#Into the wild book rating series#

He does not court danger but rather stumbles across it - thrillingly and then fatally - on the road to joy. Penn understands him (and as he is portrayed, with unforced charm and brisk intelligence, by Emile Hirsch), Chris is at once a troubled, impulsive boy and a brave and dedicated spiritual pilgrim. Some of this exuberance comes from Christopher Johnson McCandless, the young adventurer whose footloose life and gruesome fate were the subject of Mr. It is infused with an expansive, almost giddy sense of possibility, and it communicates a pure, unaffected delight in open spaces, fresh air and bright sunshine.

But though the filmвЂ™s structure may be tragic, its spirit is anything but.

#Into the wild book rating series#

The story begins with an unhappy family, proceeds through a series of encounters with the lonely and the lost, and ends in a senseless, premature death. The book was also adapted into the 2007 film of the same name by writer and director Sean Penn.There is plenty of sorrow to be found in вЂњInto the Wild,вЂќ Sean PennвЂ™s adaptation of the nonfiction bestseller by Jon Krakauer. GOODBYE AND MAY GOD BLESS ALL.вЂќ вЂњInto the WildвЂќ can be bought through most book retailers and is frequently reprinted. IвЂ™m working constantly, worried about life after school, trying to build up a resume thatвЂ™ll set me apart and a nest egg in case there arenвЂ™t any jobs.ДЄt what point do I take a risk and step off вЂњinto the wilderness?вЂќ And if IвЂ™m brave enough to do so, will I be a fool, a hero or happy? This is the challenge posed by McCandless, his last message scrawled in capital, block letters to the world before he succumbed to starvation: вЂњI HAVE HAD A HAPPY LIFE AND THANK THE LORD. IвЂ™ve done maybe four reckless things in my life, but almost everything I do is calculated. But now as a senior in college, I have to wonder where the McCandless is in me.

I understood, to some degree, wanting to step off into the wild and not look back. When I first read the book in high school, McCandlessвЂ™s story entranced me. The book leaves it up to the reader to decide if McCandless was an idealistic fool or a hero and if his death was his fault or bad luck. He also uses it to apologize for his younger self who stubbornly rejected his own family and would often leave behind everything for the sake of adventure, feeling in his freedom вЂњ world.suddenly rich with possibility.вЂќ Krakaeur uses the book to partially apologize for the first article he wrote about McCandless, which readers took as an excuse to make assumptions about him, calling him a naive dreamer and an arrogant, heartless fool. These and passages from authors like Henry Thorough and Jack London make up epigraphs for each chapter, comparing McCandlessвЂ™s ideals to great American authors of the frontier. The notes left by McCandless in his last hundred days as well as highlighted passages and remembered conversations paint him as hating the injustice of the world and being enchanted by nature. All of them remember McCandless fondly but canвЂ™t understand why he abandoned his family and promising career to become a vagrant. These strangers range from people who gave him a lift to people who thought of him as a son. Krakauer balances quotes from strangers citing McCandlessвЂ™s sharp wit and his tendency to either scorn the company of others or be the life of the party. It also follows his final journey after college, hitchhiking up and down the Pacific coast, then to North Dakota, ending with his death a year after graduation, 24 years old and emaciated in an abandoned bus in the Alaskan wilderness. вЂњInto the Wild'' plots McCandlessвЂ™ journeys from his well-to-do family in Virginia to wandering the deserts of the American Southwest after his high school graduation. It was one of those books I was forced to read in high school but couldnвЂ™t help picking up again as I started to feel trapped by the grinding cycle of school and work. Over the last couple weeks, IвЂ™ve been revisiting John KrakauerвЂ™s 1997 book вЂњInto the Wild,вЂќ a memoir of Christopher McCandless, or as he called himself, Alexander Supertramp.