BOOK REVIEW: 'ROBINSON CRUSOE' BY DANIEL DEFOE

The thing is, I really can't get excited about adventure novels, I was thinking that the next novel I was going to read would be Moby Dick but I don't know if that's a good idea. I may just stick the Jane Eyre. Please bear that in mind when you read this!

So, 'Robinson Crusoe' by Daniel Defoe is a novel about a man who turns 18 and decides to go off to sea. His fist adventure ends up badly and but he recovers and earns his fortune but then decides to go on another journey! This pattern repeats and repeats until finally he ends up shipwrecked on a deserted island.

But even here he survives and manges to make bread and have a flock of goats and stays on the island until he is rescued as an old man. He does most of this alone apart from a parrot which he teaches to talk. Near the end he also rescues a native from a neighbouring island from being eaten by cannibals and this man becomes the famous 'My Man Friday'.

Unfortunately, Friday doesn't show up until.... two thirds through the novel? I've never seen a Robinson Crusoe movie but perhaps he shows up earlier in reproductions because everyone I talked to expected me to know who he was.

Crusoe finds Friday

So that's the main plot, there's bits in-between and a bit at the end when he's going back to England but that's the bones of it. It reminded me of the voyages of Sindbad, another stupid man who just had to keep going back to sea to seek his fortune despite being rich already. I just think it's a bit impractical but I suppose some people aren't content with a good life.

As a character, Robinson Crusoe is a very interesting person. In Wilkie Collins' 'The Moonstone' there is a character who uses Robinson Crusoe as one might use a bible, reading it every day and picking out a passage when he has a problem. I can understand that as the way Crusoe overcomes adversity and still manages to survive with his optimism intact is brilliant.


Also, he moves from not really loving God at all, to being a God fearing man who thanks God for everything that he has. It's got a very strong Christian message which I wasn't sure about. I don't mind it, but at times I felt like I had been fooled into reading the story of a convert rather than a adventurer. I can understand why people prefer Jonathan Swift's 'Gulliver's Travels' which is a more realistic portrayal of a man faced with adversity, but even then I could never get through the whole novel. Adventures just really aren't my thing.

If you like, you can play the story instead!

Summary:

Best Part: The novel is an uplifting tale about a man against adversity. It does make you feel proud of humans!

Worst Part: There's no real conflict in most of the novel. Just a man surviving against the odds and you know he's going to survive.

What I learnt: With some ingenuity, it is possible to survive so you should never give up no matter the circumstances.

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REVIEW: 'A TALE OF TWO CITIES' BY CHARLES DICKENS

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times....

'A Tale of Two Cities' is a book that has been recommended to me a few times by people, mostly during my A-Levels because I really love reading Orwell's 'Down and Out in Paris and London' and I needed another novel to compare with Orwell for my coursework.

In the end I used Orwell for my second, non-comparative piece with a feminist reading so I never read this novel and I never really wanted to in the first place.

The reason being: Charles Dickens and I do not get on. I don't know why it is, I have a great love of Victorian England and Dickens' literature is as good a picture of London during the time. You can't go through a 'literary guide to London' without most of the guide being dedicated to him.

But his books are just so long! And they never really seem to have much suspense in them, just overly complicated plots and too many characters to count.

'David Copperfield' is very popular in our house and it is the last Dickens book I've ever completed. Before that I read 'Oliver Twist' and 'A Christmas Carol' of course, but as children's classics. Then I found David Copperfield so long and complicated that it really did put me of Dickens altogether.

I picked up 'A Tale of Two Cities' because I was learning about the French Revolution and wanted something to supplement that picture, I also watched The Rose of Versailles which I've been waiting for an excuse to watch.

The novel was originally serialised, as most of Dickens' novels were, and is also divided into the traditional 3 volume novel. This particular story is also noted for having less sub-plots than his other novels which encouraged me to have a read.

So, the novel is set just as the French Revolution is beginning. It begins with Lucy's Father, Dr. Manette being rescued by Mr. Lorry from the Tellson's Bank and his long lost daughter Lucie. This is really all that happens in the first part of the novel. It's an introduction to the main characters and to the owners of the wine shop which will later become important.

I found the first third of the novel interesting enough although I didn't understand some of what was going in regards to the political implications of details that were described. All the characters introduced here turn out to be important in some way or another, even the man who rides the horse to catch up to the carriage, and I didn't understand this as I read it so by the time I encountered these characters again I found it a little difficult to match them up to those that I had read being described previously.

The second/middle of the book I did not understand at all! Or sometimes I did and then I would loose it. Again, all the characters are important and I didn't pay enough attention to them when they were introduced since I'm used to disposable characters as it were.

