Robinson Crusoe #1
Daniel Defoe
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| Front cover |
Date read: 4 - 9 May 2018
Length: 235 pages (265 including introduction and preface)
Robinson Crusoe was born in York in 1632. He travels to sea, determined it's where he belongs. After a few disasters at sea and a brief two year spell in Brasil, he ends up stranded on a desert island. How will he survive, and will he ever make it back home?
Robinson Crusoe is one of those books everyone has heard of, although most have not read it (in my experience). I had heard of it but knew nothing of the story. Some say it was the beginning of the novel, where works of fiction besides plays originate. As an avid reader with many, many books in my house and easy access to hundreds of thousands more, I find this a very hard concept to get my head around. A world without novels?! It's unthinkable.
So now I've read it. And it's not really what I was expecting. To be honest, I'm not really sure what I expected. I certainly didn't expect a man to be stranded on a desert island for 28 years! It's really amazing what he managed to accomplish with the bare minimum tools at his disposal. I'm not sure anyone of this century, (or maybe just western civilisation) would have lasted anywhere near as long.
I am not religious in any way, so I found all the references hard to take. Perhaps it was the copy I had, which had notes and told you which passages things were from. Maybe if I didn't have that, I would have been none the wiser.
It's really hard to judge this book, because I've never read anything like it. On one hand I thought Crusoe's character was a bit boring, but what could I expect of a man trapped alone on an island? Other times I thought "what is he going to do now?". I will need to read the further adventures.
I didn't love it, but I didn't hate it either.
Overall rating
Thanks,
The Wee Librocubicularist
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