Sunday, March 09, 2008

Into the Wild Review

This afternoon, after leaving the Millersburg Country colony, fed up with white trash everywhere, after trapping two more cats of seven or eight that moved over, unfixed, when the dairy owners moved and left behind unfixed cats (seems to be the norm in Millersburg), I rented and watched Into the Wild.

I already had read the book, like I've read Into Thin Air and Under the Banner of Heaven, by Jon Krakauer, too, formerly of Corvallis, Oregon. He was raised in Corvallis and he had serious "father" issues. I guess his father, a physician, now deceased, was a royal ass.

I like Jon Krakauer's relentless research of subject. His pursuit of detailed truth reminds me of a weasel I watched in a remote part of Alaska. I was hiking the Resurrection Pass trail system. I was sitting by this lake and saw a small splash on the opposite side of one arm. I watched with curiosity. Five minutes later, I saw a larger splash and the wake of something swimming.

The first splash was made by a desperate Red backed vole. The second splash was made by the weasel relentlessly trailing the vole.

The chase took the vole, at one point, across the toe of my boot. Shortly after which the weasel crossed the toe of my boot in the fatal pursuit. There was no escaping that weasel. Truth has no place it can hide from Jon Krakauer's pen.

Under the Banner of Heaven, a book about the origin and beliefs of the Mormon church earned Krakauer a badge of courage in my mind. The book earned Krakauer something much different from the Mormon church.

Into Thin Air was Krakauer's chronicle of an Everest expedition that went sour. When I heard he had written another book, about a young man's death in the wilderness of Alaska, I immediately sought the book out to read. Not only because I admire Mr. Krakauer's writing, but because I made my own odyssey to Alaska.

Besides chronicling the life of Chris McCandles before his journey to Alaska, Krakauer describes, in the book, his own need to prove something, to himself and, maybe to his perfectionist judgemental father also, and his subsequent solo climb of a difficult peak in Alaska. He describes his feelings afterwards, too, which was interesting.

Back to the movie. The movie followed the book closely. This is a true story and is about a young man alienated by his parents mistakes and wealth, who rejects their materialism and shallow plastic lives for wanderlust and life as a foot tramp, hopping trains, hitchhiking, camping with fellow hobos and bums and meeting interesting individuals along the way.

Chris, the young man, was far more loudly opinionated in the book than in the movie. He rejects materialism, drugs, even tobacco, alcohol and sex for experiences in the natural world. He takes breaks, however, to earn money, sometimes working at fast food restaurants, often migrating back to work for a friend he made who owned a grain warehouse. But he had a dream to visit Alaska and live off the land.

The movie switches back and forth, from what precedes and led up to his fatal journey into the wild, where he lives in an old school bus not 30 miles from a major road in Alaska, to the time in the bus. McCandles starved to death, in the end, in part because he feared water. The movie did not address why he feared water as did the book. He had almost drowned off the coast of Mexico in a kayak.

To get to the bus in the first place, McCandles had waded a small stream. But in Alaska, when spring hits, the streams swell into large rushing rivers, from snow melt and glacial run off. McCandles did not anticipate spring run off. Later, as Krakauer journeyed to the bus, for his research, he found that only a few miles from the bus, downstream, was a cable and basket river crossing aid. Had McCandles surveyed the banks of the river, and found this way to cross back over the river, he might have survived.

McCandles journeyed into the bush of Alaska, with a rifle, fishing net, a book of native edible plants and a five pound bag of rice. He did not make it back out alive.

McCandles story is nonetheless incredible and inspiring. It reminds me of myself in some ways and I see the desire to live the life he did in so many people, particularly, in one very outspoken Corvallis blogger. The call of the wild is strong, still, in so many for all the right reasons. Following the footsteps of society like sheep, often completely isolated from anything natural, creates internal battles of what we really are and the life we are living. I believe these battles result in disease, crime and all sorts of afflictions.

The age old battle, chronicled in two of my own favorite books, Call of the Wild and White Fang, between the desire to belong and the desire to run wild, lives in each one of us.

No matter where McCandles went, no matter how far he felt he was from civilization, he would look up, and there, above him in the sky, would be a contrail of a jet flying overhead. This would disturb him deeply and remind him he could not escape.

The movie was good, a thought provoker, inspiring.

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