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3.17 AVERAGE
3.17 AVERAGE
A timeless adventure tale, it really does hold up after all these years. If you want a “stranded on a tropical island” fantasy, boom, Daniel DeFriend did that for us 300 years ago.
The ruminations on Christianity do get tiring, but there is some purpose there imo. I see other reviews blasting the book for its colonial, racist aspects, which is obviously a reader’s right, but that kinda ignores the underlying story, the era, etc. I’m not pardoning anything, I’m saying you can recognize that aspect while still acknowledging the merits of other aspects of the story.
I also think those critiques are dead wrong. It’s always tough to judge authorial intent, but I believe there are points where Defoe seems satiric, subversive. It struck me most in a passage where he clearly states “I sent Friday and his dad to chop down a tree, and the Spaniard to supervise them.” He’s already made it very clear how competent Friday is, and by making it such an obviously straight-forward task it seems he might be calling attention to how dumb such thinking is. You might think that a one-off, but on the same page he says “we’d go hunting, Friday and I one day, the Spaniard and Friday the next. We took turns like that.” Something to that effect, where he’s written it so you very clearly see that, no, Friday had to work every day. Again, you can assume blind racism if you like, but to me it’s so bluntly stated that it seems purposeful. Defoe isn’t gonna overturn all of his racist-ass society, but he presents a “savage” in a way his honky world might get. No one wanted to hear “well actually, verified cannibalism isn’t really common, it’s more a cultural fear we have!” Nope, given the audience of his time he spoke a language they might understand and then made it very clear every step of the way that Friday was an equal human, but in the narrator’s mind and world that didn’t ultimately result in the same life, or anything close to it. Again, I think there’s something purposeful in how the white man made a fortune doing literally nothing but investing at a point early on.
Anyway, that’s my reading, if you wanna just blast everything written by a white dude prior to 1990 as racist crap, hey, you do you, but I find this to be interesting insights into the times. I personally feel Defoe was somewhat subversive here, and regardless of your reading I find the actual survival story to be very engaging, all these years later.
The ruminations on Christianity do get tiring, but there is some purpose there imo. I see other reviews blasting the book for its colonial, racist aspects, which is obviously a reader’s right, but that kinda ignores the underlying story, the era, etc. I’m not pardoning anything, I’m saying you can recognize that aspect while still acknowledging the merits of other aspects of the story.
I also think those critiques are dead wrong. It’s always tough to judge authorial intent, but I believe there are points where Defoe seems satiric, subversive. It struck me most in a passage where he clearly states “I sent Friday and his dad to chop down a tree, and the Spaniard to supervise them.” He’s already made it very clear how competent Friday is, and by making it such an obviously straight-forward task it seems he might be calling attention to how dumb such thinking is. You might think that a one-off, but on the same page he says “we’d go hunting, Friday and I one day, the Spaniard and Friday the next. We took turns like that.” Something to that effect, where he’s written it so you very clearly see that, no, Friday had to work every day. Again, you can assume blind racism if you like, but to me it’s so bluntly stated that it seems purposeful. Defoe isn’t gonna overturn all of his racist-ass society, but he presents a “savage” in a way his honky world might get. No one wanted to hear “well actually, verified cannibalism isn’t really common, it’s more a cultural fear we have!” Nope, given the audience of his time he spoke a language they might understand and then made it very clear every step of the way that Friday was an equal human, but in the narrator’s mind and world that didn’t ultimately result in the same life, or anything close to it. Again, I think there’s something purposeful in how the white man made a fortune doing literally nothing but investing at a point early on.
Anyway, that’s my reading, if you wanna just blast everything written by a white dude prior to 1990 as racist crap, hey, you do you, but I find this to be interesting insights into the times. I personally feel Defoe was somewhat subversive here, and regardless of your reading I find the actual survival story to be very engaging, all these years later.
http://another-story-my-blog.blogspot.com/2012/11/robinson-crusoe.html
I'm surprised I never read this when I was a kid - it would have been totally my thing. Adventuring, ingenuity, danger . . . It's great stuff and very readable (a little long-winded, but so is anything from that era so we won't hold it against the novel).
