Customer Reviews

Robinson Crusoe (Dover Thrift Editions)

5 star:		(42)
4 star:		(26)
3 star:		(18)
2 star:		(7)
1 star:		(10)

 

 

Robinson Crusoe is best taken at two levels, the literal adventure story of survival on an isolated island and as a metaphor for finding one's way through life. I recommend that everyone read the book who is willing to look at both of those levels. If you only want the adventure story, you may not be totally satisfied. The language, circumstances, and attitudes may put you off so that you would prefer to be reading a Western or Space-based adventure story with a more modern perspective.

Few books require anyone to rethink the availability and nature of the fundamentals of life: Water, food, shelter, clothing, and entertainment. Then having become solitary in our own minds as a reader, Defoe adds the extraordinary complication of providing a companion who is totally different from Crusoe. This provides the important opportunity to see Crusoe's civilized limitations compared to Friday's more natural ones. The comparisons will make for thought-provoking reading for those who are able to overcome the stalled thinking that the educated, civilized route is always the best.

One of the things that I specially liked about the book is the Crusoe is an ordinary person in many ways, making lots of mistakes, and having lots of setbacks. Put a modern Superhero (from either the comic books, adventure or spy novels, or the movies) into this situation, and it would all be solved in a few minutes with devices from the heel of one's shoe. Maybe I'm old fashioned, but I liked the trial-and-error explorations. They seemed just like everyday life, and made the book's many lessons come home to me in a more fundamental way.

Have a good solitary trip through this book!

For twenty-four years Robinson Crusoe was stranded on an island far away from anything, after being the only survivor of the shipwreck. Until one friday he rescues a prisoner I felt that book moved very slowly through the whole story, but it kept me interested throughout it. He turns his deserted island into a tropical paradise and learns to deal with his surroundings. It was an easy read. He returned to England the eleventh of June, 1687; after thirty-five years of being stranded out at sea. Daniel Defoe made this book made it seem more realistic than fiction, with his very descriptive writing. Overall I liked the book, because it had a good plot.

I must admit that I wasn't "wowed" by this book after I finished it. I'll even confess that I was mostly glad to be done with it. However, I've learned not to make hasty judgements about works, to spend time reflecting and researching in hopes of broadening my appreciation and understanding. My research has helped me resolve questions regarding why Defoe stressed some things to tedium while leaving out other more interesting details.

For example, as many have noted, he goes on and on and on about his projects on the island. The modern reader may tire of reading description after description about his cave and livestock and cooking methods. I thought to myself, "I know these people didn't have TV, but why would they want to know every cotton picking detail!" During my research, I learned that the reason for the detail was that Robinson was concerned about demonstrating mastery over his environment because that was a high priority during that time period. The most successful men learned how to work an environment to maximum efficiency. Men were concerned with conquering the land and establishing their dominance over others as well. This also explains why Robinson is more interested in learning how to live well on the island than in getting off the island.

Then there were other times when the book started to get more interesting, only to find Defoe skip off to a new topic. For example, I kept waiting and waiting for Friday to enter the storyline, and I assumed that he would be a great buddy of Robinson's. I was disappointed to learn that Friday didn't enter unless very late in the novel and that even when he did, Robinson wasn't very attached or concerned about him as a person. Again, after doing some research, I learned that their relationship reflected standard ideas at the time regarding masters and servants. There was an established hierarchy back then that regulated human relationships back then, whereas things are much more fluid and democratic these days. The concept of individual human rights did simply not exist in the form it does today.

So, although this work will never be my favorite, I have come to understand the people and values of that era better because of it. It's interesting to think about how so many basic ideas have changed since then.

Daniel Defoe's 1719 novel, "Robinson Crusoe," written when Defoe was 59 years old, is a multifaceted work whose layers of significance can easily escape those who read it in their youth. The English precursor to the survival/adventure/shipwreck narrative, "Robinson Crusoe" details the career of an errant youth who discovers hope and faith through experimentation. Crusoe's exploits are also important to a developing early 18th century notion of the ideal industrious middle class citizen, as well as reaffirming the growth of British Imperialism.

As a boy in a household already fractured by rebellious sons, Crusoe lives aimlessly with his father and mother, always desiring to leave the confines of his home for the sea. Against the better wisdom of his father, who advises him to remain where he is and enjoy the fruits of an easy-going middle class life, Crusoe takes to the ocean. A series of ill-omened occurrences, including shipwrecks and enslavement lead Crusoe to a deserted island off the coast of South America, where he is forced to provide and fend for himself.

Though Crusoe's spiritual awakening has been much noted in reviews, one important facet of his Christian moralizing in the novel that is noteworthy is the way the novel problematizes Protestant-Catholic relations throughout the novel. The vast majority of Crusoe's early encounters are among Spanish and Portuguese colonists and traders. It is interesting how Crusoe measures the English against them, and how that comparison extends into Crusoe's evaluation of the various 'savages' he comes across in the novel.

Another great layer of significance in "Robinson Crusoe" concerns its attitudes toward English history and colonial ventures. Note the language of possession, authority, and control that colour Crusoe's descriptions of himself and the uninhabited island he must learn to live on. I find especially telling, in accordance with his religious views, how England's 18th century colonial competitors, the Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, and French, are characterized by Crusoe.

