U2isthebest said:
I completely agree on the letting his family know front. I think it would've been great if he had at least called before he left and said not to expect to hear from him for a long time. But I think it's unfair to criticize (not that I feel you have, I was thinking along the lines of the letter-writers who lambasted Chris, that Krakauer talks about in the book) and try to understand some of the things Chris did when he's not here to explain himself or give his side of things. He really struck me as a guy who just lived his life to the fullest without fear and just loved every minute of it. I think he could've done a lot of good in the world, especially on the social justice front, had he made it out. I agree with Krakauer's conjecture that Chris might have been planning to sort of reenter life and connect with people again. I doubt he ever would've lived a comfortably numb life in the suburbs, but I think he would be doing some incredible stuff. It's sad that we'll never know all he had to offer the world.
I just finished reading Into the Wild, and agree that the author (Krakauer) did a great job of piecing together McCandless' odyssey through collecting his countless interviews, and then presenting his account of events. I also loved the movie, especially Eddie Vedder's amazing music, and felt that it did well to capture the spirit of the guy.
For some reason though the book made me feel some pity for McCandless, whereas the movie makes it clear that despite the ultimately tragic ending, the journey was overwhelmingly fulfilling - the guy experienced more in those couple of years than most people do in their entire lifetimes. The book does give the same sense of joy in adventure, but balanced against that is the tragedy that McCandless had developed an overly-romanticised view of the wilderness experience due in part to the books that he'd read as well as his own disconnection from society. It seems that as much as anything he was enamoured of the
idea of himself as the hero Alex Supertramp coping in the Alaskan wilderness, living completely on his own terms, whereas the day to day reality of survival wasn't so grand. I think that he was also at a young age where the perception of issues in life can be overly simplified, but that's another matter...
It was good that Krakauer provided that more balanced view - while he went out of his way to rebuke the criticisms of those who'd flat-out written off McCandless as a naive and incompetent kid, he did support some points of those criticisms where they were warranted.
As for not contacting his family, I reckon that was a way of punishing them for perceived wrong-doings, at least in the case of his parents. And he knew that any contact with his sister would get back to his parents and relieve their worry - not what he wanted.
Completely agree that it was a loss of a life with so much potential. If only he'd pulled through that last leg of his adventure.. who knows what great positive things he would have achieved. And yeah you did get the sense that he would have been one of those people, those great free thinkers, who can use their formidable intellect and sense of morality to rise up and make the world a much better place. From that end, the story is very sad..
Anyway, I really enjoyed both the book and the movie.