Into The Wild - Jon Krakauer

Into The Wild, though written by Jon Krakauer is about a young man named Christopher McCandless. The book originated as an essay Krakauer wrote for Outside magazine entitled "Death of an Innocent". Though I'm really not a sports fan in the slightest, I do have a thing for these non-fiction books about men embarking on sporting adventures, such as this and 127 hours. I'm not normally a non-fiction reader, in fact I could probably count on one hand the non-fiction books I actually own, but I really, really do love Into The Wild.

It reminds me so much of On The Road, because Christopher, so like Dean Moriarty is travelling the road on the search for something...more. He doesn't know what he's looking for, but it's more than an average life. The brief blurb on the front of the book reads:

"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, burnt all the cash in his wallet, and invented a new life for himself..."

“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.”

But that is just the beginning of the story. McCandless travels through America, climbing and hiking. On his travels he adopts the name "Alexander Supertramp" and meets several people who become huge characters in the book and who Christopher forms real attachments to. My favourite parts are the connections he forms with other people on his travels which show him to be a genuine and likeable person and also the ending where he is so sadly betrayed by his own want of self sustainability.

Christopher McCandless in front of The Magic Bus

This is another one of those books I really don't want to write too much about, even though we find out McCandless's fate within the first two sentences of the book, because It's just such a beautiful thought provoking read and I think it should be experienced first hand.

"Happiness is only real when shared."

The book has also been adapted into a fantastic film by Sean Penn, with Emile Hirsch starring as McCandless, very much worth a watch, but I wholly recommend the book to all.

On The Road - Thoughts On The Film

I've written quite a few times now about how excited I've been for the 2012 adaptation of Jack Kerouac's 1940's classic On The Road, well today I finally got to see it!

I think I read somewhere that this adaptation by Walter Salles was "respectful" and I totally agree. I got a really good feeling from the film right from the start from the use of old country songs and the background music which is primarily lonely jazzy bass and fits in perfectly with the era. Sam Riley (Who you may have seen in the Joy Division biopic Control) as Sal Paradise was, I thought, a really great casting choice. Like the character of the narrator in Palahniuks Fight Club, the film adaptation for this novel had to have one thing: a really great voice. We read the novel in "Sal's" voice all the way through and thankfully we get to watch the film in the same way; narrated by the gravelly old-world tones of Riley.

I also thought Tom Suttridge as Carlo Marx (Allen Ginsberg) was wonderful and so endearing! He was perhaps one of my favourite things about the film and his interactions with Dean (Garret Hedlund) were just as wacky as I'd imagined. At the start I thought Hedlund himself was maybe a little overdone as Dean Moriarty but by the end I was convinced he was the perfect choice for Dean and his portrayal was excellent.

So many people have criticized Kristen Stewart lately due to her affair with Snow White & The Huntsman director Rupert Sanders, and have taken that criticism with them while watching this film which is I think what has marred reviews on her performance. Stewart plays Mary-Lou, Moriarty's 16 year old wife. She is naive and in love and like all the other characters in the book is just looking for the wonder in life, and at doing that I think Stewart does well in the role. She, like Marx was portrayed very endearingly and I thought she was very likeable in the role, in fact I think I liked the film Mary-Lou more than the novel one.

It took around an hour for me to really feel like I was submerged in the story but at many points I smiled fondly at the pages coming alive in front of me, and at seeing characters in action who I have known for years in paper forms. Overall I really enjoyed the film. At 2 hours and 15 minutes it can be a bit of a heavy watch but as I said so enjoyable and definitely respectful. If you love the book I don't think you'll be disappointed.

Top Ten Tuesday

Top Ten "Older" Books You Don't Want People To Forget About.

I'm warning you now; I may exceed have exceeded 10 on this list...
I've always, always been a reader. Typical "excellent work" stickers and move up a class behaviour in school, but the reason I've always loved books so much is because of my mum. She'd read to my brother and I aloud every night when we were little and she's the type who always has a book on the go, and growing up I fell into the same patters. When I fist started branching out from kids or YA fiction at about 10 or 11 the first books my mum put into my hands were from authors like Dickens, Austen and the Brontë's, and I've never looked away from the "classics" since. These books have survived the test of time for a reason, here are some of my favourites. 

1) Wuthering Heights - Emily Brontë - My favourite love story of all time. Desperate, haunting and absolutely fantastic.

2) Pride & Prejudice - Jane Austen - I've written a review on this book which you can read here.

3) Jane Eyre - Charlotte Brontë - I think I like Jane's character more than I like the books itself, and that seems to be the case with quite a lot of people, She's very...real, and she's the constant underdog.

4) Tess Of The D'urbervilles - Thomas Hardy - Poor Tess, I feel so terrible for her every time I read this. A book which shows you haw far women's rights have come and makes you truly understand the terrible stigmas put on girls in those times.

5) 1984 - George Orwell - I wrote a review on this book a few weeks ago, which you can read here. One of the most important books I feel I'll ever read, makes you so aware.

6) Little Women - Louisa May Alcott - I love the characters in story, and my favourites are the obvious; Jo and Beth, such a lovely, heart-warming tale about family and again women's rights, I love that Jo won't take no for an answer and is determined to write.

7) The Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald - Again, I've written a review on this recently which you can read here. 

8) A Clockwork Orange - Anthony Burgess - A book I still find difficult to read, even after a few times. Ultra Violence and Human Nature. Viddy Well, Little Brother. 

9) On The Road - Jack Kerouac - Again...haha, I have written a review of this which you can read here.

