Ugh.

[apocalypsos]

I am so sorely tempted to take a sick day from my day job in the hopes that if I stay home and nap all day I won't feel so wretched when tonight rolls around and I can still salvage my shift at Wegmans. I'm normally fine (albeit a bit sore all over) on the first day of my period, but I woke up today totally nauseated and so sore all over I could barely stand upright.

Decisions, decisions. On one hand, I get paid for sick days. On the other hand, this will be my third in three months, which I'm not too thrilled about. Back on that first hand, though, I really really don't feel well.

Yuuuuuuuuuuuck.

EDIT: Fuck it, I took today off from the day job. Hopefully I'll feel better by the time tonight rolls around and I can still work my shift at Wegmans.

*

Oh, and one of the audiobooks I got my grubby little paws on for work a few weeks back was Into The Wild. I'd been avoiding reading it for ages if only because just reading the cover had me saying, "... so? The kid was an idiot," and I was pretty sure reading the book itself wasn't going to change that opinion.

I finished listening to it the other day, and ... okay, so McCandless may not have been book-stupid, but his enthusiasm steamrolled right over his common sense, which grates on my nerves even more for some reason. Probably because it's like he only half-prepared himself for the journey because he wanted the "authentic" experience, even though any outdoorsman worth his gun would probably prepare twice as well as he did.

At the same time, I'm never really fond of Krakauer as a narrator. I loved Into Thin Air in spite of the fact that he's sort of a douche, and while it makes a bit of sense in ITA because you kinda have to be a little nuts to climb Mt. Everest, people who climb Everest prepare the ever-loving FUCK out of themselves for the trip. Krakauer's got a handy excuse for every smug plowing-headfirst-into-the-wild maneuver McCandless did, and even when he's right I still wanted to reach through my MP3 player and smack Krakauer across the face. And then he told that story about how he identified with McCandless because this one time he did something dumb and not entirely planned out in the wilderness, and I sat there thinking, "Look, I get that you're trying to make me understand as a reader that you know that McCandless wasn't a reckless idiot because you've been in the same position and you weren't one, but ... no, actually, you kinda were one."

I don't know. I sort of feel like if anyone else had written the book, I ... well, I wouldn't have worshiped McCandless as some sort of camping god or something, but I definitely wouldn't have been as aggravated as I was after listening to his story as told by Jon "I've Never Met A Mountaineering Or Camping Accident I Couldn't Handwave" Krakauer.

Comments

[laughingrat.livejournal.com]

It's always really tough to decide about sick days. Even though we're allowed them etc., you know the Man is secretly thinking we're off carousing our little heads off or something. *sigh*

[eight-demands.livejournal.com]

I've actually just started listening to books at work thanks to your suggestion. It's great because a lot of the work I do is tedious and repetitive, and the books help keep me engaged.

I think I've reread Into Thin Air 5 or 6 times now, and it's one of a handful of books that will reliably give me nightmares. Into the Wild I only got through once, although I have been meaning to get the movie from the library for a few months now.

[thelana.livejournal.com]

I've only read "Under The Banner of Heaven" of his so far and I kinda sorta love this (especially as somebody who used to be clueless about the subject matter), but yeah, I'm kinda scared to venture out into his other books.

[supernaturalfun.livejournal.com]

I read this one a while back and found myself harboring thoughts of 'hit-him-on-the-head-tis' because seriously, going off that ill-prepared? It was so pointless, with a goal that didn't measure up and with preparations that most obviously didn't. And I was NOT impressed with the author enough to want to read any more of his stuff.

Give me Hemingway and his chauvinism any day - at least he speaks of a real world with real reactions (we might want to hit him over the head sometimes, but not because of his skill as a writer or explorer in his own right ... it's the little things).

[apocalypsos.livejournal.com]

Heh. Well, to be fair, both of the other days I took off, I wasn't ill. Today, though ... ugh, I feel like I was hit by a truck.

[apocalypsos.livejournal.com]

It's great because a lot of the work I do is tedious and repetitive, and the books help keep me engaged.

