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goosemixtapes 's review for:
Robinson Crusoe
by Daniel Defoe
literally fucking play minecraft. i'm serious. if you want to know what reading this book is like, build yourself a nice little house and grow some wheat and figure out how to tame a dog and—well, actually, you should play on peaceful mode, because crusoe never once has to deal with a natural predator. but you’ll get the idea of it pretty quick without having to experience the bludgeoningly tedious prose, the absolutely insufferable narrator, or defoe's obsession with repeating the same religious and spiritual realizations nearly word-for-word every five pages until shit like "it can always get worse" and "we live in a society" has been thoroughly pile-driven into your head.
barring minecraft, if you actually want to read a book, read hatchet—yes, the one for middle schoolers—because that book actually has the balls to put its hero in danger without placing every single item he needs for his survival directly into his hands. also, way less racist.
as someone who likes classic literature, as someone who read the shakespearean canon for fun: every single page of this book was like being on the rack. i am actually deeply staggered i was able to finish this book, and deeply staggered that it only took twelve days, because the constant unrelenting level of redundant and uninteresting detail made it feel like twelve centuries. i know i frequently rag on tolstoy for his redundancy, but at least his book was over a thousand pages so the boring shit kind of got spaced out. i'm sorry i said that about you mr. tolstoy i didn't know how good i had it please come back i'll even suck your [EXTREMELY LOUD GAME SHOW BEEP NOISE]
also, super super fucking racist! robinson's island is basically a colonizer's fantasy (no natives, no predators, nothing but a wealth of resources for him to strip-mine), and he proceeds to dehumanize and subject every person of color he meets. and look, i understand that we can (and in some cases should) use racist classical literature to understand the history of racism and colonialism, and i understand that the musings on society and religion and human nature in this book are all very studyable, as are the deep-running colonialist themes. but i also know that there are other books in the world that explore these ideas without making the experience of reading into an extended form of the sort of torture the geneva convention was intended to prevent. and yes, i understand that this is the first english-language novel ever written. but i also know that the english have written a couple other things since 1719. shh, england. shh. it’s okay. you’re okay. we can let this one go, okay? i know you liked robinson in the 1720s, but he’s getting very old and he’s honestly always been boring as hell and i think the only humane option is to put him down.
barring minecraft, if you actually want to read a book, read hatchet—yes, the one for middle schoolers—because that book actually has the balls to put its hero in danger without placing every single item he needs for his survival directly into his hands. also, way less racist.
as someone who likes classic literature, as someone who read the shakespearean canon for fun: every single page of this book was like being on the rack. i am actually deeply staggered i was able to finish this book, and deeply staggered that it only took twelve days, because the constant unrelenting level of redundant and uninteresting detail made it feel like twelve centuries. i know i frequently rag on tolstoy for his redundancy, but at least his book was over a thousand pages so the boring shit kind of got spaced out. i'm sorry i said that about you mr. tolstoy i didn't know how good i had it please come back i'll even suck your [EXTREMELY LOUD GAME SHOW BEEP NOISE]
also, super super fucking racist! robinson's island is basically a colonizer's fantasy (no natives, no predators, nothing but a wealth of resources for him to strip-mine), and he proceeds to dehumanize and subject every person of color he meets. and look, i understand that we can (and in some cases should) use racist classical literature to understand the history of racism and colonialism, and i understand that the musings on society and religion and human nature in this book are all very studyable, as are the deep-running colonialist themes. but i also know that there are other books in the world that explore these ideas without making the experience of reading into an extended form of the sort of torture the geneva convention was intended to prevent. and yes, i understand that this is the first english-language novel ever written. but i also know that the english have written a couple other things since 1719. shh, england. shh. it’s okay. you’re okay. we can let this one go, okay? i know you liked robinson in the 1720s, but he’s getting very old and he’s honestly always been boring as hell and i think the only humane option is to put him down.