The Adventures of Robinson Crusoe

Finally, I got around to reading this and it was worth the wait..

However, I read it on Kindle with many far from obvious typos. These, and the wordy eighteenth century text (first published in 1719), made for a more challenging read.

R. C. is something of a prodigal son who leaves his settled Yorkshire home to go to sea and adventure. Plenty of the latter to be found within the pages here. But a hefty chunk of the book is taken up with his largely solitary life on the island where he is shipwrecked. I enjoyed this part very much as it felt so personal and I tried to imagine how I would have coped in his shoes/bare feet. Could I have developed his necessary practical skills?

I wonder if the book was a major inspiration behind Roy Plomley’s concept of Desert Island Discs, the long-running radio programme?

I kept looking for (Man) Friday but it was some time before he made his appearance.

One to re-read and reflect upon.

This seems to be the quintessential Idiot Ball story, where the only thing working against the protagonist is his own constant short-sightedness, if not head-slapping stupidity. This can be amusing enough, but Defoe constantly ignores promising plot-hooks in order to pursue Crusoe's thick-headedness undisturbed.

You'd think a survival scenario would provide a wealth of hardship, but, despite his constant panics, Crusoe has a rather easy time of it. Even more than this, every other character in the story rushes to Crusoe's aid, chumming up with him without a hint of interpersonal difficulty and remaining always loyal to him.

Then again, the plotting isn't elegant to begin with. We get the same stories and observations over and over, with the narrator telling us how he doesn't need to repeat what he's already told us, only to go on and do precisely that. His 'translations' of Friday's pidgin speech are likewise hilarious, proceeding along these lines:

"Many mans come from big boat", Said Friday, by which he meant that a group of men were disembarking from a ship.

Some have suggested that Crusoe's religious conversion in the book is meant to show the reader the noble truth of belief, but since Crusoe comes to his beliefs out of ignorance and fear, it's hardly a very convincing tract. It reads more like a satire of religion, following a thoughtless, superstitious man who believes chiefly because he is alone and afraid.

There are also a lot of little errors about animal behavior and tribal practices, showing that Defoe was more interested in sensational stories than in research. He even misrepresents animals that live in Europe, like bears, which he depicts as unable to outrun a man. He also portrays Friday as being familiar with bears, despite the fact that the only species of bear that lives in South America, the Spectacled Bear, lives only in the Andes, far away from coastal islands.

The book consistently reads as deliberately silly and overwrought, but good satire is often indistinguishable from poor writing. As far as prototypes for the novel are concerned, I'll take Quixote over Crusoe any day of the week, (and The Satyricon over both).

I don't have much to add to the never ending discussion of this book.

To me, the part that stands out the most is when he finds the ship, with the whole crew drowned in less than a foot of water. That's real horror.

Step right up folks and see the English-speaking world's first published novel! Nevermind that it's a bit crap and a bunch racist, it was first!

Mostly read these days as a historical oddity, if nothing else Robinson Crusoe is a reminder of how far we've come, writing-wise, as a culture. I'd give it 2 stars, maybe 2 and a half on a generous day.

This is a good tool for building discipline and patience, because if you can sit still a while and follow along R.C. will just out of nowhere hit you with some Enlightened-level comment that cuts to the core and makes you rethink your whole being, or at least your present circumstances. But then he goes right back to listing how many goatskins he cured in the sun or how long it took him to whittle a canoe out of an entire tree or whatever. So because the content isn't always what we'd call finger-quotes arresting, the goal for me became to experience reading this as an action itself and seek the value in a bit of basic reflection, i.e. how's my posture right now? what's different about reading out in the sun vs. under the covers? have I become distracted? what's the last thing I remember before my mind began wandering? It was like reading as meditation, in that way.

So, did I like the book? Nope. But I don't like exercising either, and there's a similar sense of accomplishment in both activities.

Modelled on Alexander Selkirk the Scotsman, Robinson Crusoe is the story of a shipwrecked sailor who spends years in an island isolated from so-called civilisation.

Extremely episodic, almost like seasons of a teleserial. Enjoyable in patches though the narrative could be smoother. The unevenness is probably thanks to its episodic nature and serialised publication. It felt like it desperately needed an editor’s ironing touch before the whole thing came out as a book. It is in part adventure, memoir, and allegory. Its extreme heterogeneity and fractured episodic nature does not allow the read to feel like a novel per se. Three and a half stars.

Robinson Crusoé (1719)
Daniel Defoe (1660-1731)

I have read this novel at least three times in my life, and now it is like meeting an old friend.

In every man, there is a boy, and in every boy, there is Robinson Crusoe.
Handy work around the house needs improvising tools and working methods of your own, and that is when you remember Robinson.

I remember when he was shipwrecked near this island, when giant waves, half drowned him and violently washed him onto the beach. When he slept in a tree being scared of roaming wild beasts,
And how the storm had overnight brought the wrecked ship closer to the shore so that Robinson could climb onto it and find food, clothing and tools and all he needed for survival.

And how he explored the island and how he found it completely deserted.

How he built himself a shelter, and how he had to learn every handy work from the beginning, that is for his protection, for hunting and for making fire and cook food, and make a table and a chair, and wicker baskets and pottery for storage and much more.

How he discovered wild goats, which eventually he could catch and tame, that would provide him with meat and milk and cheese for permanent food, without having to use his gun and limited gunpowder.

And how he discovered agriculture, with sowing a few seeds and increase the harvest with every season and how to clean barley and rice and how to make the flour and eventually bread.
It took him many weeks and month and years to overcome his seemingly hopeless situation.
But he made the best of it.

