by Jon Krakauer
I have to admit that when this movie was released three years I didn't pay attention. But, I picked up this book and instantly recognized the title. I know the movie had received a lot of recognition; it was nominated at the Academy Awards and won several foreign film festival awards. The cover right away tells you how the story ends, Chris McCandless dies in the Alaska wilderness. But his story is captivating.
I started the book this morning and finished it tonight. It's a relatively small book at 203 pages but it will definitely hold your attention from cover to cover.
The story starts with Chris hitchhiking out of Fairbanks, Alaska. The story commences with continuous flashbacks depicting Chris's journey from his upper middle class home in Virginia to his college in Atlanta to his hitchhiking saga across America. Chris makes many friends throughout his journey, all of them ask him to keep in touch; many ask him to reconsider his final decision. Chris's final decision is his great Alaskan journey, he wants to hike into the Alaskan wilderness and live off the land. Chris abhors civilization's "poison" and as an avid reader of Thoreau and Jack London, Chris feels as though he needs to fight a "...climactic battle to kill the false being within and victoriously conclude the spiritual revolution."
There are several chapters devoted to the author's identification with Chris and the author's journey to Alaska to visit the place where Chris McCandless died. You don't have to be a climbing aficionado to appreciate the struggles of the climbers, I don't like wilderness movies or books but I highly enjoyed this story.
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