Into The Wild

 The most dangerous wilderness, may be the one inside ourselves. In the book, Into the Wild, by Jon Krakauer, the author takes you on a journey through Christopher McCandless' mind, and the deep, harsh Alaskan wilderness. McCandless grew up in a wealthy suburb of DC, excelled in school, was a star athlete and looked like he was headed in his father's footsteps of a successful business man, when all of a sudden, he "disappeared". Hitch-hiking around the entire country, including Mexico, he finally got to his destination, Alaska. He was so fascinated by Alaska because it was the most untouched by society, it was the most elemental wilderness in its pure state, and that is what he loved in life. Most people go looking to find adventure, he went looking to find himself within adventure.

Christopher McCandless went into the Alaskan wilderness unprepared. When he went into the wilderness, he wanted nothing to do with society, even if that meant something as little as a map, which in the end, could have saved his life. A quote from the book that tells this is when Chris is picked up in Anchorage, Alaska by a friendly man that was heading his direction. The man asked him if he had a hunting license, and he said, "How I feed myself is none of the governments business, f**k their stupid rules!" As you can see, Chris wanted nothing at all to do with the government/society. But in a way that was the wrong choice when you venture into uncharted territory, because he had no idea where he was, and when it came time for him to leave the bus, the stream he had crossed in the winter, was now a huge rapid river, and if he had a map, he would have found a way to go around the river, because a half a mile up, there had been a metal pole placed for people to climb across. Another way that he was unprepared was how sometimes he was outgoing, and other times he was intensely private, and what he mostly liked to do was be private and have the company of himself, he thought. But after he returned to the bus, when the river grew, and he was dying, he realized that life was meant to be shared with someone else, and no matter how special you think it is to be with yourself, it will never be as special then to share it. In the bus, Chris started writing words and entrys. When he returned the bus, you can tell that all the notes and things he wrote, started sounding more and more like fear and regret. Some words he wrote were, "scared" and "lonely". He started realizing things like, no matter how much he despised what his dad lived for- money, his dad loved him and he still loved his dad. He realized that a bond is better than being with yourself.

Overall, McCandless was not prepared for facing the truth and facing the wild. For him, his greatest wilderness to "overcome", was who he was as a person, did he want to keep going in the path of the person he was; alone, and needed no company but himself and an idealistic person, or a man who thinks that "happiness is only real when shared", and is realistic to life and society. I believe that this is everyone's greatest challenge in their life, finding out who they really are as a person and what they believe in/ what makes them happy. I, and hopefully others can relate to this because when I am older, I don't want to be the same as anyone else, I wanna have at least two different qualities and a different lifestyle, I, too, don't like the idea of normality. But we all know that when it comes time, we have to figure out who we want to be and who we want to spend the rest of our lives with, and that is probably the most difficult and also harsh challenge to face.

"No job? Get lost!"

               In the article, “No Job?  Get Lost!” author Andrew Higgins writes about how Norway’s northernmost territory, Svalbard, has a rule that says that unemployment isn’t allowed.  In this territory, everyone must have a job – or they face being run out of town. The homeless are banned, and even retirees can’t live there, unless they have some kind of job to support themselves.        

            One of the reasons for this rule is because of the geography and climate of Svalbard.  An island, located 800 miles from the North Pole, is covered in darkness nearly six months of the year and there is snow until late summer.  By making sure everyone has a job, and not allowing the homeless to live in the town, the government basically says it is saving lives.  In the article, the government says, “banning homelessness and unemployment – a problem plaguing much of Europe – is meant to ensure that none of Svalbard’s nearly 3,000 residents freezes to death.”

            Higgins says the law has also made the area virtually crime-free.   Svalbard has a police force with just six police officers and one jail cell in the entire territory, and no one has been locked up in the capital, Longyearbyen, since last year, and that was just for two days.  “It’s a very quiet and law abiding society,” says Governor Odd Olsen Ingero.   Everyone leaves their keys in their cars and snowmobiles, and doors are unlocked.

            In conclusion, maybe a rule that everyone should have a job could help this country.   With no crime, and no one freezing to death, the small island of Svalbard is doing something right!   When I get older I hope to live in a place just like this!

Response to Darkness Too Visible by Megan Cox Gordon

Response to Darkness Too Visible by Megan Cox Gordon

I believe that Megan Cox Gordon, the author of Darkness Invisible, from the Wall Street Journal wants me to know that young adult literature has turned into dark, gruesome and twisted stories that are extremely inappropriate for young adults.  Some themes of this article include, contemporary fiction, bitterness, persuasion and some manipulation.  One example of how she believes that young adult literature is now dark, gruesome and inappropriate is how she talks about the mom looking for a book for a kid.  She was very descriptive of harsh words, such as lurid, to talk about all the books that were in the YA seciton when the mom was shopping.   Another example is how she uses manipulation.  She manipulates text from the books that she describes as inappropriate by taking the specific parts of the text that were inappropriate, when all the other parts of the book could've been fine.

