Robinson Crusoe was a required reading at English literature seminar. While I understand its literary merits, it was not an enjoyable read for me.

So outdated that it's unreadable. I understand its importance, but I don't think it works anymore as a casual read. Stop giving it to children in abridged form. They will grow up liking something that they would have hated if presented in full.

⭐⭐⭐⭐
Un clásico muy bello que me recomendaron hace muchos años y tenía pendiente.!
Me ha gustado tanto que la última mitad del libro literalmente la he devorado.
Le puse 4 estrellas porque me pareció un poco lento, pero me ha entretenido mucho y está muuuy bien escrito. No se le puede poner menos!

Robinson Crusoe is one of literature classics and for me, a reference in the construction of the novel I'm writing (and that I would love to share with all of you very soon). I love the stories of survival, travel and where the sea plays a vital role in the development of the story. Robinson Crusoe is the shipwrecked prototype we all have in our minds and it isn't a coincidence that is the most famous. It's an excellent novel and I recommend it to all those who, like me, love the kind of stories in which human nature is put to its limits.

Spanish version:
Robinson Crusoe es un clásico de la literatura y para mí un referente en la construcción de la novela que estoy escribiendo. Adoro las historias de supervivencia, de viajes y en las que el mar juega un papel fundamental en el desarrollo de la historia. Robinson Crusoe es el prototipo de náufrago que todos tenemos en nuestras mentes y no es casualidad que sea el más famoso. Es una novela excelente y la recomiendo a todos aquellos que como yo, les gusten este tipo de historias extremas en las que la naturaleza del ser humano se pone al límite.

Spoiler alert...Robinson Crusoe was a total douchebag. If anyone deserved to get stuck on an island for 28 years, it was this guy. His story begins with his dying father pleading with him to stay at home, but the teenage Crusoe won't have it. He wants to be a sailor, he swears that he's meant to be a sailor, he totally loves the sea - even though he's never been on a boat. So, against his family's wishes he runs off to a buddy's ship. And guess what? He hates it. He's sick all the time, the boat is super rocky, there are too many waves - then, they crash. It's the worst. Somehow, he survives. Once on land he gets drunk with some of his friends and is all like, maybe I was wrong about the sea, maybe it's actually great. So, after a night of binge drinking with the sailors, Crusoe forgets that he hated the sea and vowed never to go to sea again. So, like the idiot that he is, he gets on another boat.

The minute he's on this other boat he's captured by pirates and he's forced to become a slave. Once again, asking for it. So, after a few years of slavery he escapes on a tiny boat. You'd think that once you're MADE INTO A SLAVE, you'd have some pity for other slaves but NO. Not this guy. He escapes on this tiny boat with a guy who is now HIS slave and after making HIS slave kill some huge, dangerous lions - so Crusoe could have a blanket to lay on (what's the slave sleeping on? nothing)- they finally meet some other sailors. Crusoe sells his slave to them and ends up in Brazil. He starts a farm and is doing pretty well, on land, mind you. Of course, old dickish Crusoe forgets how lucky he's been to make it this far, and decides it's time for another voyage. Why? Because he's a lazy prick and wants some free slaves to run his farm. So, he sets off for Africa, and gets what's coming to him. If only it ended there.

After about 24 years on this island he saves this kid, who he names Friday, from being cannibalized. This is the first person he has spoken to in 24 years. And what does he do with him? Makes him into a SLAVE. Why? Because he can't be bothered with making corn and wheat, because he's too busy - being STRANDED ON A DESERTED ISLAND. All he has is time! What do you need a slave for? After a mess of shit, involving more cannibals, some Spaniards and some mutineers - Crusoe and poor Friday make it to civilization. His time off the island is summed up in this paragraph, "In the meantime, I in part settled myself here; for, first of all, I married, and that not either to my disadvantage or dissatisfaction, and had three children, two sons and one daughter; but my wife dying, and my nephew coming home with good success from a voyage to Spain, my inclination to go abroad, and his importunity, prevailed, and engaged me to go in his ship as a private trader to the East Indies; this was in the year 1694." Meaning, the dick is back. He gets married, has some kids and when the wife starts to die he decides it's time to leave! Ring any bells? Dad is dying, time to be a sailor. Same deal. Asshole.

If all that isn't proof enough this guy was a total douche, he drowns a TON of kittens on HIS island, so many he lost count.

Around the year 1704, Alexander Selkirk, a 28 years old Scottish privateer was marooned, at his request, on a desert island off the coast of Chile. He managed to survive there for about five years until he was rescued and brought back to England. The young man died a few years later on a voyage to Africa, but his story as a castaway became a legend. At the time of Selkirk’s death, Daniel Defoe, an English businessman and journalist, had just published a book inspired by his adventure, taking some liberties, particularly with the setting and timing: Robinson’s ship runs aground off the coasts of Brazil, and he survives there for some thirty years, no less!

