Tuesday, April 27, 2021

Into the wild, by Jon Krakauer

 

I really enjoyed this book, although it's a very sad account of Chris McCandless' trek into the Alaskan wilderness and ultimate death. Author Jon Krakauer tries to make some sense of Chris' decision to spend the summer by himself in Alaska, but in the end, everyone is just guessing about his motivations. What is known is that Chris gave away all of his money after he graduated from Emory University, and took off on a two-year odyssey around the country, mostly in the west. He abandoned his car after a few months, and hitchhiked the rest of the way, working odd jobs to earn enough cash for the next leg of the journey. There isn't much that's known about these last two years of Chris' life, but the outlines have been pieced together by his diary, postcards that he sent to people he met along the way, and interviews. Krakauer bolsters these thin pickings with chapters that compare Chris' exploits with similar happenings in the past and with his own solo trek to climb Devils Thumb, a mountain in Alaska. It's a compelling story that left me with a lot of questions.

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