Perspective

I have to admit, I haven't been reading as much as I should. Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer is not really grabbing my attention. It had a somewhat dull beginning and middle but such an enrapturing transition in between them. Now I am on page 71, and two lines in the book have really stood out to me.

The first line being, "On the face of it, Bullhead City doesn't seem like the kind of place that would appeal to the adherent of Thoreau and Tolstoy an ideologue who expressed nothing but contempt for the bourgeois trappings of Mainstream America. McCandless, nevertheless, took a strong liking to Bullhead." This line uses strong vocabulary and gets its point across bluntly. I am pretty sure anyone who has been to the suburbs has seen the desert of fast food restaurants and carbon copy stores, like Abercrombie and Fitch. We cannot say what the appeal of Bullhead City is to McCandless because we don't know a whole lot about him. Maybe McCandless grew up in a similar setting. Perhaps it reminded him of home. It felt familiar and he wanted to spend some time there. But sometimes, I am drawn to the suburb culture because I never grew up in such a setting. So perhaps he was drawn there because it was different. He might have been drawn to either its feelings of familiarities or to its foreignness. I think the appeal of the character Alex McCandless is that he is a little unknown and mysterious. We don't know a whole lot about him. But we know he's a bright person and generally free of all emotional attachments.

The 2nd line I found interesting shows the character differences between McCandless and a friend he meets on the way named Franz. Franz was an old man who was the last line in his family and was dreadfully lonely. When McCandless and Franz's paths cross, Franz is changed by the whole experience. He creates a new friend who he cares for and wants McCandless to settle down. Franz becomes very attached to McCandless and says "Somebody needed to convince him to get an education and a job and make something of his life." This line triggered a lot of thought for me as a reader. It reminded me that perspective was a huge issue in this book. What Franz thinks "making something of his life" is different than what McCandless thinks. McCandless began his adventure on purpose, he believes this adventure is "making something of his life." The whole book is his perspective and how he follows his beliefs out, even if it means dying for it.

So I guess I could say that I love the different perspective this book gives me, but sometimes I find it a little dull.