Supposedly, Robinson Crusoe is one of the first modern novels written in English. To be sure, this book soon became a significant landmark in English literature, translated into almost as many languages as the Harry Potter series. It’s also considered a classic adventure tale for young readers; a claim that isn’t completely clear to me, given the archaisms and relative difficulty of the text itself.

The story is told in the form of a journal, but with considerable after-the-fact knowledge of the events and with many tangents along the way. The first few (the Salee pirates) and last few chapters (the crossing of the Pyrenees) are a bit off-topic. I was especially struck by the sheer amount of religious considerations, to the point that this book most strongly reminded me of Saint Augustine’s Confessions: in Robinson, as in Augustine’s book, a mature gentleman recalls his youthful mistakes and, as a new prodigal son, expresses his gratitude toward God for eventually redeeming him.

In the meantime, of course, we are instructed in all the uneventful particulars of the protagonist’s existence on the island: how he managed to build himself a shelter, how he learned to grow crop and make his bread, how he used his gun for hunting and later implemented livestock farming around his “castle”… In short, how, through intelligence and industry, 18th-century Europeans could truly become “comme maîtres et possesseurs de la nature.” (Descartes, Discourse on Method). When Robinson finally meets Friday, the noble savage, he also realises that, although casual cannibals are an abomination before the Lord, a man in the state of nature is genuinely good and has an innate intuition of Christian theology. In that sense, Defoe’s book is a harbinger of 18th and 19th-century Western imperialism, and truly epitomises the optimistic views of the Enlightenment.

Edit: In hindsight, there are three particularly memorable moments in Robinson’s adventure that come back to mind and are, each time, a bewildering epiphany to the protagonist and the reader: the discovery of the corn sprouts rescued from the shipwreck, which will allow the hero to survive; the finding of the first human footprint on the sand, after many years of solitude; the sickening revelation of the mass grave, just after the landing of the cannibals, which leads to the adventurous epilogue of the novel.

If Robinson is at the same time a new Adam, a new Ulysses, a new Sindbad or even a modern Prospero, it is practically impossible to make a list of all the later works that were directly or indirectly influenced by Dafoe’s novel: Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels, Edgar Poe's Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym, Herman Melville's Moby-Dick, L. Frank Baum's Wonderful Wizard of Oz, Robert Stevenson’s Treasure Island, Jules Verne’s Mysterious Island, H. G. Wells’ Island of Dr. Moreau, Michel Tournier's Friday, or, The Other Island, J. M. G. Le Clézio’s Le chercheur d'or, Jon Krakauer's Into the Wild, Cormac McCarthy's The Road, Andy Weir's The Martian, RKO’s King Kong, Tom Hanks’ Cast Away, J. J. Abrams’ Lost, just to name a few. Indeed, Robinson, on his own, has been fruitful and has multiplied!

"El mundo se me aparecía como algo remoto, que en nada me concernía y del que nada debía esperar o desear. En una palabra, me hallaba del todo aislado… me habitué a considerarlo en la forma en que acaso lo hacemos cuando ya no estamos en él… y bien podía decir como el patriarca Abraham al hombre rico: “Entre tú y yo hay un abismo."

