reading the book

There is a new book by Carine called The Wild Truth. There will be, no doubt, a lot of talk about this book and its contents, so thought I would create a new category for it.
marco
Posts: 7
Joined: Sat May 02, 2015 10:28 am

reading the book

Postby marco » Sat May 02, 2015 11:01 am

hello Yesterday the book finally arrived in Italy and I am reading it.
I totally belive in what I am reading, but what Billie and Walt said about that? I mean they have rights to answer back and give their own opinion.
Also I personally don't find anything so incredible violence in that family, my own life with my family was much harder, and despite my parents made many mistakes and now I live on my own, I don't close any contacts with them, my father( and even my mother) used to beat me so hard that neghbours called social oeprators.
strangely he closed relationship with not only his parentes but also with her loved sister, his best friends, so I think they are not so totally resposnible of his leaving and there must be something else behind his behaviour

and why hate a father if he had a second wife and other children? Chris was a such open minded and intelligent Young man and was good friend with his brothers and sisters. and even with Marcia

sorry for my english

marcym
Posts: 30
Joined: Wed Jan 12, 2011 10:05 pm

Re: reading the book

Postby marcym » Sun Jun 07, 2015 2:19 pm

Hi Marco.

I think that Chris was very disappointed because his parents hid the truth about the way they started their relationship, saying a lot of lies, probably because they felt embarassed about it or maybe they just wanted to protect their kids not saying something that could be painful for them, as it was...

I read Carine's book as well and I don't know...quite frankly seems that she did not have the great relation with her brother she says around, or better it seems that they lost each other on their ways through the adulthood. Anyway, I respect her grief, I imagine how much they all miss Chris, having many regrets for the things not said, the moments not shared, the distance that sometimes life put among all of us and our beloved, you know...who thinks about the fact that a brother/son will leave this world when 24 year old? But I also consider the way his parents feel ...also I am not sure Carine's book is so useful for helping people with family issues. Moreover, as written by many and many times, who considered Chris a fool won't change his/her mind after reading Carine's book, who admired him for his courage, temper and values, still does and will do, after this book...actually I don't know whether Chris would have liked all these public speaking or not , since he was a very private person and also the kind of man that does not like people pretending around him. About the fact he left, he probably was fed up what the all situation and did not speak openly anylonger with his family because he had already done in many occasions, in person and through letters thus they were perfectly aware of the situation but they did not care at all.
But you right while saying there was something more in his 'flight', there was the willingness to become a better man, to feel really happy without any concerns, to discover, to understand, to meditate about the life he wanted, his past, the mistakes and they ways to avoid them in the future and so on...you're right it was not only a journey it was much more than that.

M.

marco
Posts: 7
Joined: Sat May 02, 2015 10:28 am

Re: reading the book

Postby marco » Wed Jun 17, 2015 11:48 am

yes you are right, I am quite confused agfter reading the book

first the family is a normal family, better than 80% of families, and ok the dind'tn tell the truth about when the father was still having children with other wife, but was that so dramatic? also the parentes looks like normal to me, I mean tryng to have a perfect life from outside and being respected by community and neighbours.

and where is violence on Chris? I mean I have beaten 1000 times harder by my father than Chris was only once.

Also he closed contacts with her sister as well, and her sister said they were so close, so I think what made him escape from his family, his life in Virginia, was something else, maybe his hust dream to start a new life in the places he loved to live in.

marcym
Posts: 30
Joined: Wed Jan 12, 2011 10:05 pm

Re: reading the book

Postby marcym » Sun Jul 05, 2015 3:33 pm

Hi Marco,

Some people feel more than others the need to go, it's more than traveling just to see and discover new places, it's also a journey into our souls, to feel something that makes us happier that also help us to understand better who we really are.
Not many arrive at the point of questioning themselves as he did.

I think that Chris was that kind of person who needs people show how much they love him, a person unsure that sometimes loses himself and need to be found by friends and relatives, I think that he and Carine were very different kids and that she was psychologically stronger than him, I guess that at a certain point he was so fed up with all to think that even ties between relatives are just illusions and that was 'normal' to quit them at a certain point, and thus he started his new life...it is difficult to explain by words but some people need to see deeply inside things while others don't do.

M.

Subbotaisows
Posts: 20
Joined: Mon Jun 12, 2017 10:28 pm

reading the book

Postby Subbotaisows » Tue Aug 01, 2017 3:17 am

I cant remember if I said this already, but the Quest would be an ok book if we werent reading about Taita lusting over a kid literally a 100 years his junior - even if it is Lostris come again or whatever. It was odd enough to read it in River God - it was just a bit too much this time around.