He had discovered a bible in the shipwreck and in a period of depression he started reading the book, and finding salvation for his soul, he converted himself to the Christian faith and became a true believer.
About halfway through the book, the part of religious philosophy becomes exceedingly long.

And then comes the event of how he saved the life and met Friday, the savage who had been brought to the island's shore by cannibals to be devoured by them.

Educating the good savage Friday and converting him to the Christian belief is another long chapter.

After more than twenty-eight years, Robin Crusoe is witness to an attempt of mutiny on an English ship near his island, but he succeeds in interfering and saving the lawful captain from his rebellious crew, and restore him to his position and saving the ship.

This event, in short, is the free return fare to England for Robinson and his servant Friday.

The following chapter of Robinson's return to England and several voyages and experiences is reading like another book altogether.

The adventure should have ended with Robinson’s departure from the island.

No doubt, this novel has had an essential influence on adventure literature in the years and centuries after that.

Five stars for the first 2/3, two stars for the rest.

I thought most of this book was gripping. The early adventures are exciting, and shot through with the dread of ominous prophesy. The infamous long sections on the island where nothing happens and we get detailed logistics of house-building and tool-making... I found these all fascinating. The industriousness and cleverness Crusoe displays as he turns whatever he can to his meager advantage are inspiring-- literally, I was inspired. The religious meditations on redemption and deliverance and greed are sincere and moving.

How do you build up Western civilization from scratch? In this novel we witness an evolution that starts with its narrator sleeping in the trees like an animal, finds him discovering agriculture almost accidentally, and depicts his painstaking recreation of many staples we take for granted, including shovels, baskets and umbrellas. I may lose my credibility by confessing that, in fact, this book sometimes reminded me of a video game, in which you start helpless and alone, and slowly "power up" until you come to dominate the land. There are even some attempts at humor, although they are somewhat buried in the historical distance of the novel's voice.

But then...  It all goes downhill, at least for this reader. I'm not one of those upset by the depiction of the "savage wretches", or the arguments for the superiority of Western civilization over the Indians' made again and again in the last part of the book. Nor am I more than a little annoyed that his friend Friday willingly and immediately became, without anyone thinking twice about it, the white Western Crusoe's slave. This novel is a product of its time and place, and it's not hard to see the thing from the narrator's point of view-- who among us did not feel alienated by the descriptions of the natives' cannibalism, and a kinship with the good English captain saved by Crusoe?

No, my problem with the book's last act is that is was boring, ordinary and ill-plotted. The magic of Crusoe imprisoned on his island in complete isolation for decades was gone. Instead we suddenly get a lot of guests: first Friday (interesting for a while), then a Spanish sailor, then Friday's father (what?), and finally the party is really spoiled by the English captain and his crew, engaged in a mutinous rebellion we don't care much about.

There is a deadness of mood that afflicts all of these final proceedings: the plotting to seize the English ship, the return to England and Lisbon, the completely random encounter with wolves in the French mountains, even the return to the island. It's like the last 100 pages are just a first draft. The facts are spelled out, but the timing feels off, and, even worse, we feel almost no emotional connection with the narrator. The incredible event of his rebirth into society after decades of solitary torment is barely described. We who attended him over the years, who witnessed his ongoing struggles with God, the protracted miracle of the production of bread, and the slow transformation from a roguish youth into a wise philosophical middle-aged man-- we feel we deserve more.


Incidentally, as it's always interesting to see how language evolves over the centuries, I'm happy to say that this book is filled with words that are used slightly differently from what we're used to. Like the narrator hidden behind a tree, wondering if he should "discover" himself to his enemy ("dis-cover"). It adds entertainment, and some feeling of linguistic depth, to the experience of reading Robinson Crusoe.

Alright, well I am going to respond to those who think that the only way you could not enjoy this book is if you are looking back from a privileged 21st century point of view and judging the actions of our less socially conscious ancestors.

I read this book as a part of my 18th century literature class, so I have been reading a lot of novels written around the same time and with a number of the same themes. I have been able to enjoy many of them despite some uncomfortable and shocking moments of racism and superior Christian colonialist sentiment, though the religious rhetoric in Robinson Crusoe was admittedly far beyond that of any of the other books I've read in this course and very difficult to swallow as a result.

The reason I did not enjoy Robinson Crusoe is that nothing in this novel made me care for or invest in any element of it. The main character is psychologically flat and completely lacking in complexity, seeming to suffer absolutely no ill effects from being completely alone for 25 years or so. The drama is contrived and not suspenseful. As I don't really care for the main character, I don't really care if he were to be eaten by pagan cannibals. The over detail, while perhaps a comment on the plodding, relentlessly boring life of an isolated islander, could be eliminated entirely. I do not need to know how much bread someone ate on a particular day or how to make clay pots. The plot left absolute GAPING holes in it's wake, which I do realize is a symptom of lack of editing and the cost of paper at the time, but it still made it difficult to enjoy parts of the novel.

Those are some of the reasons that I personally did not enjoy this novel. I do not disagree with it's status as a classic because it was an important novel in it's time and obviously provides an excellent commentary on British attitudes of the 18th century. I simply did not enjoy it, but that does not diminish it's importance. I think that to accuse people of not enjoying the novel because of a lack of understanding of the time in which this was written is an oversimplification and I will remind you that many people writing these reviews, such as myself, enjoy other novels written in the same period despite their cringeworthy racist or zealous moments.