In the article, Cox Gordon tries things like loaded words and imagery to make me imagine what books are like and how it affects young adults.  She uses this as a craft to make me picture myself in that description.  An example of when she does this is when she says, "teen fiction can be like a hall of fun-house mirrors, constantly reflecting back hideously distorted portrayals of what life is."

I personally agree with Gordon, because I believe that young adult books should be inspiring and a story that teaches teens to do only good in their life.  The exact opposite of this is portrayed in most of these books that are filled with violence, rape, drugs, etc..  I realized in this article that some kids are being influenced by these books in a bad way, where they should be influenced in a good way. 

No Man’s Land # 2

Have you ever been so exhaustingly worried in your life that you don’t know whether to tell the truth, or just leave it a secret? In the book, No Man’s Land, by ST Underdahl, Dov struggles with the fight between truth and secrecy. In his life, this causes a big issue.

For example, in the story, Dov won’t tell anyone about his brother, Brian, who just got back from Afghanistan and is ill.  This allows his illness to rise to a larger level because he can’t get any help for it. This is important because without any help from a professional, Brian’s illness will just keep getting worse, which is exactly what you should try to avoid. Later on in the book, WARNING: SPOILER ALERT, Brian has an episode in the car causing Dov to crash into a man and his son almost killing them both and him, and Brian then almost shoots, the dad with the pistol he hides in his bag that Dov knows about but won’t tell anyone about. That secret about the gun affects him by Brian almost shooting that dads brains out. This is why secrets should never be kept.

Another example is, in the story, Dov won’t tell anyone, not even Scarlet, who he tells everything to, about his true feelings he has for her. This secrecy affects Miranda because she likes Dov, but he doesn’t know that Miranda wants to be more than friends,  causing their friendship to go downhill. As you can see, secrecy also affects relationships and not only yourself, but other people as well.

  A last example is how, in the story, Dov’s pet lizard, Leo, who Brian got before he left, dies and Dov tells no one about it. This affects no one but Dov himself, because by not talking about it to any of his friends, when they can make him feel better, he thinks about it all the time and makes himself sadder and sadder. The reason for this is because I believe that the lizard represents Dov and Brians friendship, and how ever since Brian came back, it had died.

In conclusion, the problems in this story that Dov has with keeping secrets and telling the truth affects him in multiple ways, none of which are good. I believe the author is trying to tell readers that if you lie/ keep secrets, or don’t tell the truth, it will not benefit you in any way, and will only hurt you and those around you.  I feel like this was an important theme in the book.  

Matt Petrick
803

No Mans Land

One book I read this summer was called, No Mans Land, by ST Underauhl. It was about a kid named Dov who's brother, the good looking, insanely athletic, kind, and perfect person went off to war. He was shipped off with his National Guard program trying to pay for college. He proposed to his insanely beautiful girlfriend, Victoria, right before he left. Anyways, the book mainly has to do with Dov Howard. He is a junior in high school and his friends, Miranda, Koby and Ali are known as the "emo" kids. Along the way he meets a very pretty girl named Scarlet, who at first doesn't really become friends with Dov, but then does towards the middle of the book and joins his "emo" group. What I liked about this book was the way Dov's life was all about fear about his brother coming home or not. I really like the way the author portrayed it. For example, Dovs biggest fear was getting the call saying that his brother hadn't made it back. One day he was eating lunch in the cafeteria, and all of a sudden the speaker booms on saying for Dov Howard to come to the main office. The text states, "All my friends know im scared that something might happen to Brian in Afghanistan." This is right after the speaker tells him to come to the main office. He stumbles to the office scared out of his mind. Also, he would always go home everyday and find his mom lying on the couch with red eyes and a tissue box staring at the tv, on the channel of the special Afghanistan report. This shows how depressed the mom got when Brian was away.     When Brian got home, I thought the way the author wrote about Brians epiodes were very strong and scary. I also liked how Dov's gecko, Leo, who was given to him by his brother before he left for war , which symbolized their friendship/relationship, died at the end. I think that it was a strong way to show  what kind of person brian had become, getting DUI's, having episodes, being very rude to everyone, and wanting to go back to war, and also how Dov's relationship with his brother had dramatically changed.

What I didn't like about the book was how the mom and dad didn't notice Brian's episodes and trauma until the very end of the book.