Into the Wild. #BookReview20.

Hello World,

One of my most inspiring and enjoyable reads of 2016 is Into The Wild by Jon Krakauer. 

Jon Krakauer is a novelist, journalist and an active hiker (I believe my term is right). He was asked to write an article about this man who had died in an abandon bus out in Alaska. During his research Krakauer grew interested about this person and after he wrote the article he dove a little deeper into the man's life. Thus we learn of Chris Mccandless and what drove him into the Wild. 

Chris Mccandless was an interesting person to read about. I find it difficult to write about him when you have only a book and a film to go about. Krakauer, when he first wrote about Chris, had received a lot of voices about how stupid and foolish of Chris to enter Alaska with little equipment and food to survive. 
From what I have read Chris Mccandless had very strong ideas and opinions about the world he lived in and with help or inspiration from books he adored, it drove him to pack up and get rid of everything that reminded him of life he didn't agree with. He was always known by his families to go on long drives throughout the summer and live in his car, where he would hike or just generally see parts of America without any other people around. Chris sounds very introverted, but he loved to go out and explore the natural world around him.

I suppose what I found inspirational about Chris Mccandless was the confidence he had to escape the comforts of life. He knew that we all have accepted and have grown comfortable to live a life, where we work for a living, buy pretty things that we don't actually need, fall in love with someone, reproduce and then one day we will die. 
There is this sense of freedom I feel when I walk around hill tops and countrysides around my home and I always wondered when I read this book that this must have been how Chris had felt when he went his way. I generally felt drawn to reading about this man's and instantly felt connected to what he was saying and why he did what he did. I remember reading Krakauer passage about his readers calling him foolish and I generally struggle to understand why they thought he was foolish. I felt he did something courageous and amazing, that I was blindly looking at how little he packed and how much knowledge I actually lack in knowing how to survive in the wild. 


This book helped by reminding me that it is you who are in control with your life and it is you who makes the powerful decisions, sometimes mistakes are made and sometimes they will take time or generally you have to accept the mistakes and live with them.

Claire.