Into The Wild
Saw the movie, then read the book. They were both very good, although I like the book better. Main differences: the movie portrays the family as the reason the boy ran off, but the book places the blame squarely on his shoulders. The book was actually very careful to present a number of possibilities of what was going through his head, but to steer clear of judging him. It actually breaks the fourth wall regularly, describing the author discussing the boy’s motivations and reasoning. Another difference is that the movie says that he mistook a poisonous plant for an edible one. Krakauer suggests however that the seeds of an edible plant were in fact poisonous, though not described as such in any current books. (He even went so far as to collect some and send them off to a lab for spectra-analysis, which showed that they were alkaloids.) All in all I came away from the book thinking that the kid was less ill prepared than I thought initially. Having said that, the book did drive home the fact that no matter how separated we may feel from those around us, we are always connected.
Another thing I got from the book is that living off the land is REALLY hard. At one point some Alaskans are saying that the boy would have had to be stupid to die in the woods given that the Inuit have lived off the land there for years. The author then points out that Inuit have also been known to starve to death over the years. Paraphrased: “The life of a hunter is a hard one, always on the move, always afraid that the next encounter will be missed and the food supply will dwindle.” Given my obsession with Peak Oil however I do now have the urge to go hunting and get good at it, before I have to be good at it. (Turns out the killing part is the easy part, turning the dead animal into meat that will last until you can eat it is much harder. Takes practice among other things, and is location dependent. Smoking is good in the south in the summer, and simply slicing into thin strips and drying is better in more alpine climes.)
And finally, I have a friend who likes to say if he doesn’t know what something is he puts it in his mouth to find out. Turns out this is not always the best idea.
Oh yeah, and always carry a map. The irony of the whole story is that he wanted to go “off the edge of the map” but he was never more than 6 miles from a cabin that possibly had supplies he could have used, and 16 miles from a road. There is no more off the map.