"McCandless had been infatuated with London since childhood. London's fervent condemnation of capitalist society, his glorification of the primordial world, his championing of the great unwashed- all of it mirrored McCandless's passions. Mesmerized by London's turgid portrayal of life in Alaska and the Yukon, McCandless read and reread The Call of the Wild, White Fang, "To build a fire," "An Odyssey of the North," "The Wit of Porportug." He was so enthralled by these tales, however, that he seemed to forget they were works of fiction, constructions of the imagination that had more to do with London's romantic sensibilities than with the actualities of life in the subarctic wilderness."
Chapter 5. Page 44. Paragraph 2.
McCandless had a passion for London's works. Reading them made him feel like he could go into the back country of Alaska for a couple of months and make it out alive. The problem with this was that McCandlesss thought that the fiction in the book was just like reality. He figured if he could get away from everyone and be entirely alone, then he would be capable of living off of the berries he found and the animals he killed. These books have similar stories and London used a romantic theme to describe the beauty of Alaska, which McCandless believed to be real. He thought that the events in these books seemed true and gave him the courage to go out on his own. McCandless knew that society looked down on him like he was crazy, but reading these books made him realize that there are people in the world that have the same views as him and are willing to express them. The books gave him hope that people were like him and that he wasn't the only one that would embark on such a journey.
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