Spurred by Jon Krakauer’s visit this past Wednesday, we revisited his first book, “Into the Wild.” The novel could almost be considered clichéd in its extreme popularity on the Colorado College campus. It is a story of independence and hope and delusion, all within the pursuit of finding one’s self. Krakauer follows the tragic tale of Christopher McCandless, a young man who decides to sell or abandon most of his possessions and venture out into the Alaskan wilderness. McCandless abandons society and tries to find himself through isolation in nature. Of course, that also means he abandons his family and the people who care about him, including the men and women that he met on his journey.
He makes some fatal mistakes that lead to his untimely death. There are many things that he doesn’t know about the weather, or how to preserve and gather food in the wilderness. He ultimately dies of starvation after a failed attempt to leave his camp in Alaska. Krakauer tells the story of McCandless with clarity and detail that must have come from extensive research. Through interviews with the people that surrounded McCandless, the portrait of a young man is shaped. He seems idealistic, conflicted about his place in this world, and in possession of very strong morals. But he also seems somewhat delusional. McCandless famously went into the Alaskan wilderness without a map, which was one of the factors that contributed to his death. When he first tried to leave Alaska in the summer, he found the river he had previously crossed to be too swift and strong to traverse.
Krakauer paints McCandless as a complex figure, with characteristics people can relate to or reject. In this way, he is an extremely polarizing figure. When thinking about the novel, we wonder why this story is read over and over again. It still has a lot of relevance now; Krakauer recently wrote a follow up article about the plants that McCandless ingested in his final days, which was published in the New Yorker. Especially among CC students, a group of people who place a lot of weight on outdoor experience, the story seems to be particularly poignant. Is it that we relate to the alternative lifestyle he chose? Do we align ourselves with his strict moral compass? Do we too want to foray into the wilderness and leave behind our responsibilities?
Often, when talking about “Into the Wild,” Christopher McCandless’s idealism is celebrated. I think there is importance to that. On one level, he was a young man with a vision. He pursued his dream relentlessly, and unfortunately that led to his death. But his commitment to fulfilling his dream could be considered admirable. On the other hand, he was a young man who underestimated the power of the wild and failed to consider his own dependence on the society that he fought so hard to reject.
It is a story fraught with contradictions and complexities, which is why we think it is so compelling. For the CC student, it is definitely a text to consider reading if you haven’t already. And if you have, maybe it is worth revisiting to see if your opinion changes.
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