I read -Into the Wild- Yesterday

I read Into the Wild yesterday. I've been starved of reading material. I bought it at an English language bookstore in Taipei called Caves. I went into Taipei early Friday to visit Chengchi University where I am applying to study philosophy. I met with the chair of their philosophy department and we hit it off well. Chengchi's philosophy dept. is the best on the island for continental philosophy, my area of interest. I spent the rest of the weekend in Taipei and I took some time to pick up some tapes for my car, a used CD (Deep Forest), and a few new books.

Into the Wild was written by Jon Krakauer, well known for Into Thin Air. You might have heard about the movie version of Into the Wild. It came out last year. Krakauer explores the life and death of Christopher McCandless. McCandless grew up in a wealthy suburban family in Virginia. He was passionate and principled. The resume of his life was impressive but not unusual. He was smart and athletic. He excelled in high school and as an undergraduate at Emory. But his personal characteristics were less common. He displayed a streak of righteousness that turned to disappointment and disillusion when the world didn't measure up. Living quietly with his dissent for some time, after graduating from college he left his old life behind. He didn't want what the mainstream world was offering. He went looking for something else.

For two years he skirted the edge of society. For a while he kept mobile with his car until he killed the battery. Abandoning it, he traveled by foot and the courtesy of strangers. At times he picked up odd jobs, a few were more long term. He made a point of never establishing a life. Few close friends, little property, little responsibility - he shunned attachments. For two years he was a nomad. On his ultimate trip he made his way into the heart of Alaska and hiked into the wilderness alone. Before the end of summer he was dead.

Krakauer researched McCandless's preparations and knowledge base. He seemed woefully unprepared. Not quite enough know-how or experience. Not nearly enough rations or equiptment. McCandless seemed to revel in that scantness. He wasn't playing a boy scout. He wanted to live with as little dependence as possible. For three months he did just that. He hunted, he gathered, he lived. When he decided to hike out he found his trail was blocked by a swollen river. Deciding to bide his time until the river became passable, Krakauer speculates that McCandless consumed the poisonous seeds of a plant previously thought to be entirely edible. The poison may have immobilized him. He starved to death.

Considering that I read the book in one day it certainly must have had merit. It's a compelling story and Krakauer skillfully links it to his own experience and to a rudimentary concept of wilderness. But others have sung his praises enough.

I refuse Krakauer's hubristic fallacy of maturity, that wisdom comes from the aged, which he drops in dribs and drabs throughout the book. It assumes a privileged righteousness for the experienced. While the experts have an advantage in technical matters, that's not what is truly at issue here. This has been the most common mistake made in analyzing McCandless's story. People know that McCandless wanted to leave the forest, but he didn't have the means. A map may have been enough to guide him back to civilization. There's any number of similar remedies that might have saved Christopher McCandless from starving to death.

But none of them would have saved his life. Some people escape from fires. Some people escape from abuse or war or poverty. But nobody escapes with their life. The end is our certainty. McCandless cared deeply about the way he lived his life. He wanted a life without maps, without extra rations, without escape ladders. That life led to his death. It would be a mistake to call it untimely. It would be a mistake to insinuate that success in life is measured in years on the clock.

I read the book in a single day because I found myself there as well. Christopher McCandless had been raised being taught of the importance of college. For so many, college has been transformed into an end itself; often the only end in sight. But when college is the end, graduation day brings a form of terror along with its joy. It's the same story as the proud employee finally reaching retirement. It's the twenty-something woman on her wedding day in 1952. The script comes to an end with triumph and jubilation. But your next line isn't written and you don't have any experience doing the writing. That script was handed to you and your read it marvelously. What more could they possibly want from you? There's another script sitting on the table. You'd do a great job with it, no doubt. But do you want to pick it up? I peaked at a few pages. Looks like there's a nice car in it for you. Your kids are smart too - no big drug problems or that crap. Do you want to pick it up?

Christopher McCandless was disappointed with society's sins and misdirection. He tried something else. He tried new. He tried daring. He tried wild.