Into the Wild

My whole class have just read "Into the Wild" by Jon Krakauer, or at least they say they have. I bought the book, and I have to admit, I wasn't too enthusiastic about it. Too me, the story about a boy who wanders alone into Alaska, sounds a little like the Norwegian adventurer Lars Monsen, and more like something my father would have read. But my friend Kirsti sent me the book as sound-files. That way I could listen to it on the bus and other noisy places where it can be difficult to concentrate on reading.

The book is a non-fiction best-seller from 1996 about the young man Christopher McCandless. After graduating from Emory University in 1990, McCandless gave away all his savings to charity, changed his name to Alexander Supertramp, ended all communication with his family and began to travel around in North America. His journey ended in the Alaskan wilderness, where he starved to death after eating the poisonous seeds from the wild potato plant. He survived alone in the wilderness for approximately 112 days.
One of the reasons why I was negative about reading the book in the first place, was because I thought it would just be one long summary about everything McCandless did. But as I kept on listening to the book I started to enjoy it more and more. It was really fascinating to hear about all the people McCandless had met while he travelled around North America, and how they all had fell so in love with the young man, even though some of them had only talked with him for a short while.

Now that I've "read" the whole book, I feel that I want to know more. Not because the book wasn't good, but because I like it, and was really fascinated by the whole story about McCandless. He strikes me as one of those special people which you don't run into too often. A person I would like to learn more about. The book opens for different discussions and I would recommend other to read it as well.