Si hay algo que tengo que reconocerle a “Robinson Crusoe” es que según mi opinión dista mucho de considerarse como un libro de literatura juvenil, más allá de las constantes aventuras a las que es sometido el personaje principal. No es “La Isla del Tesoro” ni “Las aventuras de Huckleberry Finn” "Los viajes de Gulliver" o cualquiera de las pintorescas novelas de Julio Verne. Daniel Defoe le imprimió otra dinámica al relato, le rodeó de circunstancias que llevan a Crusoe a ciertos extremos que ponen en juego su nivel de cordura, cuando recién naufraga en esa isla desierta. Hizo de este personaje un hombre que se sobrepone a todo, gracias a su temple, su personalidad y destrezas y que no cejará hasta volver a Inglaterra.
Es importante remarcar las coincidencias entre Defoe y Crusoe. Ambos son hábiles comerciantes. En el caso de Defoe con vino y tabaco y en el de Crusoe con sus plantaciones en el Brasil y en ambos casos también, el tema de la trata de esclavos. Cabe recordar que en pleno siglo XVII era una actividad perfectamente normal; de hecho Crusoe naufraga en un barco que realizaba este tipo de tareas.
El caso de Robinson Crusoe ha sido analizado profundamente por los especialistas en lo psicológico, dado que lo que narra Defoe a partir de su estadía en la isla está relacionado a la soledad y la alienación del ser humano. Algunas frases son realmente profundas y nos hacen reflexionar a partir del punto de pensar en cómo reaccionaríamos nosotros mismos en una situación similar a la del célebre náufrago.
Cuando Defoe vislumbra que un navío ha encallado cerca de su isla pero todos perecen hace sentir su clamor: "Tal era mi ferviente deseo de que tan solo un hombre se hubiese salvado: ¡Oh, si tan solo uno se hubiese salvado! Repetía una y mil veces: ¡Oh, si tan solo uno se hubiese salvado!, pero sigue adelante con su solitaria vida. Sólo le queda confiar en Dios, de quien no rehúye ni reniega nunca" y de su Biblia, tal vez, un libro (y no cualquier libro) que Defoe inteligentemente le deja a su personaje para asirse a él como tabla de salvación.
Sus ruegos son escuchados y cuando desembarcan caníbales en la isla trayendo prisioneros, logra rescatar a un negro, a quien bautiza Viernes y que será su fiel compañero. Una recompensa de Dios luego de veintitantos años de soledad absoluta. Y Viernes no lo defraudará.
Un querido amigo mío que es escritor siempre me comenta que la gran mayoría de los personajes más importantes necesitan indefectiblemente (por más solos que se encuentren) un compañero a su lado. En esta famosa lista de compañeros nombro algunos como Sancho Panza en "Don Quijote" (para mí, el compañero ideal), o el Doctor John H. Watson en las novelas de Sherlock Holmes, Queequeg en "Moby Dick", Mephistófeles en "Fausto", Virgilio en "La Divina Comedia", Stephen Dédalus en "Ulises" y muchos más.
Claro, que en el caso de Robinson Crusoe, este debe esperar veinticuatro años hasta la aparición del fiel Viernes. ¡Estamos hablando de un cuarto de vida! ¿Qué ser humano puede mantener coherente su mente y espíritu con una estadía de soledad tan abrumadora y absoluta? Pues Robinson Crusoe, quien luego de entender su situación, con el correr de los años aprenderá en forma autodidáctica a sembrar y cosechar, ser carpintero, construir un dos refugios a los que denomina "mi castillo", hacer sus propias prendas, criar cabras, ordeñarlas, hacer pan, pasas de uvas, camastros y rudimentarios muebles. En fin, tiene toda una vida por delante mientras nadie venga a rescatarlo, con lo cual potencia el desarrollo de tantas habilidades.
Los biógrafos de Defoe dicen que el escritor se inspiró en el caso del naufrago Alexander Selkirk, un bucanero que después de pelarse con su capitán, pide que lo dejen en una isla a 560 kilómetros de Chile y donde permanece sólo por cuatro años.
Pero Robinson Crusoe deja su isla luego de permanecer más de veintiocho años, ya entrado en años, curtido y aún más experimentado ante la vida, una vida a la que no le reprocha nada sino que utiliza como parte del aprendizaje que fogueará su personalidad única.
Vendrían después otros famosos náufragos de la literatura como Arthur Gordon Pym de Edgar Allan Poe, el caso verídico de Alejandro Velazco, quien fuera llevado a la literatura por Gabriel García Márquez en "Relato de un náufrago" e incluso una deliciosa novela llamada "El caballero que cayó al mar", de H.C. Lewis, el respetable gentleman Henry Person Standish, quien se cae accidentalmente del Arabella y que este desconocido autor retrata notablemente a partir de su caída al mar. Pero Robinson Crusoe es el primero y el más famoso.
Tal vez, esta frase que aparece en la contratapa de la edición de Penguin Clásicos que leí y que afortunadamente está traducida por el genial Julio Cortázar define perfectamente a esta genial novela: "La verdadera grandeza de una vida consiste en llegar a ser dueño de uno mismo."
Desde su isla desierta, Robinson Crusoe nos da una lección de vida.

There are reasons that some books are considered classics—even after many years, they still have things to say to us. Robinson Crusoe is one of those stories. I first encountered it as a child, in comic book form (anyone else remember Classics Illustrated?) and I remember reading it numerous times and then day dreaming about how I would survive on a desert island. And of course, it is often asked “If you could take only one book (or five, or whatever number) of books with you to entertain you while so stranded, which one(s) would it be?” Poor old Robinson Crusoe seems to have only had the Bible, which is rather low on entertainment value, although it does have good bits.

Now the graphic edition of RC, although fairly true to the original, was very abridged (and rightly so, for the juvenile crowd). As is so often the case, I found it fascinating to read the adult version in comparison. I’ll say right up front, that if archaic spellings and language annoy you, you would be best to stick to the modernized versions.

