What an egotistical prick!

Krakauer introduces us to some people that expressed their thoughts, opinions, feelings, what have you, about McCandless's death in chapter 8. The person that caught my attention was a man named Nick Jans. His comment occupies a place in my mind not because of its implications and conclusions; he basically said what every other person who thought ill of McCandless said. Because of the way he went about presenting himself and his argument, I would like to have a nice, little, chat with him. But this would be no tittle-tattle. Sorry Jeeves, tea and crumpets will not be necessary this time around. See, we would discuss until the convo turned heated, and I'd let him have it. I mean, really let him have it. Just let the flames begin.

Before he even divulges his feelings towards McCandless, he obnoxiously begins mentioning, excuse me, "warning that it was 1:00 A.M., & he was well into a bottle of Seagram's...". I took this little crumb of information into account before I began reading and analyzing his response, so much so that I was expecting grammatical errors, spelling errors, and any other errors and signs of incompetence usually accompanied with an impaired state of mind. But after I finished reading his piece, I was unpleasantly surprised.

His argument was clear, well-constructed, and saturated with elevated vocabulary <20th>, the use of antithesis, colons, semicolons, em dashes, and other stylistic moves that suggest a high level of thinking. And then he has to end with "-- or am i missing something?"; translation, "--am I right or am I right? Ya, I am."

I hate when people try to be modest, especially when they know good and well that they're talented. And then they try to justify any ounce of failure or weakness, before they even begin, for fear that someone might detect a weakness or a flaw in them, making them not-so-great.

This is exactly what Jans did.

He composed a perfectly competent critique of McCandless's life, but lets on that he's drunk late at night. This is the lamest excuse ever. And all this just in case his response sucked, and he still wants to make himself look good.

Or am I missing something?