Into The Wild by Jon Krakauer

(my nails were lime green, hot pink and then nekiid by the time i finished this book.)

published: 1996

isbn: 0-385-48680-4

read from 4/22 - 5/11 - 2014

bah!!

i saw this book as i was leaving the library checking out another book.

the only reason i thought to grab this book was because i saw that it was the library's "lets discuss this..." of the month. (or whatever they call it!)

...i didnt make it to that group conversation.

i do know that its a movie.

a movie i never really cared to see and i never thought i would...but i did!, and right as i was at like the 15th page of the book. why? because i wanted to try out my theory.

movies before books dont break your heart as much. and i think that theory stands to be true.

i saw the movie and i liked it.

it was kind of straight to the point although it did have its missing parts but i feel that the book went on for a looong while!

as soon as i started reading it i was hooked but it got to parts that i dragged to read.

kay kay enough!

this is a true story about a young man name Charles McCandless whose desire was to leave to Alaska as soon as he graduated college without telling anyone.

he up and donates all of his money ($24,000) to a charity that is involved with feeding the less fortunate.

he packs all he needs into his Datsun (i think thats what it was) and takes off.

when you start reading the book, the author straight up says something along the lines "this is the story of a young man that dies 2 weeks in to his trip in to Alaska" (i say along the lines because i can't quote it...i returned the book already! sad face!)

Apparently though, he traveled quite a lot before hitting Alaska.

From California to Oregon to one of the M states (horrible memory i tell ya!) he was all over the place before he landed at Alaska.

Along the way he meets several people that try to convince him to stay but he's set on his ways and it doesnt matter the weather or time, theres nothing stopping him from getting there.

i dont really want to talk about each character individually but i will say that i believe, compared to the book, the movie did a really good job capturing its essence. in the book the author talks a lot about his life experiences as well as several other young men that like McCandless up and traveled with no regard for anything else other than the nature they surrounded themselves with.

what i find amazing is that, technically, he could have survived had he been smarter about it. i say smarter in the sense that he should have learned about where exactly he was going.

while he considered where he ended up the deep heavy heart of Alaska, he was actually far from it.

he was in a very remote area. accessible to a lot of hunters who usually head that way to hunt during winter.

several miles from him were several cabins that he could have gotten to even in the state that he was in towards his end. there was a cable car that could have helped him get to the other side of the river had he gone just a few more miles.

but i guess that's just it no? its all so simple that it looks like its not.

over all, i thought it was a good book.

i am leaving a lot of detail out but you can just watch the movie.

theres no need to read the book (never thought i'd say that) because for the most the movie covers it.

but just to cover the basics, his parents were influenced by money and he didnt like it.

Chris found out that his father had another family (of 6 kids!) and that he fathered another child while with his mother (even thought they werent legally married and she had been the other woman!) im guessing that's what drove him to be the way he was. his parents were abusive towards each other and he wasnt having that. he got along well with his sister but he was always a person to be by themselves.

in the book, at the end, his parents fly out to where he died in the bus. i really liked that part.

kind of like closure. i wish they would have put that in the movie.

its just crazy how all these people whose life he touched all gather to try to get something together to remember him by.

one thing you do get in the movie that's more thoroughly explained in the book is that he was not mentally unstable. he wasnt demented or crazy or anything.

of all the people the author talks about in the book, Chris (Alex Supertramp) seems to be one of the most stable. he just, i dont know. wanted to be alone.

and just to cover it, he does die. but i didnt say how.

the book of course goes into more detail than the movie. still the same death but it was later discovered how so more in depth.

overall, watch the movie.

woot woot!