10) Junky - William Burroughs - In the same wild times of On The Road, such an exciting and well written (considering!) book, not for the less mature audience.

11) Little Birds - Anais Nin - Definitely not for the less mature audience. I adore Nin, I think her writing is fabulous, but lets leave it at that. 

12) Howl - Allan Ginsberg - I think this must be included, one of my absolute favourite poems of all time, I'm with you in Rockland.

13) Tropic Of Cancer - Henry Miller - I'll leave this one vague for the same reasons as Little Birds.  

14) Fiesta - Earnest Hemingway - Hemingway had to be on this list, I wasn't sure which to put down but Fiesta is a favourite of mine. Wonderful, vibrant, exciting, and home to one of my favourite females in literature, Brett Ashley. 

I'm looking forward to seeing every one else's top ten!

Blog Hop - Aug 31 - Sept 6

What is the one book or series you are dying to see turned into a movie or TV series?
A lot of them have already been done actually! I'm currently really looking forward to The Perks Of Being A Wallflower, The Great Gatsby, On The Road, Man Of Steel, Cosmopolis, Life Of Pi, Les Miserables and Anna Karenina. (The first four especially because they look so well done!) What would I like to see in the future? I think anything adapted from Cormac McCarthy's work would be a winner,  I've always thought Chuck Palahniuks Haunted would be a great adaptation, and I'd love to see a Fiesta reboot because Brett is one of my all time favourite female characters. What adaptations are you looking forward to/would you love to see?

On The Road - Jack Kerouac

“the only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars.” 

I hadn't really been all that excited for the film adaptation of On The Road coming out, but the other day I did happen to see the trailer which had the "burn, burn, burn" quote in it, and I just love that quote, it reminded me of how much I enjoyed reading it so I thought i'd pick it up again.

 So, I'm sure there's not a lot of people who haven't heard of this book, a lot of people really love it and a lot of people seem to hate just because it's so well known and they like to be a little more esoteric in their favourites choices, I suppose. I however do love this book, it's just exactly what you expect from a road trip novel, its crazy, it's exciting and you can just read it over and over. I also personally love novels from this era, the era where:

 "the country was wild and bawling and free with abundance and any kind of freedom for everyone". 

As I've said, the book is a road trip novel set during the middle of the 20th century, the basis of which are Kerouac's own travels, written under the character name of Sal Paradise. There are actually four different road trips detailed in the book, taking place from 1947-1950.

The story is a simple one really, Sal Paradise is writing his first novel while living with his aunt. He first takes to the road to go to San Francisco after meeting Dean Moriarty, a character who is idolised by Sal for his freedom and love for life. On the way he makes new friends, revisits old ones, falls in love, and leaves it behind. Sal returns home but leaves again when Dean calls for him at Christmastime, heading to San Francisco again.

"It was three children of the earth trying to decide something in the night and having all the weight of past centuries ballooning in the dark before them."

In the third trip Sal's character has begun to develop, after publishing his first book and having more money, Sal heads to New York, again with Dean, but his sense of indipendance is growing, and he is starting to realise flaws in Deans character and strengthen his own. In the fourth trip Sal, Dean and another friend Stan, head to Mexico. In this part of the novel we really are seeing Dean as more of a flawed character than the glowing idol he was presented as earlier, because his character refuses to change, to "move with the times" as Sal's does. By the end of the novel, Sal has truly grown up, planning on driving to San Francisco once again where he plans to move in with a girlfriend. Dean, in continuing to live the beat lifestyle and refusing to change, leaves Sal abandoning the friendship, and the road, behind him.

"What is that feeling when you're driving away from people and they recede on the plain till you see their specks dispersing? - it's the too-huge world vaulting us, and it's

goodbye. But we lean forward to the next crazy venture beneath the skies." 

What's really interesting to me in the novel is that because it was written to be autobiographical, a lot of things (mainly characters names) were changed for publication, and several of the characters are major writers, such as Allen Ginsberg who appears in the novel as Carlo Marx, and William Burroughs who appears as Old Bull Lee, (and if I'm not mistaken I'm sure some of the experiences cross over with Junky). Also the character of Dean Moriarty himself, based on Neal Cassady was a huge influence in the beat generation and appears in influence of many literary characters formed in novels from this time, he is apparently the basis of Randle McMurphy in Kasey's One Flew Over The Cuckoos Nest and is also mentioned in Ginsberg's famous Howl.

I think the main purpose of On The Road really was just to let the youth know what was out there for them. Though Kerouac certainly wasn't the first to publish a book on the beat generation, I think On The Road really is looked at as the centrepiece for the movement now. It's so interesting to read because you see that all these great people whose works you've grown up with, they were all together and they all lived this beautiful transient trip together and we can live it with them because it's been captured so beautifully by these amazing stream of consciousness writers. I have no doubt that countless numbers of teenagers have tried to recreate what happens in this book and it's a reflection on the modern world that it just can't happen any more; we can't just take off and drive into the night to fall in love with everything.

As I've said, I love the book and I'd recommend it to anyone, it's a beautiful, exciting read.

Adding something to the mix...

Some of what I read during reading this:

Guernica - Brand New

Lives - Modest Mouse

I Will Possess Your Heart - Death Cab

Please, Please, Please Let Me Get What I Want - The Smiths

Early Morning Rain - Eva Cassidy

Infinite Arms - Band Of Horses

Blowing At A Wish - As Tall As Lions

Night Terror - Laura Marling

Fork And Knife - Brand New

Blackbird - The Beatles

You Really Got a Hold On Me - The Beatles

All Of Me - Angus And Julia Stone

Trailer Trash - Modest Mouse