Into the Wild is the best-selling non-fiction book by Jon Krakauer. Telling the story of Christopher McCandless, a young wanderer and adventurer who succumbed to starvation and died in the Alaskan wilderness, the book spent more than two years on the New York Times bestseller list when it was first published in 1996.
On September 21st, the movie directed by Sean Penn and based upon Into the Wild will be released. It's already receiving stellar reviews from the film festival circuit and I suspect that the movie will impact people in the same way that the book did. The story of Chris McCandless is simultaneously tragic, dumb-founding, irritating and passionately moving.
I 'm a big fan of Jon Krakauer and its primarily because of this book, Into the Wild, and his other book, Into Thin Air, about the ill-fated Everest expedition in 1996 that turned into a total disaster. All of his books are excellent, but Into the Wild is definitely my favorite book of the bunch and also the first book I read by him. Into Thin Air is brilliant as well, but Into the Wild really guts me. The movie trailer for Into the Wild has an incredible effect on me as well. So far it's made me cry every time I watch it. It gives me shivers. I've never been crazy about the other films directed by Sean Penn, they are kind of dreary, but I am really looking forward to this one.
Since the story behind it is just one of those things that grabs people, I expect it will be one of those movies that people talk about. The book itself spent two years on the bestseller list and it really is just an incredible and heart-breaking story -- and also tends to be controversial since people have such markedly different opinions about Chris and his decisions -- was he a fool or a visionary? My personal opinion is that he was both and I don't think I'm alone in thinking so.
If you've never read the book, I highly recommend it. Regardless of how you feel about Christopher McCandless when you come away from it, Krakauer is an absolutely gripping storyteller.
