Into The Wild

Spot on. Read the book, then saw the movie Sunday night. The movie played up his fucked up home life and portrayed him as damned selfish, while I never got that from the book. Regardless, I find it a beautiful story and envy anyone who lives (or dies) on their own terms. Into this conversation we can bring Thoreau and maybe Bison Dele.

Some people just have trouble fitting in and McCandless was one of them. He had to do his own thing at whatever the cost. Good on 'im.

 

I have no trouble with him breaking away from society, but his constant disregard for his own life is what I cannot understand.

I think he was subconsciously trying to kill himself.

 

What do you mean by "disregard for his own life?"

It's been a few years since I read the book, so I might be forgetting some instances.

 

Not having a decent map of the wilderness he was traveling into.

Ignoring his shrinking rice.

Not even having waterproof boots to cross a river.

Not getting a simple helmet for running the rapids.

Not thinking about how he was going to get back into Mexico.

Not realizing that the car could start again.

Not realizing he was in a dry river bottom.

Possibly eating the wrong type of plant.

Maybe I am nitpicking, but people die in the wilderness. I thought he would have realized that.

 

I chalk that all up to being unprepared for the wilderness, not a willful disregard for his own life.

 

I still maintain that had he lived, he would have wound up Kascyznski. He just seemed, in the movie portrayal anyway (didn't read the book), like the kind of guy who had these grand visions for a human utopia. Once he slowly came to realize that kind of world would never happen, he'd start taking it out on people.

Then again, as somebody else said, he could go the opposite way and begin a successful organic fruit and vegetable chain, since he did seem to be very intelligent.

But my gut says he would have been the latter.

 

I think, Rusty, the difference in our perceptions are based on the differences between the book and movie. You've not read it, and I've not seen it.

 

The National Geographic article linked on the first page is interesting.

 

i'll need to re-read the end of the book ... but the impression i got was that mccandless figured it out for himself at least somewhat, before he started to starve/poison himself/die. remember, when he left the bus to return, he wasn't sick. he was healthy. he ran into a raging river. he was ready to rejoin some sort of social environment. he put away that idea of a solo utopia. in the movie and the book, i recall he got along with most people he encountered -- especially holbrook's character, the hippie community and the farmer.

 

No one has really mentioned what seemed to be the overriding message of the movie. Chris thought he didn't need other people. He hated his parents. He was almost ashamed of his college degree. He was going to live in Alaska all by himself, just him and the wild.

Meanwhile, he treks across the country meeting all these great people who help him. He's completely oblivious, though, to how much he really does need others and how much joy he shares with them. Like the scene when he's shouting about "society" with Vince Vaughn. Yet "society" is doing nothing but accepting him with open arms all the way to Alaska.

He doesn't realize it.

I believe there's some indication in the movie before his death, in something he writes or reads aloud, that he finally appreciates friendship. But I can't recall exactly. I saw it a few weeks ago.

But that was clearly, to me, where Penn took the story.

 

Waylon, he wrote in his journal "Happiness is best when it's shared," and with that in mind he headed back to his river crossing, ready to rejoin SOCIETY! That's why finding the river so big and fast, too much so to cross, was such a downer. That's the only point where he really panicked during his two-year odyssey because he had enough provisions and general wherwithal to spend three months out there, and he had to go another month beyond that... which he wasn't ready for.

 

And it's why the story can be seen as a tragedy. He was ready to rejoin society, but died before getting the chance.