I'm not a reader but I did see the movie. I understand his desire to "get away from it all" but my need to keep breathing will prevent me from taking the same path he did.
There is also some debate about what actually killed him. The author used a theory that he ate a bad berry or tuber and it weakened him to the point where he couldn't gather food and he perished. There is another theory that he flat out starved to death over a long period, no bad berries, just not enough calories.
http://tifilms.com/wild/call_debunked.htm
Some more frustrating information is that he felt he couldn't leave the area he was in because of an impassable river. What he didn't know was that there was an overhead cable ferry just a few miles upstream. If the jackass would have bothered to at least take a map with him he would have known about the ferry and had the ability to hike out when his food sources dwindled. I'm sure he enjoyed playing mountain man, unfortunately for him mother nature wasn't playing.