wild that they missed it's harsh reality. 

The wild bit back

"Same story: idealistic, energetic young guys who overestimated themselves, underestimated the country, and ended up in trouble."(P.71)

This is a quote taken from John Krakauer's Into the Wild. Chris McCandless, a drifter that travelled into the Alaskan wilderness, was not a terrible unique case. Krakauer gives many examples of young and old men that are under-prepared and have an idealistic view of Alaska. Edward Hogland wrote that Americans have a tradition of "taking their wounds to the wilderness for a cure" and "if your wounds aren't too bad, it works. But this isn't Michigan. This is Alaska." This quote fits perfectly with the Chris's story. Chris wouldn't even acknowledge that he had parents to a lot of people because of his childhood. Chris turned to the call of the wild as a way to heal his wounds but the wild ended up biting back and taking his life.

Suck the juices out of life Mr. Franz

"It is simply waiting out there for you to grasp it, and all you have to do is reach for it."p.58

This quote was taken from John Krakauer's Into the Wild. This quote was taken from a letter by Chris McCandless to Robert Franz. McCandless was a drifter, out to see the raw appeal of nature, and thought that Robert Franz was living a stale and dull existence. Robert Franz was an older man that saw Chris hitchhiking on the side of the road and decided to give him a lift. McCandless and Frans immediately had a connection and became friends. Chris McCandless had a goal, that goal was to go on a great Alaskan adventure, and to live in the wild for several months. When he made it to Alaska he sent his final letter to Robert Franz. It told Franz he needed rethink the way he lived. He had the same old routine, day after day, and McCandless thought he could break free of this lifestyle. He thought Franz should "loose his inclination for momentous security"p.57 and he would truly suck the juices out of life and live to the fullest.

Assignment 2

"I'm not saying that there's nothing new in literature: i'm saying that everything is new and yet recognizably the same kind of thing as the old" 

I found this interpretation of the course of literature quite intriguing. Fry boldly states that literature is just a repetition of the same ideas in a different form. That every thing has been done in the literary world, now things can only change form, but they retain the same basic message. It seems like a very doom and gloom analysis. I disagree with this statement because of several things. This is a severe generalization, "the same kind of thing as the old". Also no two story's are exactly the same, it's the small details that make a story truly special. It's the little details that stick in your mind and occasionally pop into your head that makes a good story a great one. He can't just say there different but there the same because they aren't the same. Two fingerprints are not the same, they have a similar shape, texture, colour, but no two prints are identical. Northrope Fry has a lot of great ideas and insights that are fascinating, but this is not one of them.

Assignment 1

”Is it possible that literature, especially poetry, is something that a scientific civilization like ours will eventually outgrow?” (p.11)

In this quote Northrop Frye is posing the question; will our scientific civilization outgrow poetry and literature. He follows up the question by discussing ancient legends of men in flight, how they could only imagine such things, but now it is a reality. He also asks “do we need such stories now that we have airplanes”. I think it is human nature to push the boundaries of possibility, but I also think the mass of civilization will outgrow literature as a medium of conveying stories and poetry. The new age where video and television is so readily accessible, and as the art of filmmaking improves, reading as a way to convey a story will, and already has started to, slip away into history. Even if literature disappears, the thinkers and dreamers will always find a way of telling there story, whether it’s through film or music. The medium may be outgrown, the paper tossed aside, but the dreamers and thinkers will live on.