Chapters 17,18& epilouge

I found the beginning of chapter seventeen to be quite interesting because the author takes a trip to the stampede trail area to see the magic bus. Also, by visiting the magic bus the author, Jon Krakauer, gets a better understanding what it was really like for Chris to live in the wild. Even though I thought this would be very interesting at first, I found that the author spent too much time talking about certain subjects for an unnecessary amount of time. For example; he spends way too much time talking about the cable that was built by hunters to be able to cross the river. He went on about this for a couple of pages which seemed to be very boring. Although he did come across another good point; if Chris McCandless knew that this was here it would have been very beneficial to him when he needed to cross the river. If Chris would have been smarter to use a map he could have avoided many situations and he also could have still been alive today if he took simple precautions and wasn't so confident that he would be able to survive in the wild with the little items that he had. Krakauer also spends a fair amount of time on the subject that Chris's death may have been caused by potato seeds, which lead to starvation. At first I thought the authors points were very interesting, but then I found myself yawning through the next couple of pages that he continued to talk about wild poisonous plants. Krakauer then questions if it was Chris's recklessness that may have led to the poor judgement of deciding which plants were edible or not. At the end of the book Chris's parents visit the site of the 'magic bus'. I felt a lot of sympathy towards his parents because this would have been a very tough experience for them. As i have mentioned in my other blogs; Chris put his parents through a lot of pain by having no communication with them and having them worry about his whereabouts for a large amount of time. It is hard enough for a family to lose a loved one but having to suffer through wondering if he is okay for a countless number of nights is even worse. I find Chris McCandless very selfish for doing this and I also find myself agreeing with the statement: ' Chris McCandless - reckless idiot and wacko narcissist undeserving of all the media attention'.