Into the Wild
In April 1992 a young man from a well-to-do family hitchhiked to Alaska and walked alone into the wilderness north of Mt. McKinley. His name was Christopher Johnson McCandless. He had given $25,000 in savings to charity, abandoned his car and most of his possessions, burned all the cash in his wallet, and invented a new life for himself. Four months later, his decomposed body was found by a moose hunter. How McCandless came to die is the unforgettable story of Into the Wild. Immediately after graduating from college in 1991, McCandless had roamed through the West and Southwest on a vision quest like those made by his heroes Jack London and John Muir. In the Mojave Desert he abandoned his car, stripped it of its license plates, and burned all of his cash. He would give himself a new name, Alexander Supertramp, and, unencumbered by money and belongings, he would be free to wallow in the raw, unfiltered experiences that nature presented. Craving a blank spot on the map, McCandless simply threw the maps away. Leaving behind his desperate parents and sister, he vanished into the wild. Jon Krakauer constructs a clarifying prism through which he reassembles the disquieting facts of McCandless's short life. Admitting an interst that borders on obsession, he searches for the clues to the dries and desires that propelled McCandless.
Stats for nerds
7recommend
12mentions
11people
2013–2024years
58% recommend25% neutral17% critical
Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
- Thank you.
For what it's worth, I don't think there's a right or wrong answer here. Different authors have different writing styles, and different readers have their own preferences.
For context, I was an environmental science undergrad, and we read a lot of nature writing like this with very descriptive prose. Aldo Leopold, Barbara Kingsolver, The Overstory, etc. have similar passages. Many/most of my classmates loved those kinds of books. I tried, but could not.
In particular, The Overstory is the only book I've ever (tried) to read that was recommended to me by an environmental lawyer, a college teen, an old lady, a grocery store clerk, and a cop – all in the same week or so. It clearly won a place in many people's hearts. But I couldn't read past the third or fourth chapter because it just got so long-winded with descriptions about a chestnut tree. I could see the beauty in it, but I still couldn't bring myself to finish it. (In contrast, I'm now reading a book about AI spaceships... lol. Not exactly Pulitzer material, but a fun read.)
There are other nature-adventure writers with different writing styles, like Jon Krakauer (Into the Wild, Into Thin Air, etc.), who uses grade-school language to rapidly advance the plot page by page. Where setup is important, he centers nature scenes from the perspective of a person experiencing it, instead of the Haiku-like out-of-body experience found in most nature writing. I find that much more relatable, personally. Other books, like The Klamath Knot, center nature in the context of mythology juxtaposed with science, using comparisons and contrast to paint an interesting picture, rather than verbose, painterly descriptions.
It's fine if people prefer one writing style over another. I loved The Road, but watched the movie first and then read the book. I preferred the movie, personally, but the book was fine too (if depressing). He's not one of my favorite authors, but so what? I have nothing against the man.
> Does this matter?
I think it's great that there are authors with distinctive styles, even if they're not for me. It's so awesome -- and rare -- when a book can really grab someone's imagination like that, even if that someone isn't me.
- "...if I were you, I’d hitchike to Alaska this summer instead."
Read this book first though: "Into the Wild", a 1996 non-fiction book written by Jon Krakauer.
- > A few miles away from a remote forest road in the wrong direction and you might not see any people for years and years.
This is essentially what happened to this McCandless guy in Alaska. That book about him -Into The Wild, by Krakauer - is super well written and a very interesting story. The movie based on the book is also quite well produced.
- Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer
- > Fiction: “The Lord of the Rings” (J.R.R. Tolkien); “Game of Thrones” (George R.R. Martin); “Slaughterhouse Five” (Kurt Vonnegut); “Blood Meridian” (Cormac McCarthy); “The Stand” (Stephen King).
> Nonfiction: “The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test” (Tom Wolfe); “Halsey’s Typhoon” (Tom Clavin); “Band of Brothers” (Stephen Ambrose); “Into the Wild” (Jon Krakauer); “Guns of August” (Barbara Tuchman).
about 300 titles (not sure what the proportion of navy specific material, public domain and commercially licensed title are).
Note the high price -- $3k/unit. That is typical in that domain. It is funny because a lot of things they assert to have is actually lack of features -- lack of wifi, lack of cameras. And probably most important -- presumably made in US. In that market there are really ridiculous markups. You just have to know someone who knows someone to get the contract. It (this market) is also mostly immune to being exported overseas -- just due to basic security and trade regulations.
Informally one can say, "a new mac is cheaper than that!". And yeah it is. But this is a mac built to spec, all made in Ohio probably. Interesting what macs would cost in that case if there built to order in smaller batches and made in Ohio, all having strange requirements like FIPS-140-2 compliant crypto libraries enabled and other random red tape restrictions slapped on them....
- Krakauer's books "Eiger Dreams" and "Into The Wild" (the latter also a good movie) are worth a read as well. And I've listened several times to his audiobook versions of all three.
More than anyone else I've read, he captures the compulsion and the self-doubt of people compelled to pursue such ventures. My highest "climb" is Mt. Shasta, which is nothing in comparison to anything he's done. But I so understand that urge to go and get into the wilderness. It's a compulsion for some, and he documents it, and the vulnerabilities it implies, so very well.