Originally written in the early 1700s, Robinson Crusoe is a peek back in time into the attitudes and values of that day. No one questions that Christianity is the best religion (although there is a tug-of-war between Catholicism and Protestantism). Slavery and class inequality are just facts of life. European culture trumps all other cultures. Members of non-European cultures are barbarians and savages, suspected of all kinds of indecent behavior right from running around unclothed up to and including cannibalism. Dafoe really got into describing the “cannibal feasts” happening on the shores of Crusoe’s island. This kind of thing has been happening since the dawn of time—dehumanize those who are not like you so that you can feel morally superior. After all, we get the word barbarian from the Ancient Greeks, who perceived anyone who didn’t speak Greek as saying “Bar, bar, bar….” Witches and Jews, among many other persecuted groups have been subject to the same accusations. The target moves, but the argument remains the same.

I think Dafoe meant Robinson Crusoe to be a way to steer the worldly reader into the fold of Christianity. The young Crusoe is unconcerned with things spiritual and out to experience what the world has to offer him (travel, booze, money—the good stuff). It really isn’t until he has been alone on his island for many years into his 28 year stay that he finally “finds religion.” And he still doesn’t really examine his beliefs until he is trying to teach them to his rescued “savage” Friday. SPOILER ALERT (if such a thing exists for a 300 year old work of fiction) he ends up rescued, returned to “civilization,” and wealthy—well rewarded for his faith. I think if Robinson Crusoe was alive in the 21st century, he would be an avid admirer of books like The Secret, where the power of positive thinking can get you whatever your little heart desires!

Part of the story I never knew before: Crusoe’s defying his parents to go see the world, his time in Brazil before his shipwreck, and his trip back to England after his rescue. I was also very struck by the difficulty of shifting money from place to place and having someone to trust with finances. Not that our big banks have proven to be eminently trustworthy, but at least they have made international commerce less of a crap shoot than it used to be.

An interesting look at a time and cultural space that no longer exists.

Leerlo estos días le dió un significado distinto.
Identificarme con la soledad, con la incertidumbre, con el autoconocimiento, con la supervivencia, el desasosiego, la esperanza, el humor, la humildad y el triunfo, me cimbraron.
Y me gustó.

زیربنایی که ماجراجویی‌های رابینسون را ممکن ساخته، همان گفتمان مسلط قرن هجدهم تا نیمۀ اول قرن بیستم است؛ مبنی بر سروری و برتری مرد سفیدپوست اروپایی که مأموریت تمدن‌سازی در دنیا را به عهده دارد. جزیرۀ تصویرشده در رمان، نماد حاشیۀ اروپاست که با تسخیر آن به دست رابینسون، جزئی از ملک اروپا می‌شود. بنابراین، این اثر را می‌توان گامی فرهنگی در راستای تأیید تفکر اروپامحوری و حمایت از گسترش مرزها در جغرافیای شرق و جنوب دید

نسبت به اولین باری که این کتاب را خواندم، یعنی 10 سال پیش، هم من عوض شده‌ام و هم کتاب. تنها چیزی که از آن زمان تغییری نکرده حسادت من است به رابینسون. این نهایت شادکامی است؛ که در جزیره‌ای دورافتاده تنها باشی و قرار نباشد هر روز صبح که بیدار می‌شوی آدم‌ها را تحمل کنی

2 1/2 stars. There are two main ways I could view Robinson Crusoe - firstly, as a reader who reads for enjoyment and entertainment, and secondly, as someone offering a more critical analysis of historical attitudes. To be honest, though, the book doesn't fare too well under either microscope.

As a novel for enjoyment, it's about the titular character being shipwrecked on an island many believe to be based on Tobago, near Trinidad. There's a whole lot of survival skills going on (but a modern reader will likely have read more compelling accounts of survival) and Crusoe finds himself facing native cannibals and captives. The style is distant and emotionless, only marginally more readable than Swift's Gulliver's Travels, but that is largely due to the more simplistic narrative.

The parts where Crusoe turns to his knowledge of European agriculture to survive are particularly tedious for any reader not interested in production theory, trade and economics.

Looking at this book through the eyes of history, it's something of an advocate for colonialism and European superiority. Crusoe arrives on this island and quickly attempts to adjust it to his own expectations of civilization, even to the point of wanting the prisoners as slaves. It should also be pointed out that Crusoe is shipwrecked during a voyage to acquire African slaves. He survives by using his European knowledge, adapting very little, killing off natives, and embracing Christianity.

Crusoe is the intelligent European and the natives, including his one friend - Friday, are savages. He becomes a "king" figure of this "colony" and the conclusion appears to be that he brings civilization to these backward peoples. Perhaps interesting as a view of European mentality in the 18th century, but frankly quite nauseating to sit through today.

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