My impression of the book is that it is very detailed. Krakauer can go on and on explaining somewhere McCandless traveled to or something McCandless did without it being necessary. For example, on page 25 and 26, he goes into great detail about the Arctomecon californica wildflower. The flower was not really relevant to McCandless, therefore, the long description was not needed. This could make reading the passages a little confusing. Into the Wild is worth reading because it tells the story of a young man who had everything and gave it up to experience nature. This could teach you a positive or negative lesson depending on which way you look at it. The negative approach/lesson would be if you are planning on going into the wilderness alone, take more than a small gun and rice with you because nature isn’t always nice. The opposite view would be to go out and connect with nature and stop getting caught up in the social world. The theme of the true story is, nature is a beautiful thing that we should all connect with before we die, but we need to be careful while venturing through it because it can be harsh. This is a good book because first off it gives you information on the Alaskan wild and types of plants and animals around the area. The second reason is Into the Wild teaches you to be smart when going off by yourself into an unknown territory.
Personally, I believe Christopher McCandless was dumb and not knowledgeable for many reasons. First, he had a great life. Chris was smart, athletic, and on his way to law school with his parents paying every step of the way. For some odd reason he hated his mom and especially his dad when they were willing to dish out money for him left and right. Second, he traveled into an unknown land with just books, a small gun, and many pounds of rice. If you are going to carry anything on your back it should be food, water, and clothing. For what reason he did not do this, we will never know. Finally, he was dumb because he left a perfectly fine lifestyle to live in nature where it was a great possibility he could die, and he obviously did. I do agree with his critics. In the article “Cult of Chris McCandless”, Medred says, “He needed help.” I don’t know if I’d go that far, but I definitely think something was wrong with him. Others say “he was deeply out of his element” and “he was unprepared”. I completely agree because he came with hardly any supplies to survive in the wilderness and obviously didn’t know his way around or how to live off of nature. In chapter 8 entitled “Alaska”, his critics say he is a “nut”, “there is nothing positive at all about Chris McCandless”, he was “lucky”, “hit bottom in Alaska”, and “have no sympathy for him”. All of these critics are quite harsh but I agree with them once again. McCandless was a “nut” for traveling into the wild without much knowledge on how to live out there and giving up his great life. I, like one of his many negative observers, have no sympathy for him. He put himself in that situation and did not have to give up everything to live off the land. Chris had the chance to leave and go back to civilization if he wished. Why have sympathy for someone who made choices on their own that impacted themselves negatively?
