dukegregory 's review for:

Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe

2.0

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I had a moment thinking I would possibly really enjoy this. And then he arrives on the island, and it all starts to crumble down and collapse in on itself. Defoe clearly writes well, but I'm more interested in reading Said's take in Culture and Imperialism and reading Coetzee's variation, Foe, than I am thinking about this absolutely brutally boring book. Interestingly, the most interesting parts to me are any section in which the foundational principles of British imperialism come out in flying colors and are questioned by those whom Crusoe deems to be savages and nothing more. Friday literally asks Crusoe why God doesn't kill Satan if he is really that much of an issue, and Crusoe is dumbfounded but, instead of saying that he doesn't know, he thinks to himself, "Oh it really is true that one can only preach and teach and convert a savage for so long before one realizes that God has only given his most ardent disciples divine faith, so Friday is fundamentally incapable of understanding." His delusion makes him one of God's white-supremacist chosen. Sad. But very interesting psychological moment. Wish there was more of that. But then it would be more a postcolonial novel than colonial one, and it would thus no longer be Robinson Crusoe. Glad I read it for its literary historical value, not for my personal entertainment.