Krakauer: Successful or Unsuccessful?

Throughout the development of Into The Wild, Krakauer certainly took me on a literary roller coaster. First, I pitied McCandless. Then, as the story went on, I began to despise him and the way he treated his family. And finally, as the book neared the end, I began to admire and respect him for what he had done. Krakauer was successful in his authoritative approach because he allowed you to make an opinion for yourself of McCandless, yet let his own opinion become evident as the story developed. You were able to see evidence from his background, like the insensitive letters he wrote to his home, and his angry letters regarding his parents to Billie. Through these, the reader gets a sense of the bad part of McCandless, the one that makes him unlikeable. Nearing the end, the approach gets a little more complex. Krakauer goes into GREAT detail describing how McCandless' death was not of stupidity or suicide, but by being poisoned by mistake. He talks about the Potato Seeds and how the fungus ended up killing him. But because this theory is SO complex and investigated, it makes Krakauer less credible in his argument. Apparrently, like Rachel said, that theory had already been disproven by the time the book came out. And it makes sense, because I feel like anyone who felt this passionate about something, even if it was against Krakauer's beliefs, could come up with some sort of theory/argument to prove otherwise. I think that at the end, the reader is left a little confused about what exactly happened to McCandless. Deep inside, I believe that it was simply a mistake and was not a suicide. In that regard, I think Krakauer, though he has flaws, is successful throughout this book. He has for the most part, changed my opinion about this man, and that is something which is hard to do through literature.