I could also cite the often explicitly homoerotic undertones in the relationship between Crusoe and his Native American manservant, Friday, as a source of compelling interest in Defoe's novel. In the realm of the socio-economic, Crusoe's appropriation of utilitarianism in regards to raw materials, money, and even people is an important theme. For those who have read it a million times or never, Defoe's "Robinson Crusoe" is entertaining and edifying, always worth reading and rereading.

Robinson Crusoe is one of the first English novels. Written by Daniel DeFoe in the early 18th century during the rise of economic theory, this book chronicles the struggle of an economic hero shipwrecked on an island. He takes advantage of people, always looking to make money or increase economic value. Although Crusoe has religious experiences and gets preachy at times (DeFoe was of Puritan stock at a time when Puritanism was a significant force), Crusoe is a practical man. He does not let morals get in the way of carving out a prosperous life -- there are scenes where the main character is no role model. The novel is episodic, with Crusoe hopping from one scene to another. The narration isn't smooth. However, the "flaws" when compared to later writings may be forgiven because Robinson Crusoe is an early novel. Writers had not worked out the fine points of the genre. DeFoe is an important early English novelist who cobbled together economic theory, religious opinion, travel writing, and borrowed material from a contemporary shipwreck victim to create a work of fiction. Robinson Crusoe is often mislabelled as a childrens book. Perhaps in a watered down abridgement, it is a good children's book. The original, complete, unabridged work is a literary classic that should be read by any student of English literature.

One of the best works of fiction I've read. I listened to this work unabridged and the narrator's tone and cadence were excellent. The narrative in the novel was very easy to follow as the majority of the book involves thoughts of Crusoe and very little dialogue. This is where its similarity with the movie "Cast Away" ends. It's an enduring story not for its Swiss Family Robinson detail but for its character development. Defoe does an excellent job of writing the impetuous, self-reproaching, humbling, ambitious and regretful thoughts of Crusoe.

The reflections and insights Crusoe contemplates while on and then later off the island provide an insightful template on how experience turns from foolish trial and error to wisdom. For example:

How frequently in the course of our lives, the evil which in itself we seek most to shun, and which when we are fallen into it is the most dreadful to us, is often times the very means or door of our deliverance by which alone we can be raised again from the affliction we are fallen into.

We are rarely cast into any condition of life so low or any misery so great but we may see something or other to be thankful for and may see others in worse circumstances than our own.

A few reviewers have criticized the book for its approbation of Robinson Crusoe's irresponsible behavior: he disobeyed his parents, pursued deplorable occupations (by today's standards), held racist attitudes and was cruel to animals. Yet it is just this behavior which is the strength of Crusoe as a character-he is the quintessential human---irresponsible, fallible, cowardly but not incorrigible.

Lost at sea and then condemned to an island to live out his life is not the only story being told in this classic novel.

It is a tale of human reflection that allows the captive and the reader to escape the bondage of life that is dolled out to people from all times in history.

It is an uplifting and religious revelation that any self-worth evangelist should read before they venture out on the television to convert lost souls.

I found it to be borderline mystical with a brutal self analylization of humanity and what the problems that plague the commonest of men are, and offering a way to escape the island of our own creation of desertion.

I highly recommend all ages to read or re-read this classic with a focus, not so much on the technical descriptions of how to survive the island, except maybe a CBS executive,but on the obvious message Defoe wanted to share with his fellow man.

Robinson Crusoe isn't the most exciting book in the world, but its a great story. You really feel like your on that island and you got shiprecked. I loved reading about his trips back and forth to the boat and also about how he built his home as well. Some of the details were too much, but I thought that added to the overall tone of the book. A man thats all alone..untill... -Anyway, its a good book, and a classic.

Well, this book was a little better than Swiss Family Robinson. While it was only a little more plausible, I felt that it had a nicer writing style than the other classic. It had its moments, like when he first found Friday, or went sailing around the island. I also thought that it had far too much speaking and far too little action. Despite his having enough ammunition to stave off the entire U.S. Army for a month, he hardly ever fired a shot. He was rarely in much danger, and "god" continuously grants him things that make his survival a hundred times more easy. It often skips sections when he is in the most danger of starving, like when he says that he would not get any food from his crops until the third year of his imprisonment, and two pages later is eating corn he grew. This leaves the reader wondering what he ate the entire time that he wasn't eating corn.

Even with all of its failings, I found Robinson Crusoe an endearing character. I was rooting for him to survive the whole time. There were also stretches here and there where the book was hard to put down. Even so, I would recommend that you should think about what you want in a story before you buy this one. There are better books out there, like 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea.

An old book, but never the less a good one! I read this book for the first time when i was eight, and I think I have read it five or six times more after that. Robinson Crusoe is the innocent seaman that goes on his first journey. Everything goes well until the ship encounters a storm, in which it sinks. Robinson is the sole survivor, and to his fortune the ship has sunk just outside a small island. The rest of the book I am not going to tell you about. It has a lot of adventure, excitement, and warm humor, and I think it would be a terrific book to read if one feels a bit lost. Robinsons optimism kind of gets stuck to you, and the adventures he has go through to survive is breathtaking! Read it yourself, or to your kids, it does not matter! This book is for everyone!