This is a book that really moved me, and still moves me now. Of course really it's Christopher McCandless himself that moved me, but Jon Krakauer I think is a really great writer. As you know, I have a passion for climbing books, which is Krakauer's usual topic, and he's way better than the rest, more thoughtful, allowing me as a non-climber to glimpse what it means to climb. He handles Christopher's story so sensitively, he doesn't "make a story" of it in the way journalists often do, turning someone's real lived life into a simplistic cautionary tale, or a "tragedy". He doesn't dictate how the reader should interpret it, or what they should take away from it, but narrates what he's learned of Chris's life, sympathetically and respectfully, and lets the reader respond according to their own perspective.
My own response was made keener by the parallels with my own brother, another young man who has found it difficult to knuckle down and slot in to modern consumer society, and was monstrous to his parents along the way. But more than that, it spoke to my own longing to find my own way in the world, to my horror of suburbia, conformity and materialism. Christopher (like my brother) took a bold step when I shied away. I've only dabbled in alternatives, only made small gestures towards the impulse to give – and give away – that was so strong in him. I really admire him for following his principles through to their conclusion. And I still hope I'll find opportunity in my life for some bold steps one day.
I do find his story desperately sad, because (and I'm aware that this is what I want to believe because I want to believe it's possible for me too) it seems it all went wrong just at the very moment he was beginning to reconcile his longing for the wild with the human need for companionship. I want to believe that, had he lived, he would have found a way to live in society, without being cowed by it, and that he would have done something wonderful in it. Perhaps I'm wrong, and he would have ended up being embittered, cynical or – to put it harshly – second-rate: he'd have mellowed with the years and become conventional, compromising, boring, his experiences in the wild just an adolescent adventure rather than subject for a book. As it is, he remains ever young, poised on the precipice of life, at that wonderful moment when the whole world's before you and you feel you can decide who you're going to be. I think sometimes the young make the best philosophers, because they are able to be bolder with life. I've been reading Thoreau's Walden recently, and he's so similar to Christopher, a young man with no responsibilities beyond himself who thinks everyone should live as he does and can't comprehend how family life changes things. They're unrealistic, and the criticisms they hurl at the rest of us are often unfair, but we still need to hear what they have to say because it reminds us to keep testing the boundaries of our own lives and finding what room there is left us for adventure and exploration.
E's response - What I thought....
Initially I thought "Oh no, I'm not sure I'm going to get much from this" but as the book progressed it crept into my thinking more and more. I have been to Alaska and have felt the power of it's vastness, if only for a brief time, which made the book even more visceral. And being a new mum I felt the torment of Christopher's mother very strongly. It was a deeply moving account but overridingly I felt there was a great sense of hope in Christopher's story, in his plight.... that at the end he knew he was dying but he had come to accept it as part of his journey, part of the natural process of things and that, in its self, is a beautiful gift for his mother and family and indeed all of us.
