WILDERNESS DIGEST
BOOK REVIEWS Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer. 1996. Anchor Books, Doubleday, New York 207 pp., $12.95 (paperback).* Many readers of this well-written and engaging book may recognize their own hidden impulses in this true story. In 1992 Christopher McCandless, immediately after graduating with honors from Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia, began his cross-country journey as a self-proclaimed “super tramp” and eventually headed “into the wild” north of Mt. McKinley Alaska, where he perished after a sixteen-week ordeal. But this is more than just a wilderness adventure that ends in tragedy. Author Jon Krakauer, expanding on his 9,000-word article in the January 1993 issue of Outside magazine, spent a year retracing McCandless’s steps, interviewing family, friends, and the acquaintances McCandless had met on his journeys. In the book he also recounts the ordeals of other similar adventurers and the allure of high-risk activities and wilderness on the American imagination. The problematic bonds between fathers and sons, and the subconscious impulses that influence one’s relationships and choices are also carefully woven into the tapestry of this rich story. The results of Krakauer’s painstaking detective work and reflection are both enlightening and disturbing. This book is hard to put down. You don’t have to be just a wilderness survival buff to like the story of McCandless’s wilderness ordeal while camped out in the abandoned Fairbanks Bus 142, with only a 22-caliber rifle and his own experience and judgment between him and an unforgiving and wild environment. At one moment, readers will find themselves sitting in judgment of youthful exuberance and risk-taking, as well as the call to adventure beyond the ordinary, to pushing the limits of safety and predictability, as our hero does. The next moment, they will feel mysteriously drawn to the inner as well as outer drama of this story. What makes this story so compelling is McCandless’s lust to connect with nature, ultimately driving him more toward solitude and self-reliance than a desire to be with people or to follow any conventional lifestyle. He was driven toward the pure, the extremes, toward independence such that he wouldn’t be disappointed nor would anyone have to rely on him. Where did this come from? Much of it seems rooted in parental relationships and based as much on rebellion against authority as idealism. The
evidence compiled by Krakauer indicates that everyone who met McCandless liked him and wanted to help him. We liked him too. He was kind, sensitive, and compassionate to others, and he was highly intelligent, resourceful, and well-read in classical and contemporary literature. He followed his dream. He put it on the line. I wish he had come back to tell his story in person. Why didn’t he? Did he want to die? I don’t think so. He just tested himself beyond the edge and couldn’t get back, though he tried. The lack of map and compass, the swollen rivers, inexperience, and poor judgment cost him his life. But that he made it for 113 days documents his resourcefulness. And rather than wallow in self-pity at the end, journal entries reveal his absolute joy and clarity as he moved closer to death. Chris McCandless’s story touches that place within us that yearns to find our own identity through some great venture. The attraction of danger—to climb the highest mountain, to run the treacherous river—touches universal truths; that is, to find one’s true self often requires placing one’s life on the line. Most young people, and many older people as well, feel the necessity to prove themselves in dangerous surroundings. Some resonating factor can be discovered in the lives of all the young men described in this book. Indeed, the human spirit may well resonate with the spirits of others who have gone a similar way in other times and other places, and this compelling idea is demonstrated by Chris McCandless. Though we may not have the desire to climb an ice cap or be dropped by helicopter to a remote place to live alone for an extended period of time, we who read this book have some yearnings also. There is something in all of us that needs to climb a symbolic mountain, to paint a beautiful picture, to be the best teacher, to truly discover what we are meant to do with our lives. If we recognize this urge, we no longer question whether a particular act is reasonable. We identify with McCandless. Those who don’t understand such passion will perhaps sit in judgment of McCandless’s search. *Reviewed by Marilyn Riley and Betty Warren, codirectors, Wilderness Transitions, Inc. E-mail: rile/mr@earthlink.
Aldo Leopold: A Fierce Green Fire (An Illustrated Biography) by Marybeth Lorbiecki. 1996. Falcon Publishing, Helena, Montana. 212 pp., $19.95 (hardcover).* Be prepared to find yourself thinking about the persistence, the tragedies, the successes, and the people in Rand Aldo Leopold’s life for many days after finishing this popular biography (you will also learn why the “Rand” was dropped from his
name at an early age). Most of us know that Aldo Leopold was the author of A Sand County Almanac (this name changed, also, before being published), but few of us know the personal story of how he came to write it. This biography is meant to focus on
THE IN TERNA TI ONAL J OU RNAL OF WILDERNESS Volume 4, Number 1
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