And I dont remember Lostris ever asking Aquer to find the source of the White Nile, but I suppose WS through it in there for the Quest.

janderson
Posts: 2
Joined: Fri Feb 23, 2018 6:08 pm

Re: reading the book

Postby janderson » Sat Feb 24, 2018 6:51 am

Just finished Into The Wild now reading The Wild Truth. I understand why Chris did what he did. I also am disgusted by his parents and the fact that they are too arrogant and proud to ever admit the damage Walt did to his wives and his children. There is a special place in Hell for people like Walt McCandless.

wonderer
Posts: 1
Joined: Wed Mar 21, 2018 1:38 pm

Re: reading the book

Postby wonderer » Wed Mar 21, 2018 2:29 pm

Hi all. I finished reading The Wild Truth this week. I had read Into the Wild a couple times years ago and was fascinated by Chris' free spirit. I only recently found out Carine had written a book and picked it up as soon as I could.

I find her personal story to be fascinating. She is a strong woman -- not so much for telling her family's story but for what she's done in her own life. She has been through quite a bit in her own life between her first two divorces, adopting someone else's child, and caring for a disabled child. I don't think her book taught very much about Chris that I didn't already know unfortunately, but yet I kept reading because her own story was worth reading. It was neat to see how she used Chris' spirit to help her through her own struggles. Bravo to her.

Now, I'm a natural cynic, so onto the parts that had my scratching my head...

1) I doubt don't that she understand Chris better than anyone, but at times, I wonder if she overstates this bond. She values this special relationship she had with Chris, yet he didn't bother to say goodbye to her and chose not to communicate with her for years. Late in the book, she confronts Sean Penn about the ending of the movie. Penn had insinuated that Chris had maybe forgiven his parents at the moment of his death. Meanwhile, Carine insists that he didn't -- saying "I am telling you with my whole heart ... he would not have gone back to a place where he felt so much pain." It seems she's making a leap of faith without any evidence, and doing it in the most important moment of his life/story. Maybe it's better not leaping at all here. While the Chris who went into the woods certainly hadn't forgiven his parents, how can she be so sure how he felt after his odyssey in the wild? The reality is no one knows what was Chris was feeling in the bus on the day he died. What about the Chris who had written "happiness only real when shared" and tried to leave the woods? Perhaps had the Teklanika River been crossable weeks earlier, he would have emerged from the woods with a desire to reconcile with his parents? Maybe he would have tried (and failed) like his sister did? Maybe he would have continued wandering without ever contacting his parents or his sisters again? But I think for Carine to to say with any degree of certainty what was and wasn't inside Chris' heart the moment he died isn't fair. We can hope, we can wonder, we can assume. But we just don't know.

2) Carine goes into painful detail about her first two marriages ending -- Jimmy's abusive nature and Fish's drug problem. She went into great detail about how close she grew to Robert and his daughter. And then she seems to skim right over their divorce. She acknowledges in the final pages that they separated and that she still cared for Heather, but how did they go from what seemed like a loving partnership to divorcing peacefully? I don't feel I am entitled to know. But in the very same pages she is congratulating herself for finally telling the whole truth of her and Chris' childhood, she seems to be telling a very small part of her own story with Robert. In a story that prides itself so much on telling the whole truth, it doesn't seem readers get the whole truth of her own story at the end. And I can't help but wonder what happened and why she was so sparse on the end of her third marriage compared to the others.

3) I was excited to see that she travelled to see Ron and Wayne and others. I just wish we got more detail and insight from these characters. I was dying for one more anecdote from Chris' travels that didn't make it into Into the Wild. We didn't get any. Oh well.

4) One part seemed flat out bogus. When she is reading through the Into the Wild screen play and feels overwhelmed, she cries out that she can't do this without Chris. A page or two later, she says a long lost friend called up to tell her a dream she had about Chris telling her to tell Carine she is still there for her. Rolled my eyes.

ANyway, I enjoyed the book far more than I thought I would. While some of the truths she claims to tell seem to be either assumptions or incomplete -- (there's no harm and not knowing something for sure) -- I commend her for the life she's lived. Chris would be proud of the way she's blazed her own trial.

verica137
Posts: 1
Joined: Mon Jul 30, 2018 1:04 am

Re: reading the book

Postby verica137 » Mon Jul 30, 2018 1:12 am

I'm just in the middle of reading Carine's book, can't put it down. I remember when the news hit about her brother so long ago...so sad. But I am so amazed at most of the comments here, that they question her bond with her brother. I haven't got to the part that talks about him not even contacting her, but I am disgusted that so many here accept the parent's sick behavior! Geez. No one, NO ONE, has the right to treat anybody, and especially not children, the way they did. So what if they at times were loving and generous. They had no right to do the things they did to their children. And they call themselves Christian. I say good luck to Carine.


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