I know, right? I'm usually doing data entry all day and while I like listening to music, it just isn't doing enough to keep me awake if I listen to it all day long. And the good thing about having a 120Gb player now is that I have fifteen or so audiobooks on there at any given time, so if I get bored by one I move on to another. Besides, God knows I'm spending so much time trying to write during my free time I'm barely getting any chances to read anymore. ;)

I really have to get my hands on Into Thin Air again. I haven't read it in ages, but I really did like it. I felt like with Into The Wild he was having a hard time admitting that McCandless ever made any mistakes, like any time he had no choice but to admit McCandless made a mistake someone had squeeeezed it out of him with a ginormous fist.

[apocalypsos.livejournal.com]

I'm sorely tempted to read Under The Banner Of Heaven. I feel like he may be objective enough for that sort of thing, whereas with the more outdoorsy material he takes things a bit more personally and it shows. With Into Thin Air taking it personal works because it WAS personal, but with Into The Wild ... not so much.

[apocalypsos.livejournal.com]

Starting Krakauer's work with Into The Wild pretty much guarantees you won't move onto his other work, which is a shame because I think it's his weakest. Into Thin Air is wonderful, and from what I've heard of Under The Banner Of Heaven, it's worth a read. Into The Wild sort of stumbles drunkenly all over the place with Krakauer standing off on the side Pee-Wee-Hermaning "... he meant to do that" for three hundred pages.

[indy-go.livejournal.com]

It's interesting; so many people I've talked to about Into the Wild have had that reaction. I've never interpreted Krakauer's insertion of his own folly as an excuse for Christopher's, but more of a 'Jesus, we were both idiots and there but for the grace of god go I.' Not an excuse, per se, but a glimpse into the head of somebody not too different. Does that make sense?

[apocalypsos.livejournal.com]

Oh, no, it makes total sense. And really, I do think that's what he was going for, but somewhere between that and the way he would constantly trip over himself to find excuses for what McCandless did wrong it was throwing me off. His sense of direction in writing of it was sort of all over the place.

Like, okay, either you're both young and stupid and you both screwed up, which is dumb but still understandable -- hell, we've all been there, except maybe not to that extreme -- or it's okay that McCandless made these fifteen different mistakes, because five of them weren't actually mistakes and doing five of the others wouldn't have helped anyway (maybe) and the other five were okay because he was a Young Modern-Day Jeremiah Johnson (Minus The Native-American-Raping).

[indy-go.livejournal.com]

Yeah. His voice is really strong and occasionally problematic. If I pretend it's a fictional narrator I like it better. :D I definitely recommend Under the Banner. It's really informative and illuminating.

[azurelunatic]

My cousin raranax was, if anything, more contemptuous of Into the Wild than you are.

I suspect it's a book that I'd better not read, lest I get all screamy.

[azurelunatic]

Alaskan children get "To Build A Fire" in grade school as soon as they're old enough to understand most of the words in the story and get the rest assigned as new vocabulary. I think we got it in 3rd grade.

I was sort of appalled to see it being presented as a classic that I might not have read before, in college, Outside.

[apocalypsos.livejournal.com]

Oh, I think you'd loathe every page of it. I feel like if I had ever lived in or even been to Alaska I'd be more rage-filled when it comes to the book. As it stands, I'm annoyed at McCandless even as my brain wanted to translate "Alaskan summer alone in the bush" to "Pennsylvanian summer in the middle of the woods," which I imagine is vastly different.

I just wanted Krakauer to acknowledge it was a dumb thing to do. Not that McCandless didn't attempt to prepare as thoroughly as possible or that he should have let more people know where he was going or whatever, just that the entire concept, regardless of whatever stupid spontaneous kayak trip to Mexico he might have taken previously where he lived on rice and fish for four weeks, was a dumb fucking thing to do because Alaska is not Mexico. And I kept waiting, and waiting, and waiting. And I feel like Krakaeur wanted or tried to say as much, but maybe he was too close to the story for personal reasons or just too close to the McCandless family to say it.

[azurelunatic]

How long a walk is it to emergency medical care in Pennsylvania? Less than a day, I am guessing. *looks at wikipedia*

Oh my god, this guy is either a Darwin Award, or too crazy to be one.