so i haven't blogged in a while. really, you should just take that as a sign that i have had other things to do which is a VERY good thing for me (but doesn't make my prolific
cousin koonj look too good, ha ha.)
i've been reading, though... a few weeks ago i picked up jon krakauer's
into thin air because i kept seeing it everywhere and i remember soon after it came out - i was working at borders in 1999, a year afterward, and it was still huge - and once upon a time i remember reading or seeing an account of shackleton's polar disaster and found it fascinating so i thought i might find this fascinating too. and i did! all the reviews say "riveting," and i'm no exception, but i won't actually SAY the word myself for fear of sounding like a cover blurb. if one gets too caught up in the aftermath of the book itself - the bitter back-and-forth about accuracy with one of the other climbers in the may 1996 storm - it can detract from the power of the story, but on the other hand it sort of adds an element. i can't read books like this as "adventure stories" - to me the impact comes from realizing this actually happened.
and i like the first-person perspective coupled with rigorous reporting after the fact, so you get as much of what actually happened - and a sense of what you will never know - as possible. (krakauer was a journalist for
outside magazine, and is now an editor-at-large there). since i blog here just for the sake of reaction, here is a nutshell - JK has been a climbing nut most of his life, but never made it to everest, then he was sent to write a journalistic account of climbing everest in may 1996, which turned out to be the deadliest climbing season in its history because of a terrible storm, and many of his friends were either found in the next couple of weeks frozen to death or simply never found at all. but he survived, came back and wrote his article, then went on to write the book, as he said, as an attempt at coming to terms with what happened and his responsibility in it.
i enjoyed the book enough that i went and picked up two other books by him -
into the wild, which was written before the everest disaster, and
under the banner of heaven which is i think his most recent book. the recent one is a departure - instead of an "adventure" story, it's a look at fundamentalist mormonism and two men who killed their sister-in-law and her 15-month-old baby girl because "God told them to". that's for another post... want to focus here on krakauer's exploration of man vs. nature.
into the wild is about a young man (chris mccandless) who walked off into the alaskan wilderness completely alone in april 1992, determined to live unencumbered by any trappings of civilization, to the hilt of his resources, and almost made it, but he was found by other hikers two and a half weeks after his death, in september.
okay writing this post is taking way too long and it's not even saying much of worth. so what i'm going to do is just copy in the parts of the book that really struck me:
From a letter to a friend before he headed out into Alaska:
"I'd like to repeat the advice I gave you before, in that I think you really should make a radical change in your lifestyle and begin to boldly do things which you may previously never have thought of doing, or been too hesitant to attempt. So many people lieve within unhappy circumstances and yet will not take the initiative to change their situation becaues they are conditioned to a life of security, conformity, and conservatism, all of which may appear to give one peace of mine, but in reality nothing is more damaging 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. If you want to get more out of life, Ron, you must lose your inclination for monotonous security and adopt a helter-skelter style of life that will at first appear to you to be crazy. But once you become accustomed to such a life you will see its full meaning and its incredible beauty...
...You are wrong if you think Joy emanates only or principally from human relationships. God has placed it all around us. It is in everything and anything we might experience. We just have to have the courage to turn against our habitual lifestyle and engage in unconventional living..."
that letter was written before he went into alaska. the following two notes were found in books that he had been reading in the abandoned bus where he ended up taking shelter out in the wilderness:
noted in "walden" next to a passage about controlling appetite:
"Deliberate Living: Conscious attention to the basics of life, and a constant attention to your immediate environment and its concerns... (circumstance has no value. It is how one relates to a situation that has value. All true meaning resides in the personal relationship to a phenomenon, what it means to you).
The Great Holiness of FOOD, the Vital Heat.
Positivism, the Insurpassable Joy of the Life Aesthetic.
Absolute Truth and Honesty.
Reality.
Independence.
Finality - Stability - Consistency."
noted in dr. zhivago "happiness only real when shared"
before dying - "i have had a happy life and thank the lord. goodbye and may god bless all"
krakauer speculates that some of those final notations may have indicated mccandless was ready to unrenounce the world, so to speak... though we will never know. to me, both of these books tell the story of man underestimating nature, overestimating his own place in a realm he cannot subdue. i don't want to call it arrogance - i don't think even climbing mt. everest is a matter of "conquering" so much as experiencing and pushing one's body to its limits and all that - but there is still an element of misunderstanding, maybe. even thoreau lived in a cabin, not utterly bared to the elements. reading these books i get a sense that as much as anyone can desire to shed civilization and live as one with nature, it is just not our place to do so as humans.
and anyway, i'm not sure mccandless reached despair at his end, no matter how desperate his situation - look at that final note. i think maybe he understood exactly what he had done... i don't think, however, he understood what he had done to his parents, and although this was a son in his mid-twenties i read this book as a parent, too, and could not fathom his parents' anguish at not only losing their son this way, but just not even knowing where he was, because he didn't care to tell them.
happiness is only real when shared? i can see that... i don't know if one is pursuing happiness, exactly, when one tramps alone into the wilderness - perhaps the exaltation of one's soul, communion with God, etc, but not comfort, laughter, happiness... i think there is a middle ground, a little removed from what mccandless described in his letter above - room maybe for living with simplicity and a few good friends, shelter but not extravagance, integrity, truthfulness to self instead of conformity, etc...
i find it fascinating the way he described - and capitalized - the concept of "Joy" - i could write a whole thesis on that - oh wait, i did :) back in 1998 in edinburgh - but this idea of Joy being all around you, in anything you might experience. that is how i used to live - just walking to class in college i might sense Joy (as CS Lewis would define it, as a reminder of God) in the play of sunlight through leaves or the sense of boundless possibility one has going to a favorite class. i haven't experienced quite the same thing through human relationships - it's a different kind of joy, one of emotional comfort and security and release... hard to define.
i'm trying to finish this post but musa is having a fit. and if i don't publish it now i never will. so i will publish it now. even though i have so much more to say. one of these days i will actually organize my thoughts into essay form so they will not blather on so confusedly next time. i promise. argh. read the books, though, they are very COMPELLING (what a blurb word)....
