Saturday, April 5, 2008

Into the Wild...

I finished "Into the Wild" by Jon Krakauer, and found it to be one of those books that haunts me a little bit. I guess it was also made into a film, but I haven't seen it yet. It is about Chris McCandless, a 24 year-0ld kid, who upon graduating from college, gives away about $25,000 and sets out on a nomadic, ascetic lifestyle hitchhiking throughout western N. America from Mexico to Alaska where he perishes alone. Was Chris mentally "off," or was he on a quest to find a truer meaning behind life? His ascetic lifestyle, search for truth and beauty, as well as his thirst for knowledge was countered by his troubled relationships with his parents. It is not an easy book to categorize, but maybe that is why I found it to be profound. There are no easy answers, but Chris (through this story) has had an impact on my life.

1 comment:

Mark Calhoun said...

This is a great story... I have not read the book, but I have been tracking the story for quite some time and just saw the movie a few weeks ago... you should bypass renting it and just buy it.