Having read Jon Krakauer's Into the Wild shortly after it appeared in paperback made me wonder how well the book would translate into a film. So I watched the movie last night with a positive report for you. The movie, while far from perfect, does aid in understanding Chris McCandless' foolish journey to his death. My comments, however, are more about McCandless than the movie or the book. I sympathize with McCandless' urge to "find" himself in the wilderness, to lose the noise and baggage from his upbringing. That in itself is not a bad thing, one could argue it is a virtue of wilderness and a cogent reason for preserving such places. However, trying to understand your own identity and solving deep problems is best done in some form of community. Young Chris, much like Holden Caulfield, saw his life and his society as lacking authenticity and sought to avoid it and purge its influence by fleeing to the Alaskan wild. That is what killed him however. Had h...
A humble blog of tragic proportions