Robinson Crusoe

Synopsis: Robinson Crusoe runs away from home to join the navy. After a series of adventures at sea, he is shipwrecked in a devastating storm, and finds himself alone on a remote desert island. He remains there many years, building a life for himself in solitude, until the day he discovers another man's footprint in the sand.

Review: Such is it's reputation that I don't think you can approach this story without having some pre-conceived ideas about the plot. I can remember reading some sort of abridged version as a child as well as hearing snippets on the radio. Images of Robert Hoffman, Tom Hanks and, bizarrely, Oliver Reed were also in my head whenever I thought about shipwrecked castaway's so it was nice to actually take the time to read the original tale (and to find out that apart from knowing that a man is shipwrecked on a desert island I didn't really know much about it at all.)

Robinson goes against his family's wishes and heads off for a life at sea. His first journey alone should have been enough to put him off, he was only sailing around the British coast from Hull to Yarmouth when the ship he was on foundered in a storm (I was thinking at this point, surely this isn't where he's castaway .. if so then calling it a tropical island is pushing things a bit.) Having got safely to shore he embarks on another ship bound for the coast of Africa, though he's terribly seasick, the journey is successful and Robinson profits by it. When he tries the trip again however the ship is raided by pirates and Robinson is taken as a slave for two years. You would think that it would dawn on him that life on the ocean waves is perhaps not for him, maybe a job in a lawyers office might be preferable after all, but obstinancy seems to be one of his chief failings and more to the point he doesn't want to admit defeat and prove his father right. So he continues with his sea voyages, becoming quite rich in the process (as the joint owner of a plantation) until he is again shipwrecked near an island somewhere in the Carribean.

I loved the writing, it's written in an old English archaic style with interesting words such as murther (for murder) and shew'd (for showed,) it's fascinating but not complicated. I also loved how descriptive it is, it's hard to make a story interesting when it's basically just a tale about a man wandering around a desert island with no company, and no savage animals, for the best part of twenty eight years but Defoe manages it easily. Animal lovers will need to look away on more than one occasion ... Robinson needs to find food to survive and animals are despatched with alacrity (some of them proving to be inedible) but of course, the caveman instincts will out when you need to survive. He starts viewing all wildlife as sustenance. The local cats (a sort of mixture between feral cats and survivors from the ship) are also, how shall I put it, kept to a minimum. Surprisingly he doesn't seem to eat a lot of fish (I think he missed a trick there.) It has to be said that he got lucky, he was the sole survivor of the wreck (if you don't count a couple of cats and a dog) and although he was shipwrecked with little more than the clothes he stood up in, the ship didn't sink and he was able to return and basically carry off everything that was useful. The island proved to have a large herd of goats living on it, so with one fell swoop, meat, milk, butter and cheese became available. He also managed, accidententally (by shaking out some empty bags before he filled them with gunpowder) to sow good rice and corn crops which greatly improved his diet. Everything took a long time to achieve but of course he had all the time in the world .. so he fashions pots out of clay, makes canoe's out of tree trunks and bread out of his corn (all failures to begin with but mastered over time.) His rum seems to last him for ages which I thought was admirable because I would have drunk it on that first night whilst up a tree listening anxiously for howls.

He explores the island and sets up little homesteads in other places which allow him to rest and recuperate on long explorative or hunting trips and he gets so used to life there that, apart from the lack of company, he's fairly contented with his lot. Until that is one day, when he see's some footprints in the sand. Instantly he feels fear, he now spends his days looking over his shoulder and making sure his 'houses' are more secure (and this is where technology would have been useful for him because some really decent CCTV would have put his mind at rest and saved him from back breaking work.) As he investigates the possible meaning behind these alien footprints he makes a horrifying discovery. Tribes from other islands are coming to his island in their canoe's and bringing with them prisoners which they then eat (in full cannibalistic dancing around the cooking pot style.) Surely it can't be long before they discover him and sample what he tastes like when simmered for a few hours.

Said to be the first proper English novel and of course viewed really as a childrens book (children must have had a greater attention span back then than they do now because it couldn't be called an easy read.) I was expecting to be a little bit bored by it but I wasn't and enjoyed it more than I thought I would. It does ramble on a bit at times especially when Robinson gets into long debates with God about his misfortunes, fluctuating between despair and thankfulness. Also the minute detail Defoe goes into concerning Robinson's fight for survival does make it feel more biographical than fictional. Robinson isn't particularly likeable but that doesn't matter, you still want him to succeed. I felt a bit cross with him for constantly referring to Friday as 'savage' ... and for choosing the word 'master' to be Friday's first learnt English word but the affection between them did seem genuine and I guess you have to take into account when it was written (rather like Huckleberry Finn) .. that's how things were and as unpalatable as it is, we can't rewrite the script or we're done for.

This is, and will probably remain for some time, the oldest novel I've read.