Customer Reviews

The Life and Most Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, of York, Mariner (1801)

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Defoe's book may be the first true English novel. Published 290 years ago and loosely based on the experiences of an English castaway rescued 300 years ago, The Life and Strange Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe has become a part of our culture, universally known by educated English speakers though rarely read outside of a high school or college literature class. And a rare high school it would be that assigned it.

The style is foreign to moderns, and many of the attitudes repugnant. But, if you have any multicultural inclinations, you must acknowledge that Defoe's culture is no less legitimate than our own.

Not particularly entertaining for moderns, Robinson Crusoe reveals much about the culture that nurtured John Locke and created the British Empire and the (often ignored) traditions of liberty, equality, and rule of law that led to modern America with its power, flaws, and ability to inspire all peoples.

People will be reading this book long after Clancy and Ludlum are forgotten and dropped from the library shelves. It will be read not for entertainment but to learn about a culture.

Since I got my Kindle I have been strictly alternating between modern literature and classics. Robinson Crusoe seemed a perfect choice when it got time to read my next classic.

I would like to say that I have given the novel a fair shot - but I just can't get over how poorly this was recreated for the Kindle. I'm not sure if Defoe actually spelled so many words incorrectly himself (I acknowledge that language was not as standardized during his time as it is today), but I have to cringe when I read a sentence such as: "As for the smaller thing, I made them with better success, such as little round pots, flat dishes, pitchers, and pipkins, the fun baking them very hard."
I highly doubt Defoe would have written "fun" in place of the word "sun."

The Kindle editors need to work a little bit harder when republishing a classic into e-book format.

I did enjoy the book, I read it for an AP Lit assignment, the only thing I wasn't too keen on was the missing pages, it would completely skip sections with only a note saying that the transciber couldn't find that page, it was very annoying and left a few very awkward gaps in the story.

I try to read classics every now and then. It's good for the soul. In theory. Although many years of literature class analyses did their best to wring every last drop of enjoyment from reading classic "literature". But since I was looking for a change of pace reading, when I got my Kindle, I thought I'd give it a try reading something "Classic." I loved the extremely short-lived "Robinson Crusoe" tv series last fall, so I picked up this book to see how the story actually went. ugh!

We all know the story of Robinson stranded on a tropical island alone, must figure out how to survive. Should be compelling, right? And at times, for a few paragraphs it was. However, the vast majority of the book consisted of a gospel sermon with all the charm and subtlety of a sledgehammer to the head. Of course I would imagine spiritual issues would most definitely come up whilst one is forced to endure so much hardship and solitude. But this became extreme, especially in the later half of the book. Then it becomes nearly unbearable and the character's behavior becomes less acceptable.

The stilted language wasn't as difficult as I would have expected from a novel written so long ago. Being written in the journal format, however, tended to distance the author and reader from any actual activity. I felt it would have worked better not given the distance of recapping events in a diary, but rather experiencing the world and events as it happened.

Overall, this was extremely frustrating to read, and the racial and religious bigotry, while to be expected to an extent since it was written two hundred some years ago, really wears thins quickly. This is not a pleasant read. The characters aren't endearing really either. It was just a disappointment.

I had to force myself to read most of this book. I began reading it thinking about the story of a man shipwrecked on an island and his survival. I thought, having read many other classics, that I was prepared for the ignorance of the English at that time, but I was woefully unprepared. The Caruso character is so unsympathetic, so hypocritical and so totally UNCHRISTIAN in his overall thinking and actions that you find yourself rooting for the "pagans" to do away with him. He saves Friday only with the thought of how to enslave him. The book is written with no understanding at all of what the true cultural and religious practices of any of the people are. Anyone not "Christian" is a savage, cannibalistic, murderer. In between the "good" Christians attacking everyone they meet is a sermon on how they live "Godly" lives and save these poor "creatures" from their pagan religions by enslaving them. This book, while hard to swallow and deal with, definitely further enlightened me as to the sick mindset of the original Europeans who used their distorted religious beliefs to kill and enslave millions of innocent people and steal their possessions and dispossess them of their lands.