Couldn't get to sleep last night so turned on TV and happened to catch one of my favorite actors, Sean Penn, being interviewed on the Larry King Show. Penn revealed that he is the director of a movie, still in production, based on the national bestselling book Into the Wild, which also happens to be one of my favorite books. The author of the book, Jon Krakauer, is a master storyteller and researcher, and his narrative of the story of Chris McCandless is riveting.McCandless's life is a puzzling one. After graduating from Emory University in Atlanta in 1992, where he was a top student and athlete, McCandless abandoned his possessions, gave his entire $24,000 savings account to charity and hitchhiked to Alaska, where he went to live in the wilderness. Four months later, he turned up dead. His diary, letters and two notes found at a remote campsite tell of his desperate effort to survive, stranded by an injury and slowly starving. They also reflect the convictions of a young man who was raised in an affluent Virginia town but renounced wealth and advocated a return to nature.
This is from a letter written to a friend McCandless had made while hitchhiking:
“So many people live within unhappy circumstances and yet will not take the initiative to change their situation because they are conditioned to a life of security, conformity, and conservatism, all of which may appear to give one peace of mind, but in reality nothing is more dangerous to the adventurous spirit within a man than a secure future. The very basic core of a man’s living spirit is his passion for adventure. The joy of life comes from our encounters with new experiences, and hence there is no greater joy than to have an endlessly changing horizon, for each day to have a new and different sun.”
I hope the movie is true to the book.
No comments:
Post a Comment