10 people
4.2 stars

Into the Wild (MTI)

virlian
virlian wrote and rated
  • 5.0 of 5 stars
on Apr 6, 2008 at 5:33 am

Why would a young American choose to give up material comforts and abandon family ties to embrace hardship and embark on a solitary, nomadic journey? To city folks like me, I thought it was hard to fathom his reasons. Yet his story was intriguing. The author reached back to history to find parallel experiences among like-minded social groups and individuals, including himself. By bringing together perspectives from people who knew McCandless at different levels - family members, schoolmates, friends and acquaintances he met on the roads, the author gave a moving account of how a highly intelligent youth met an untimely end in his search for that elusive quality called meaning of life.