Krakauerism

This past week I have been reading Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer, who is also the author of Into Thin Air and Under the Banner of Heaven.  Krakauer is a well known writer focusing on the Sub-genre of outdoor and climbing non-fiction.  His work has been very successful, with three bestsellers, a big studio film adaptation, and many T.V. features and adaptations as well. 

Into the Wild is one of the first non-fiction novels about a subject that I was unfamiliar with that really interested me.  It follows the "big adventure" of Christopher McCandless's adventure to live in the wild of Alaska.  After four months after entering into the wild, he was found dead in 1992 by starvation in an abandoned bus.  I have read several music and film non-fictions/biographies, most of which I thoroughly enjoyed, but I can partly blame the enjoyment on my enthusiasm for the subject.  Into the Wild is an outdoors book at first glance, and I do enjoy the outdoors, but would not usually seek out on my own.  After reading, I realized that it was not at all about the technical or literal aspects of being outdoors, but rather why McCandless loved being on his own, depending on essentially nothing material.

Chris McCandless in the Alaskan wild

my stab at the personal essay

Originally published on March 22, 2007.

Physical landmarks often mean little to me. (This is evidenced by the fact that I have been a passenger dozens of times coming out of Parley's Canyon, but I couldn't tell my friend when to get off.) No, I track my life by the books I was reading at the time.

Moving into a new house was marked by The Chronicles of Narnia series. It was probably a year after, when I was twelve. I had a white shirt with flowers from Old Navy, and blue shorts, and it was June, because the image about it being as bright as stepping out of a garage in June stuck out to me.

In ninth grade, I was reading The House on Mango Street the day I signed up to audition for The Nutcracker. I was a soldier that year. Which means that I was 4'10", yet in high school.

At Girls' Camp, I was reading Sense and Sensibility when one of my peers was complaining of her omnipresent migraines.