ePub Seven Pillars of Wisdom: A Triumph (The Authorized Doubleday/Doran Edition) by T.E. Lawrence in History

Description

In April 1992 a young man from a well-to-do family hitchhiked to Alaska and walked alone into the wilderness north of Mt. McKinley. His name was Christopher Johnson McCandless. He had given $25;000 in savings to charity; abandoned his car and most of his possessions; burned all the cash in his wallet; and invented a new life for himself. Four months later; his decomposed body was found by a moose hunter. How McCandless came to die is the unforgettable story of Into the Wild.Immediately after graduating from college in 1991; McCandless had roamed through the West and Southwest on a vision quest like those made by his heroes Jack London and John Muir. In the Mojave Desert he abandoned his car; stripped it of its license plates; and burned all of his cash. He would give himself a new name; Alexander Supertramp; and ; unencumbered by money and belongings; he would be free to wallow in the raw; unfiltered experiences that nature presented. Craving a blank spot on the map; McCandless simply threw the maps away. Leaving behind his desperate parents and sister; he vanished into the wild.Jon Krakauer constructs a clarifying prism through which he reassembles the disquieting facts of McCandless's short life. Admitting an interst that borders on obsession; he searches for the clues to the dries and desires that propelled McCandless. Digging deeply; he takes an inherently compelling mystery and unravels the larger riddles it holds: the profound pull of the American wilderness on our imagination; the allure of high-risk activities to young men of a certain cast of mind; the complex; charged bond between fathers and sons.When McCandless's innocent mistakes turn out to be irreversible and fatal; he becomes the stuff of tabloid headlines and is dismissed for his naiveté; pretensions; and hubris. He is said to have had a death wish but wanting to die is a very different thing from being compelled to look over the edge. Krakauer brings McCandless's uncompromising pilgrimage out of the shadows; and the peril; adversity ; and renunciation sought by this enigmatic young man are illuminated with a rare understanding--and not an ounce of sentimentality. Mesmerizing; heartbreaking; Into the Wild is a tour de force. The power and luminosity of Jon Krakauer's stoytelling blaze through every page.