In this part we are introduced to a few more characters. It begins with a timeskip and Lucie is in the centre of a love triangle and it's a lovely little description on London life. The one subplot is introduced via a minor character called Jerry Cruncher who is a runner for Tellerson Bank and a couple of chapters are devoted to how he lives his life.

I started to get bored here. There isn't any particular conflict of such. Just a normal domestic family life and a little drama in the form of a love triangle. Two of the characters get married and they give birth and loose their son within a paragraph. I really didn't enjoy reading this and I contemplated giving it up.

However, I persevered and I'm very glad I did!

The end of the novel brings absolutely everything together. In a way the whole book reads a little like a mystery novel and you have to think about what the motivations for the characters really are, who holds the power and who's hiding what.

The end is touching and the whole last third of the novel, the part set completely in revolutionary France, gave me a real sense of terror and helped me imagine the plight of those aristocrats and friends of aristocrats who were endangered through their associations, rather than their actions.

Somehow... 'The Rose of Versailles' was more 'edge of your seat' stuff though

Summary: 

Best Part: The abrupt end and the mystery behind the final twist.

Worst Part: The middle which muddles through lots of plot, collecting pieces and leaving them scattered around for someone to find.

 What I learnt:  I expanded my picture of the French Revolution and the terrors. I also learnt that maybe a Charles Dickens novel can be enjoyable, and I wont be put of by that name in the future.

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INSPIRATION: WILLIAM WORDSWORTH

Yes, my mind is still in the lake district I'm afraid!

This post is going to be a little different, because rather than me being inspired; this is about William Wordsworth being inspired.

There are a few things that inspired Wordsworth.

The first, was family.

Wordsworth's 'Dove Cottage' was tiny, I wasn't allowed to take photos but there were about 3 bedrooms, all of which were pretty dark. One is on the ground floor and William and his wife's room didn't have a roof when they were first married! The Guest room was the nicest room and the Wordsworths' had lots of people staying in that room. Most  notably Samuel Taylor Coleridge , another of the Lake Poets and admirer of  William's sister Dorothy Wordsworth, the author of The Grasmere Journals and others who also lived there.

Other people who stayed include Walter Scott and Thomas de Quincey, who stayed a very long time.

The Gravestone

So the house was pretty crowded, I didn't even go into where the 3 children slept before they decided to move; it was very small and very cold. So the other thing that inspired Wordsworth was, of course, the landscape.

William Wordsworth was actually born in Cockermouth, Cumberland. When I was a child and we would drive up to see the family, my brother would always ask how close to Cockinmouth we were. He left for a long time to travel and then decided that to create the best poetry, he needed to live in seclusion so that he could focus on his writing.

William Wordsworth became so successful that Queen Victoria asked him to become poet laureate.
He refused, saying that he couldn't write on demand the way that the job description would ask him to. She kept asking and eventually he agreed; Queen Victoria loved his work so much that she made a special condition for him. He was to be poet laureate but didn't have to write any poetry for her unless he was inspired to do so.

Wordsworth agreed to this but was never inspired to write and remains the only poet laureate never to have written any royal poetry.

I like that story, because Wordsworth felt strongly that he wanted his worth to be natural, and unforced. Of course, he had inherited a rather large fortune previously so I guess it's alright for him.


So that's it really! To the right is a picture of Glencoyne Bay, where Wordsworth wrote 'I Wandered Lonely as A Cloud'.

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MY TRIP TO THE LAKE DISTRICT

So, for the past week I've been visiting the Lake District. Specifically, my family in Grasmere. They run the self catering apartment part of Beck Allan's Guest home and Self Catering, I've stayed there since I was a child but it was only this year that I discovered/took an interest in the fact that it's got a really rich history! I don't suppose it matters much to someone who hasn't been there but it's been the house of a wealthy businessman, a catholic college and a convalescent home for soldiers.

This is a popular walk

Grasmere is not the most happening place in the Lakes. I bring my old phone which has an O2 sim whenever I visit because T-mobile (and Orange) don't get any signal there. There's also not much in the way of shopping or fun things to do in Grasmere, there are places that you can go to do things but most people come here for the walking.


That nearest hill has a little rock on top that's called 'The Lion and The Lamb' because if you squint, it looks like a lion with a lamb sitting by it's feet. It's actually a place called Helm Crag and as you approach the top it changes from a lion and a lamb into various other shapes. You just have to use your imagination! There are a couple of interpretations of wikipedia but I prefer the idea that it's a lion and a lamb getting on because they're mesmerised by the view. It's pretty cold up there though!

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