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3.17 AVERAGE
3.17 AVERAGE
Not really sure if it's worth writing a review for a 300+ year old book. So...yeah. I read it.
This is remarkably modern in language and style considering it was written in 1719, only a 100 years or so after Shakespeare. I found it an easy to read adventure story, gripping at times too, especially when ships are facing storms. Don Quixote, or the Princesse of Cleaves (which are the only roughly contemporary books I know to compare) may have a better literary value but are not so tightly plotted.
Everyone knows the story of Robinson Crusoe, which is testament to its enduring appeal. He is a Boy Scout par excellence, the man you would want by your side if you were stuck on a desert island. He fixes fences and hideouts, skins goats and builds boats, overcomes enemies and teaches parrots how to talk – there is nothing that man can’t do. Admittedly an 18th century person would be a tougher breed than we are, all we would be fit for is installing Windows anti-virus software and perhaps checking a few emails. I wouldn’t know where to begin skinning a goat, I wouldn’t last five minutes on this fictional desert island much as I would like to escape from mankind occasionally.
I wonder in the real world if his mental health might collapse. I know he is Robinson Crusoe and all, and he had his menagerie of animals, but I would challenge anyone to spend that long on your own without going mad. Defoe describes his salvation as religion which is a reasonable suggestion. You can appreciate his fear when he finally sees a human footprint after so many years alone.
Reviewers have criticised it for being politically incorrect, which is crazy in my opinion. It would take an extraordinarily perceptive person, a visionary, a Rousseau or Voltaire in fact, to be able to stand above the moral world in which he was raised and understand the universal rights of man. That takes years of education and an accumulation of human knowledge that would have been impossible in 1719. I think people forget our world is not born afresh with each generation but it is the sum of centuries and centuries of accumulated knowledge and thought. You only think the way you do because someone taught you to think it. Even Shakespeare, who understood the human mind better than anyone else exhibits prejudice sometimes.
Defoe evidently didn’t know when to stop his story, because it lingers on more than it should have done. But what prototype did he have to give him guidance? This is the first proper novel, the first adventure story, the first thriller - the beginning of the modern world of writing in fact.
Everyone knows the story of Robinson Crusoe, which is testament to its enduring appeal. He is a Boy Scout par excellence, the man you would want by your side if you were stuck on a desert island. He fixes fences and hideouts, skins goats and builds boats, overcomes enemies and teaches parrots how to talk – there is nothing that man can’t do. Admittedly an 18th century person would be a tougher breed than we are, all we would be fit for is installing Windows anti-virus software and perhaps checking a few emails. I wouldn’t know where to begin skinning a goat, I wouldn’t last five minutes on this fictional desert island much as I would like to escape from mankind occasionally.
I wonder in the real world if his mental health might collapse. I know he is Robinson Crusoe and all, and he had his menagerie of animals, but I would challenge anyone to spend that long on your own without going mad. Defoe describes his salvation as religion which is a reasonable suggestion. You can appreciate his fear when he finally sees a human footprint after so many years alone.
Reviewers have criticised it for being politically incorrect, which is crazy in my opinion. It would take an extraordinarily perceptive person, a visionary, a Rousseau or Voltaire in fact, to be able to stand above the moral world in which he was raised and understand the universal rights of man. That takes years of education and an accumulation of human knowledge that would have been impossible in 1719. I think people forget our world is not born afresh with each generation but it is the sum of centuries and centuries of accumulated knowledge and thought. You only think the way you do because someone taught you to think it. Even Shakespeare, who understood the human mind better than anyone else exhibits prejudice sometimes.
Defoe evidently didn’t know when to stop his story, because it lingers on more than it should have done. But what prototype did he have to give him guidance? This is the first proper novel, the first adventure story, the first thriller - the beginning of the modern world of writing in fact.
Io e Robinson siamo concordi nell'indicarlo come unica fonte di tutte le sue disgrazie.
Sebbene si lasci leggere facilmente, Robinson Crusoe è uno di quei libri in cui avverti tutto il peso dei secoli che ti separano dall'autore e dal suo pensiero. Giudicare il contenuto dei classici in base alla moderna sensibilità è sciocco, ma quando il contenuto è così ingombrante come in Robinson è difficile non sentirsi a disagio.