Kukapa ei tuntisi Robinson Crusoen tarinaa! Taisin kuitenkin lukea alkuperäisen romaanin nyt ensimmäistä kertaa. Defoe kirjoittaa vahvasti aikakauden edistysuskon näkökulmasta: Autiolle saarelle haaksirikkoutuva Crusoe löytää Jumalan ja perustaa paratiisin kaltaisen ihanneyhteiskunnan, jossa hän, valkoinen mies, on kiistaton hallitsija. Vaikka Defoe jonkin verran kritisoi kolonialismin lieveilmiöitä, teos raapaisee niitä vain pinnalta ja jää jumiin hyvin Eurooppa-keskeiseen näkökulmaansa. Viihdyin teoksen parissa parhaiten, kun se tyytyi kuvaamaan Crusoen arkista ruumiillista aherrusta saarellaan, sillä Defoe on taitava kirjoittaja, jolla on silmää yksityiskohdille. Lopussa olo jäi kuitenkin lähinnä tyhjäksi: enimmäkseen teos tuntui ylipitkältä ja taantumukselliselta ihmisjärjen ylistykseltä.
2.5 stars rounded
It is always hard to rate these old classics because I always end up reading them with modern eyes. Terms and phrases that would not be tolerated now, people tend to make allowances for. Overall, I found it...okay. The classist belief that someone is good or better at something because of where they were born or their status is abhorrent and is some self-important BS. The racism and white savior complex tend to ignite the rage in my brain. I had the same problems with Tarzan and clouds the experience.
It is always hard to rate these old classics because I always end up reading them with modern eyes. Terms and phrases that would not be tolerated now, people tend to make allowances for. Overall, I found it...okay. The classist belief that someone is good or better at something because of where they were born or their status is abhorrent and is some self-important BS. The racism and white savior complex tend to ignite the rage in my brain. I had the same problems with Tarzan and clouds the experience.
adventurous
challenging
dark
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
I recently re-read this, and discovered that I really don't like a lot of it - it is colonialist, racist, and promotes a brand of Christian thinking I find particularly noxious (God gets credit for everything, human agency or bad luck get the blame for everything, and Christianity justifies whatever is done to those who are not white or Christian). It's also fairly tedious by today's standards, I think. I'm glad to have re-read it, having seen it referenced in countless history books lately (random example - in a book about the life of Abraham Lincoln, discussing books popular when he was growing up). The illustrations in this edition are beautiful, but still not a fun book, despite its status as "great literature" . . .
A landmark to be sure but how readable is it to someone used to modern novels? Middling in my opinion. The survival stuff and descriptions of circumstances still entertain greatly. His fondness for half-page run-on sentences and long musings on religion make this a great bedtime book to get those eyelids drooping. Overall, it's an interesting historical document but feel free to skip over large sections, you won't miss much. Also, this book is often categorized in children's literature but I'd suspect that it would test the patience of most kids.
reflective
slow-paced
Everyone's heard of Robinson Crusoe, the famous castaway, and his sidekick Friday. There are probably a bunch of movies about him (I haven't seen them), and a bunch of children's versions (I haven't read them). But do we really know his story? Have we read it, as he wrote it in his fading, fast-disappearing ink? And what happened after the ink ran out? Did he just remember it and then write it down later -- with embellishments of course -- after the island became a self-sustaining country of its own, its "creator" retired with plenty of free time on his hands to not think about survival and/or rescue? Did he tell it to a writer friend (a certain Mr Foe), who then wrote it down -- with more embellishments of course? Or is the story entirely made up, loosely based on the sad story of a castaway who survived on an island and then died, the only witnesses a mute slave and a late-arrival castaway? If we need answers to these questions, we've misunderstood Literature. The answer is yes to all of them, stories beget stories ad infinitum.
My favorite part of the book is the long middle section. The part where he's all alone on the island, contemplating existence. It's part Anglo Pragmatics, part Western Religion, part Eastern Zen. But can we really survive alone? Can we be islands? Maybe the final part of the book (the arrival of Friday on) is just Crusoe trying to keep his lonely self sane with an adventure story. He never did leave that island...
NOTE: I read the free gutenberg.org version to accompany Coetzee's Foe.
My favorite part of the book is the long middle section. The part where he's all alone on the island, contemplating existence. It's part Anglo Pragmatics, part Western Religion, part Eastern Zen. But can we really survive alone? Can we be islands? Maybe the final part of the book (the arrival of Friday on) is just Crusoe trying to keep his lonely self sane with an adventure story. He never did leave that island...
NOTE: I read the free gutenberg.org version to accompany Coetzee's Foe.