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.