Sebbene si lasci leggere facilmente, Robinson Crusoe è uno di quei libri in cui avverti tutto il peso dei secoli che ti separano dall'autore e dal suo pensiero. Giudicare il contenuto dei classici in base alla moderna sensibilità è sciocco, ma quando il contenuto è così ingombrante come in Robinson è difficile non sentirsi a disagio.
it is so bad I want to give you a zero, but that is not possible, so I give you… a one
I recently began another Daniel Defoe book, Moll Flanders, and abandoned it because it was so unbelievably dull. I persisted through this more famous novel and can safely say I am not a Defoe fan. I finished this book as yes, it is better than Moll Flanders, but only marginally.
In my criticism of Defoe's later book, I remarked on how turgid the writing style is. The dialogue is exasperatingly long-winded and almost everything takes an inordinate amount of time to relate to the reader. One particular irritant is how Crusoe constantly harps on about his own misfortune. I literally opened the book at a random page and was confronted with "I, poor miserable Robinson Crusoe ... came on shore on this dismal island, which I called the Island of Despair".
He also incessantly remarks, in some sort of compulsively masochistic self-flagellatory display, on how he deserves his fate, ultimately because he sought adventure and ignored his boring father's admonishments not to go to sea. "But I, that was born to be my own destroyer, could no more resist the offer than I could restrain my first rambling designs, when my father's good counsel was lost upon me." And so on and so on. It is unending; it is excruciating.
In stark contrast to Moll Flanders, however, this book at least has the benefit of an interesting story: who doesn't want to hear about how a man survives 26 years on a tropical island and of his myriad adventures? That this novel is the originator of a well-worn trope in use today is testimony to the power of the story.
Yet this simply isn't enough to elevate this book above what it is: a valuable stepping stone on the development of the English-language novel but one to be quickly superseded by better works of fiction. It made me appreciate how difficult the challenge of writing characters is. Even Robinson himself is barely invested with any spice or flavour; he is the sum of his actions and no more. The rest of the cast - assorted sailors, natives and so on - are utterly characterless beyond the 1-dimensional descriptions from Crusoe. Friday is his ever faithful servant; sailors washed onto his island are either braggarts or honest men and that's it.
This book, in sum, has fully made me value authors with the skill and artistry to write believable individuals. As a non-author myself I cannot quite pinpoint what makes a Dostoevsky character so vivid and present to me as against the cardboard cutouts of this early experiment in novel writing. Whatever makes a good writer of other books, I can only recommend this to the enterprising literature student interested in the evolution of the novel. It is not a book worth reading in its own right.
In my criticism of Defoe's later book, I remarked on how turgid the writing style is. The dialogue is exasperatingly long-winded and almost everything takes an inordinate amount of time to relate to the reader. One particular irritant is how Crusoe constantly harps on about his own misfortune. I literally opened the book at a random page and was confronted with "I, poor miserable Robinson Crusoe ... came on shore on this dismal island, which I called the Island of Despair".
He also incessantly remarks, in some sort of compulsively masochistic self-flagellatory display, on how he deserves his fate, ultimately because he sought adventure and ignored his boring father's admonishments not to go to sea. "But I, that was born to be my own destroyer, could no more resist the offer than I could restrain my first rambling designs, when my father's good counsel was lost upon me." And so on and so on. It is unending; it is excruciating.
In stark contrast to Moll Flanders, however, this book at least has the benefit of an interesting story: who doesn't want to hear about how a man survives 26 years on a tropical island and of his myriad adventures? That this novel is the originator of a well-worn trope in use today is testimony to the power of the story.
Yet this simply isn't enough to elevate this book above what it is: a valuable stepping stone on the development of the English-language novel but one to be quickly superseded by better works of fiction. It made me appreciate how difficult the challenge of writing characters is. Even Robinson himself is barely invested with any spice or flavour; he is the sum of his actions and no more. The rest of the cast - assorted sailors, natives and so on - are utterly characterless beyond the 1-dimensional descriptions from Crusoe. Friday is his ever faithful servant; sailors washed onto his island are either braggarts or honest men and that's it.
This book, in sum, has fully made me value authors with the skill and artistry to write believable individuals. As a non-author myself I cannot quite pinpoint what makes a Dostoevsky character so vivid and present to me as against the cardboard cutouts of this early experiment in novel writing. Whatever makes a good writer of other books, I can only recommend this to the enterprising literature student interested in the evolution of the novel. It is not a book worth reading in its own right.
adventurous
dark
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
Content Warnings
Graphic: Racial slurs, Racism, Slavery, Xenophobia, Religious bigotry, Toxic friendship, Colonisation
slow-paced
slow-paced
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Content Warnings
Graphic: Racial slurs, Slavery, Xenophobia
Moderate: Colonisation
Minor: Violence
adventurous
challenging
dark
hopeful
informative
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No