`INTO THE WILD' A NATURALLY ADVENTUROUS READ.

You don't have to be a naturalist to appreciate ``Into the Wild'' (Villard; $22), the true story of a 24-year-old Washington, D.C., suburbanite who assumes the vagabond life and ultimately dies of starvation and exposure in the unforgiving Alaskan wilderness.

In fact, even if your idea of roughing it is wearing jeans to brunch at the Hilton, you'll still relate on some level to this fascinating and thoroughly researched tale of the quest for raw, unfiltered experience shared by many Americans.

The subject of the story, Chris McCandless, made a cruel choice when he abandoned his distraught parents and adoring sister and took to the road under an assumed name. Despite glowing testimonials from folks he met during his two-year journey, McCandless is in the end revealed as selfish, heartless and needlessly hurtful.

Magazine editor and freelance writer Jon Krakauer, author of the superb 207-page book who incidentally was on assignment last month on Mount Everest and survived the mountain's worst climbing tragedy, deserves credit for avoiding sentimentality and placing McCandless in a bright, lucid light.

The reader gets a sense of the impossibly idealistic forces that drove the young man to the Mount McKinley backcountry, and how innocent mistakes can sometimes turn out to be irreversible and fatal. Four stars.

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