Into the Wild by John Krakauer

Into the Wild is based on the life, and the eventual death, of Chris McCandless. Or Alex Supertramp, which is the name he gave himself. It tells a passionate story, and unravels many different aspects of Chris's life and the lives of the people he touched. But it tells it in a language which does not flow. Reading it feels like constantly coming across speed bumps in what one expects to be a smooth highway. The movie that is based on the book is better made. It flows, and one does not miss a single beat of the story.  I had watched the movie a long time back in college. It had made a deep impression on me, and i had it in my mind to read the book at some point. I thought it would unravel some more layers of Chris's life and his journeys.

The book does uncover facets of Chris's journey that the movie either did not go into or did not do enough justice to. For example, it adds more color the relationship between Chris and his father - which partly explains why Chris was the way he was. It also contains stories from people Chris met on his journey's, in their own words. But most importantly it talks about the books Chris carried with him, the passages he highlighted in those books, the notes he scribbled in the margins of those books. For me, these more than anything else vividly painted a picture of his mind and his thoughts. Via these, i thought i was able to know him better. And it made me think -  the books one admires and the passages one highlights carry such a strong impression of the person's character. It perhaps comes as close to capturing the person's soul as a personal diary. 

Reading through the book, i could not help but also reflect on how my impression of Chris has changed between when i watched the movie (when i was relatively young) to now (when i am approaching middle age). When i first watched the movie, i was really moved by Chri's passion and his ambition to fork a different path than what society expected from him. I think that partly reflected on my dissatisfactions with the college life then. Now, i wasn't as keenly moved by his story as i was then. Part of it is because the book throws light on some aspects that i did now know of before - the fact that Chris didn't even bother to carry a map of the place, the fact that even though he travelled all the way to Alaska to live 'in the wild' he was about 20 miles away from a very busy tourist highway, or the fact that he didn't do the necessary homework to understand how to live off of the land. But a part, and a major part, is that i have grown old. And it reflects on my impressions from Chri's stories. While once i was moved passionately, now i look at the story from a more practical point of view. 

But Chris's story still moved me. There is a lot in the story that still made me stop and reflect. And a practically written travel guide can never do that to you. A lonely planet book will not make you pause and reflect. It is only a passionate person that can leave a story strong enough for people to read it so many years after they have passed away, and get moved by it.