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3.17 AVERAGE
3.17 AVERAGE
adventurous
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
Man on island befriends native. Tender portrait of humanity which introduced 'the novel' into popular discussion.
I think this was one of the longest books I've ever read. I enjoyed the story, but I really think that it could have ended when he got off the island and got married. The other adventures after seemed frivolous and unnecessary. Also, why would you want to keep traveling after you've been trapped on an island for 30 years?
So you find yourself in a deserted island: what do you do first? Maybe explore it? Oh no, don't be impatient! First you must spend about a year building a proper, civilized home, and then you can peek outside. But just a peek, because your second year you should be pretty busy making pots and pans and growing grain so that you can, yes!, reinvent English cooking! Of course, a full exploration will have to wait until the sixth year, but you will have done far more important things by then, like, praying a lot and becoming even more racist and ethnocentric than you were when you first arrived.
This book is boring and completely devoid of any insight, spirit or thought beyond the most basic Christian platitudes. It is amusing to see Robinson deal with Friday who, even when he learns "to speak" (he doesn't learn English, no, he learns "to speak") never utters his real name: I found particularly hilarious the moment when Friday puts Robinson's foot on his own head, which Robinson unequivocally interprets as a generous offer to be "his slave forever".
Some idiotic reviews out there say that one should take on account the historical context and blah blah blah: BS. There are plenty of much older books, from the Iliad to Cervantes and Shakespeare (a 100 years earlier) that do not fall into this book's many, many errors, both ideological and literary.
This book is boring and completely devoid of any insight, spirit or thought beyond the most basic Christian platitudes. It is amusing to see Robinson deal with Friday who, even when he learns "to speak" (he doesn't learn English, no, he learns "to speak") never utters his real name: I found particularly hilarious the moment when Friday puts Robinson's foot on his own head, which Robinson unequivocally interprets as a generous offer to be "his slave forever".
Some idiotic reviews out there say that one should take on account the historical context and blah blah blah: BS. There are plenty of much older books, from the Iliad to Cervantes and Shakespeare (a 100 years earlier) that do not fall into this book's many, many errors, both ideological and literary.
The beginning of this novel is plain and boring. Just a guy not knowing where he fits and therefore decides to pack his stuff and lives all around the globe.
Then once he got stranded on the island things started to get more interesting. I loved reading about his everyday life, habits and fears. Crusoe grew on me.
The reason why it didn't earn 5 stars is because of the beginning and because all the parts that are related to God and the Bible. I'm not a believer which made it a bit dull at times.
So in the end 3.8 stars out of 5.
Then once he got stranded on the island things started to get more interesting. I loved reading about his everyday life, habits and fears. Crusoe grew on me.
The reason why it didn't earn 5 stars is because of the beginning and because all the parts that are related to God and the Bible. I'm not a believer which made it a bit dull at times.
So in the end 3.8 stars out of 5.
I had to read this for my masters exam and it was so boring I considered dropping out. I’m sure some people genuinely like it…
adventurous
dark
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
adventurous
emotional
inspiring
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
200 + pages following Crusoe as he builds walls and talks to no one. I know that there are "deeper themes" but God this was irritating to read.
I don't recall ever having read this classic, but that might have more to do with my recall than otherwise. In any case, I recently finished it and was quite delighted with this tale of being cast away on an island far from civilization. I had always thought of it as a rather romanticized view of such a dire situation, but this perception is far from the truth of this book. Instead, this is a gritty, sometimes brutal tale of a man using all of his resources and the materials available to him, to make a life on this deserted—though far from inhospitable—place.
First published in 1719, this novel does have some of the stiffness we associate with literature of this era. But Defoe has managed to so thoroughly place himself in the shoes of Crusoe that we can't help but be engaged in the struggle right along with him. Because the author has recognized that there will be necessities the castaway will encounter and the reader will wonder about, he has addressed all of these explicitly. Sometimes Crusoe's solutions are quite clever (and, as one would suspect, now and then a bit outlandish), but generally speaking Defoe keeps the castaway's inventiveness within the realm of the possible. This seems to me an essential aspect of such tales in order for us to have the desire to carry on reading them.
There is no doubt that this book has all the limitations of its era when viewed through modern eyes. The most striking (and jarring) is the attitude of Manifest Destiny felt by white Europeans toward all native peoples. Racist assumptions, derogatory names, slavery, cannibalism in the less sophisticated, the subservience of all who are brown or black to those who are white—all are accepted as a matter of course. Christianity, too, is assumed as the superior way of being and thinking; especially egregious is (to our modern ear) the immediate acceptance of the white man's religion by the "savage" Friday, who is thereby almost human in Crusoe's eyes.
Still, this book is well worth a read. Taking the historical context into account, we can forgive Defoe his depredations and occasional digression into preaching. For the most part, the inventiveness of the character and the diversion of the tale easily carry us over such discomforts.
First published in 1719, this novel does have some of the stiffness we associate with literature of this era. But Defoe has managed to so thoroughly place himself in the shoes of Crusoe that we can't help but be engaged in the struggle right along with him. Because the author has recognized that there will be necessities the castaway will encounter and the reader will wonder about, he has addressed all of these explicitly. Sometimes Crusoe's solutions are quite clever (and, as one would suspect, now and then a bit outlandish), but generally speaking Defoe keeps the castaway's inventiveness within the realm of the possible. This seems to me an essential aspect of such tales in order for us to have the desire to carry on reading them.
There is no doubt that this book has all the limitations of its era when viewed through modern eyes. The most striking (and jarring) is the attitude of Manifest Destiny felt by white Europeans toward all native peoples. Racist assumptions, derogatory names, slavery, cannibalism in the less sophisticated, the subservience of all who are brown or black to those who are white—all are accepted as a matter of course. Christianity, too, is assumed as the superior way of being and thinking; especially egregious is (to our modern ear) the immediate acceptance of the white man's religion by the "savage" Friday, who is thereby almost human in Crusoe's eyes.
Still, this book is well worth a read. Taking the historical context into account, we can forgive Defoe his depredations and occasional digression into preaching. For the most part, the inventiveness of the character and the diversion of the tale easily carry us over such discomforts.