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Rating: There are those who stick a brick of lighter fluid inside. Then, in sequence, various shards fall into the stony esophagus which lazily and with difficulty catch fire, coughing and spitting smoke. As for me, 5 or 6 small sticks suffice. A fuse made from a page of a newspaper and then 4 pieces of wood carefully broken so that the tender wooden heart is right there, at the direct mercy of the still timid flames. I watch the fire gain strength and enjoy the reassuring crackle, while I sit on the armchair and rest my feet on the stove. After 5 hours, interspersed with a few breaks, the slippers barely manage not to burn my feet and “Into the Wild” by Jon Krakauer is finished.
The story, most likely, was unknown to many until about 3 years ago; but with Sean Penn’s recent and successful film, the name of Chris (“Alexander Supertramp”) McCandless is now on everyone's lips. From the very first pages, the author tells us how the adventure ends; thus, making it clear from the start that the sad ending is not the essential part of the book. In retrospect, the film should have reflected this chronological structure as well, but perhaps it wouldn’t have met Hollywood criteria. What the author wants to tell us is what drove Chris to disappear, change his name, donate his savings ($24,000) to charity and reject the expectation of a rosy and comfortable future. Krakauer paints him as a sharp, brilliant young man, a lover of life and fully aware of the enormous dangers he was facing.
PARTIAL CRITIQUE
It's important to note that the angle of the book is absolutely partial. We quickly understand the author's point of view who, chapter after chapter, justifies the protagonist's behavior. One even sees oneself in it, when barely twenty, he spent 20 freezing days challenging life and the fearsome Devils Thumb and its icy wall to satisfy what he calls “need to feel free.” For this reason, for his tumultuous past, he believes he has the right lens prescription and is thus suitable to guide us in explaining what seems to be an entirely senseless death: gratuitous and predictable.
To avoid the major mistake of delivering a certainly powerful, dense, and exciting work that is at the same time unbalanced and biased, Krakauer intelligently balances the whole by giving much space to elements of dissent and strong criticism that were expressed in the U.S.A. immediately after news of the boy’s death came out. Hard reflections on the dubious sense of this whole romantic, useless, and obsessive search for emotion and the extreme, on the protagonist’s stupidity mixed with arrogance, on the lack of preparation and the fact that he literally threw away a life and acted selfishly, causing indescribable pain to his loving family.
DEATH IN SEARCH OF LIFE
The author’s approach suggests that McCandless died while trying to find a goal that could finally make him live. The reasons he perished were not due to underestimating the environment. Before leaving for his adventure, he had behind him an incredible journey to the south: he had reached the Gulf of Mexico by canoe and survived for a month carrying only a handful of rice kilograms as provisions. In short, he managed it admirably, even losing 15 kilos. Before the adventure in the great North, he had learned to endure hunger, to hunt, had been taught how to smoke meat, and had read several botany books. He thus managed to survive in a forest for over 90 days feeding on game, roots, and berries. He deliberately didn’t bring various equipment deemed essential in that environment because the test he had in mind had to be extreme, but he almost succeeded in his endeavor.
Other people in history had embarked on similar adventures with identical outcomes. The book is therefore full of classic quotations, notably featuring London, and attempts by other vagabonds. People who have gone in search of a real contact with nature, for a solitary life without certainties and facilitations, rejecting the modern life's routine to return to a pure and primitive existence. However, each story is particular and cannot, in my opinion, be compared to each other: especially not McCandless's with those of the '800 and early '900. In 1992, after all, even the Alaska where Chris ventured wasn’t as pristine, pure, and wild as he would have wanted. He lived for 4 months in a disused bus (not a cave) and “just” 20 km away there were cabins and a road. To completely isolate himself, he had to deliberately deprive himself of a map (the real element that cost him his life), to pretend that a world of the past still existed.
WHY?
Why all this? We can imagine that after a life of constraints from his family, he had dreamed for years of the great north and his Adventure. He loved life, but perhaps could not accept a sedentary one before fulfilling the goal he had set for himself. Deep down, all of us have one and we know well what it is, even if we often don’t say it. Only after Alaska, Chris might have been willing to “settle down,” after experiencing the thrill of a primitive life and proving to himself to be self-sufficient and free in every way. This is the author's conclusion, supported by diary excerpts, analogies with the past, and interviews with family and acquaintances. However, Krakauer’s are just hypotheses, very well constructed and presented, which remain as such.
Such an enigmatic personality, so damn double-faced, capable of being histrionic and having a magnetic effect on people, only to quickly close himself off and consciously isolate himself, cannot be deciphered. He was capable of silently nurturing this journey for years, feigning happiness at the end of High School only to run away immediately afterward without his parents having the slightest understanding of his true intentions. They believed, on the contrary, that he had finally found the right balance after graduation. What went through Chris “Alexander's” mind no one can really know, and if one believes so, in my opinion, they're somewhat arrogant and presumptuous.
Nevertheless, the book described is masterfully written, intense in its drama and exuberance, offering various insights; both for those who feel they have some remote affinity with the romantic character and for those who will shake their heads, devouring the pages incredulously and almost angrily. However you look at it, it's a story that deserves to be read (and preferably only afterwards seen) and will make you discuss and think.
ilfreddo
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