••• Chispas y Resplandores •••

I wrote this originally for class a few years ago but I felt I have to share it given the number of “Into the Wild” themed posts I’ve been seeing.

It is interesting how two different people can approach the same thing. Many will read this book and take away a great sense of profundity and enlightenment, and many do, judging by the critical acclaim and “National Bestseller” status to which this book belongs; but I come away with boredom, and an unfortunate dislike for John Krakauer. It is of course important to note the vast amount of work and time he invested in this story, and he deserves praise for his efforts and determination. However, despite the amount of work put in, I think John Krakauer became obsessed with Chris McCandless’s story, and because of his obsession and drive to learn the truth, wasted a great deal of time.
On its back cover, the San Francisco Chronicle is cited describing the book as “compelling and tragic;” unfortunately for me, the book was most certainly not compelling. While throughout the story it is difficult to understand the intentions of McCandless (other than simply running away from everything), but it is even more baffling that Krakauer took such an interest. Truthfully, the reason I dislike this book is that Krakauer, an exceptionally talented author who scaled Mount Everest and recounted it in Into Thin Air, took McCandless’s story in the wrong direction and took from it personally the wrong thing. While Krakauer attempts throughout to suggest the fascination held by all who Chris met, and the “message” Chris was trying to send, truly all I took from the story was the knowledge that someone unhappy with a life laid out on a silver platter, continuously ran away from everything including civilization until he found himself amongst the wild, full of pretention, only to want to return to society when it was too late and died from vigorous stupidity. McCandless’s attitude and feelings of superiority show in many ways from his cockiness and the reactions he gets from those he meets in his travels, but most of all, McCandless’s pure pompousness shows in his new moniker, Alex Supertramp, and the identity belonging to it which he assumed for everyone he met along his way; leaving notes for everyone as “Alex” and using the identity as a vehicle for his thoughts on rambling and life.
I’m sure that many people with a life like Chris’s (before his journey) where everything is laid out, a clear and bright future to a young and smart individual. And I’m sure that many of those people are unhappy to the point of seeking a drastic change. And I’m sure that a book about such a person would be interesting if the ending was not an unfortunate and useless death. One might argue that Chris was going somewhere (implying that he had a destination – either mentally or geographically) but this is not the case, when you run away from something only to run away more, you don’t have a destination. Continuously running away from something is exactly the same as going absolutely nowhere.
McCandless’s less than poetic death is perhaps the only thing noted by Krakauer in the light it was meant to be seen in, unfortunate but avoidable. In a desperate and senseless plea for help, McCandless scrawls an S.O.S. in the bus for a the chance passing hiker, “I need your help. I am injured, near death, and too weak to hike out of here. I am all alone, this is no joke. In the name of god, please remain to save me” (Krakauer 198). Krakauer goes on to question why McCandless didn’t start a signal fire. However, in addition to questioning his actions towards saving his own life, Krakauer notes that the SOS is signed in his real name, and not on McCandless’s assumed name “Alex Supertramp.” This paints an interesting picture: our “hero” who throughout this story was remarkable, curious, determined, and beloved, finally becomes human, and realizes only too late that he has dug into a hole from which he cannot climb out.
I do think his journey is remarkable, and I do believe he really was the way he is described, but Chris McCandless to me is not worth the time put in by the author. Rambling can make a good story, even if the protagonist doesn’t get where he meant to, but takes from his travels something more for his life. Leaving civilization can make a good story, even if the protagonist dies in his new efforts for survival. But McCandless did not gain anything from his rambling, and did not change his way of life amongst his escape, and in my eyes, his efforts appear half-hearted, and because of this, I feel no sympathy for his death and no interest in his story.