As I am often reminded by my friend Brandon’s frequent bits about The Bus, despite growing up in Alaska I had never read Krakauer’s Into the Wild. But I read Into Thin Air a few years ago and thought it was great, and I figured I should know one of the more famous stories about my home state. So I read Into the Wild. It was not as gripping as I expected, but still entertaining and I felt like I learned something about the author, who I respect. I’m glad I read it, especially because it is so famous, but wouldn’t place it among the top books I’ve read.
I was surprised to find that rather than just a recount of Chris McCandless’s foray, Into the Wild was also an exploration of family bonds and the (often irresponsible) itch for adventure that so many young men seem to have. Maybe a third of the book is not actually focused on McCandless’s story at all, rather discussing other characters in history—including Krakauer himself—who also ventured into the wilderness as a rather extreme mountaineer. While I appreciated these retellings, they felt somewhat disconnected and the analysis of this primal urge felt incomplete. This split focus is due, I suspect, at least in part to the dearth of information about what actually transpired while McCandless was in the interior.
It is clear that despite Krakauer’s extensive investigative work, many questions remain unanswered. Indeed, it seems that Into the Wild does not have much more information about McCandless’s life and escapades than the original Outside article Krakauer published just a few months after McCandless’s body was found. That he wrote the book at all, and especially the focus of the additional content of the book on McCandless’s upbringing and the effects McCandless’s disappearance and death had on his family, made it clear to me that Krakauer identified closely with McCandless and felt that he was himself driven by the same forces as McCandless. He seems to feel attached to McCandless especially in his relationship with his father—both following substantially in their father’s footsteps while rejecting them at the same time.
But the story Krakauer tells to demonstrate why he identifies with McCandless—his own story of irresponsibility—does not ring quite the same. He suggests that the main difference between his ascent of a new route up Devil’s Thumb in Southeast Alaska and McCandless’s stay in the bus is that Krakauer made it out alive. But Krakauer arranged to have enough food flown in, had researched his planned route, and even when he saw some mishaps seemed to always be thinking about his escape route. McCandless, on the other hand, brought no supplies and seemed to have hardly any consideration for his escape route should things go wrong (to be fair, McCandless was attempting a much less extreme adventure). Despite not being fully convinced of the parallels, this book felt to me like it was almost as much about Krakauer as it was about McCandless. Krakauer seems to have a great life, doing journalism about the outdoors, so I enjoyed learning more about his perspective.
If not for Krakauer’s sense of connection with McCandless, this story would likely not have been told. But any number of other minor changes would have also resulted in the story not being told—it is notable to me how close McCandless came to making it out from his jaunt into the woods and how close the rest of us came to never hearing a word about his escapades or his philosophy. If the circumstances had been slightly different—his seeds hadn’t gotten moldy, he’d ventured just a mile up or downstream, or even if he just lasted two more weeks until hikers arrived at the bus—he would have made it out alive and he would have just been another person doing something slightly crazy in Alaska. Instead, his philosophy and his trek into the wild is known by millions of Americans and, having inspired innumerable readers to connect with wilderness, even killed two attempted visitors and put countless more in danger before the bus was removed.
I have to admit that especially with the way that AI has managed to constantly fill a slice of my mind with dread over the past year or so, part of me feels the romantic draw of “tramping around”, seeing the world, and getting my hands dirty. But I think something like biking the California coast would be more my style—I don’t feel the need to go live in the woods. And if I ever do that, I’ll bring a map.
I really think Chris should have brought a map. Stuck it at the bottom of his pack and pretended it wasn’t there until the end, maybe, but he should have brought a map.