Robinson Crusoe (Modern Library Classics)
by Daniel Defoe
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Book Summary Information
Author: Daniel DefoeEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2001-06-12
ISBN: 0375757325
Number of pages: 320
Publisher: Modern Library
Book Reviews of Robinson Crusoe (Modern Library Classics)
Book Review: Lost on an Island
Summary: 4 Stars
35 years. 35 years away from home staggering and struggling in a world mired of being and apprehension. 28 years. 28 years of being stranded in a nameless,desolate island right in the middle of nowhere with no prospect of ever gaining salvation from a ship-wrecked life. this is the theme around which Daniel defoe's time-sustaining classic "Robinson Crusoe" revolves and actually on several occasions,it transpires elements of epic proportions and as the novel unfolds,the reader is compelled by the gripping narrationof a man who's the author of his life's mess himself.
Set against the backdrop of the 17th.century,Daniel Defoe's most acknowledged work takes us deep into the realm of adventure,broadly underlined by an unforseen future and constantly being threatened by ever-increasing dangersall around. It isan entralling tale of a 19-year old adventue-seeking fanatic of sea boy's tale of danger,misadventures and ardent mysteries. Robinson Crusoe is the third oldest child of his parents whose complacency in his own demeanour and rash-headedness carry him faraway from his parents's advices to a sea that was consistently swelling in disasters. He doesn't even pay dangers that lay ahead of him in by the waves of time. The first episode of this Englishman's journey on sea is briught to an abrupt but lucky terminationbut the pirit of adventure shrouds him and he goes on to try his luck once again. This time the eponymous protagonist of the novel is captured by the Turkish Moors near the Canary Islands and is restrained as a slave for two years. Butthe "surprising change of my(his)circumstances from a merchant to a miserable slave" was trimmed in space by Crusoe's own ingenuity to escape and the young man was metamorphosing from a warm-blooded human creature to a bruised and mature experienced man.
Several years of plantations in Brazil and being engulfed by foreign friends didn't cut any ice on his deep-embedded sense of adventure and when a group of merchants request him to lead them to Guinea,the former prison of Crusoe,to bring negroes to Brazil,Robinson Crusoe readily subscribes to the dictates of fancy rather than of reason and becomes,what he himself later so candidly admits,"the wilful agent of all my(his)own miseries".
The "inexpressible joy" of seafaring and the maiden ovvasion of captaining a ship is all that ephimeral and a catastrophic storm sweeps all of his ship's crew off their livesand only Crusoe is left alive. but only just. He's standed on an island indiscernible on a map without even a chimera of ever returning to England alive or dead. Then begins a narration,for the best part gripping and capturing the reader's imagination but onvarious instances developing into slow rhythms,that coalesces the reader into the life of a person who has now transcended to become synonymous with utter utter loneliness.
Composed in a touching first-peson narative,the life of a man severely distorted by the myriad forces of adventure and uncertainly that he himself gave birth to,who endures a lonely life on an island devoid of any other human being forms the bulk of "Robinson crusoe". Crusoe at first perceives himself to be an "unfortunate dog,and born to be always miserable" and likens the confined area of the island to "a person to me(him),and that in the worst sense in the world". Then he learns to claw out optimism from the darkest of propositions as would all men in his shoes and superadding dogs,cats and parrots along with the floura to his life,Crusoe builts an abode,calling ih his "country house" on some occasions and "castle" on other occasions. The fear of cannibals and wild beasts gradually wears off and so does the unnamed agony of isolation. Time teaches Robinson Crusoe to make the best of life and as a necessary distraction,our hero discovers new meanings in God and religion and appreciates his fate for keeping him in one piece when others of the ship had fallen to Death's clutches. He begins to compare himself to a king and the island to his engrossed mean self-seeker to a pious,sober personality is complete when he asunders all intensions to return to his homeland.
The conceivement of the theme of the book is a novel one and like other coincidences and twists in the book,the sudden arrival of savages to Crusoe's island is massively significant to the constuctun of the plot. Indeed the acting of Crusoe as the "Saviour" of the cannibal Friday---as named by Crusoe himself---is a major conjunction to turn the classic from the path of tragedy to that of a fairy-tale gratification. One by one happy occurrences are showered on Crusoe as he gathers a flock of aide-de-camps and returns to England in 1687 after spending 35 tears away,only to find a changed landscape back at home.
"Robinson Crusoe" may apparently seem to be a novel concentrating on an individual but behind this shimmering screen lurkshadow of sarcasms and taunts. In several examples,Daniel defoe pokes at the Anglo-German bitterness with te Germans often being denigraded as so vividly illustrated in this instance:".....cut off his head as cleverly,no executuioner in Germany could have done it sooner or better". The founder of British journalism doesn't edit the English crimes either---thrugh the lips of the savage Friday,he compares his compatriots's urge to murder to the cannibals's drive to eat human flesh. The abject custom of slavery too is broadly depicted in this work.
Dotted with witty taunts and underlined by an undulating pathos,daniel defoe's landmark novel too has its own defects like all works of literature. Robinson crusoe keeps a claender and that's alright,he lists the anniversaries of his arrival to the island and that's even more apt. But what about his birthday? How can a man be so naive to neglect his own birthday? Perhaps this has to do more with the author's loathing of his own,and here Mister Defoe fails as an artist,at least to those who believe that the artist must never reveal himself in his art as Oscar Wilde believed. As this narration is in retrospection,so we know that Crusoe is still alive and this actually embellishes the suspense to some extent. Moreover,there's a lack of unity of time somehow and as narrated by a well-bred and well-learned man,the book should've possessed a greater degree of sublime dictin than it actually does.
But despite all the flaws and shortcomings in "Robinson Crusoe",the reader is never in misgiving about the thrill in te book. The end too is a massive reminder to us that the scheme of adventure once patterned is immensely difficult to break apart. Crusoe finds both his parents dead and other relations scattered hither and thither but after years of consolidation of money and strength,the man of the sea returns to his fancy land. He goes back to his "old hutch" to revive old relations and concretises the uninhabited island into a flouishing one. The conversational style,genial rapidity of the unity of action and a touch of hope all make one regard this book as one of the best in English literature.
Summary of Robinson Crusoe (Modern Library Classics)
Daniel Defoe relates the tale of an English sailor marooned on a desert island for nearly three decades. An ordinary man struggling to survive in extraordinary circumstances, Robinson Crusoe wrestles with fate and the nature of God. This edition features maps.Classics Books
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