Into the Wild

I've been approaching the end of Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer. It's only a 200 -page book, but I've been excited to get to the end. Not for the normal reasons, unfortunately, but because it's not a very interesting book. I am not a non-fiction person and that may be why I don't connect with this book as much as I usually do with the books I spend time on. The book is written like an extended article. The author clearly states he is a journalist writing about the true to life events that took place to Chris McCandless. His life is clearly abnormal. He's a genius with rich parents, a happy family, and a thriving social life. What then encouraged him to donate his $25,000 college fund to charity, dump his car and begin living a vagabond lifestyle? That is the question Krakauer is trying to answer in this book. He interviews the people Chris met along his journey and connects his own adventures in life to those that Chris took. This book made me think about how little matters, but it also pointed out why so many things do. Chris detested the way Americans lived. He believed they were ungrateful and that all the luxuries in life were unnecessary. I started thinking about what living without all the little things would be like and whether that would be a better life. In the end, I realized that Chris lived a fairly unhappy life. He claimed that he was happier when he had nothing, but throughout his journal and from what he told others, he didn't enjoy living as much as he claims. Some even speculate he committed suicide in Alaska, rather than starving by mistake. The most prominent part of this book is the question: How much should material items matter to us? I found my answer in this book, but I definitely didn't enjoy the journey to discover it.