Claire Conger

Jon Krakauer’s biography of a young man who walked Into the Wild of Alaska is a must read even if you saw the movie—and this is one time the movie is as good as the book.

Jon Krakauer, famous already for his account of the deadly 1996 season on Mount Everest, Into Thin Air, is now even more so with the movie Into the Wild winning awards. (Into the Wild predates Into Thin Air.)

The movie, directed by Sean Penn, sticks to the story of Christopher McCandless, a twenty-something who wants to challenge himself in nature. The book includes vignettes of other, similar souls and chapters on Jon Krakauer’s own Alaska adventure and familial experience.

The autobiographical chapters are by far the best in the book. This reader was riveted by Krakauer’s account of his assent of Devils Thumb, which rises out of the Stikine Ice Cap near Petersburg, Alaska. (Krakauer’s adventure is not included in the movie.)

Having been mesmerized by the movie—all two and a half hours—I picked up the book so that I could linger over the story and review its details.

Most particularly, I was curious about the plant depicted in the movie as McCandless’s undoing. Here the written account differs from the movie. Krakauer speculates the lad was poisoned by mold growing in his foraged collection of wild potato seeds not in his choosing the wrong seed to eat.

People seem to feel strongly about McCandless—whether he was arrogant or naive, suicidal or lustful of life. My view is more prosaic: Dead, an adventurer is foolhardy; alive, he’s heroic.