Robinson Crusoe

I hated this book with a passion. This was my very first set book in English Lit. in secondary school in the '50s ( aged 11 ) and the very first homework was to read the first 100 pages for a test the following week. Having been brought up on a diet of Enid Blyton, Malcolm Saville, Arthur Ransome, Frank Richards, and some RLS etc, I struggled with the archaic style, long sentences, and so on, and failed miserably. I vowed never to touch the book again.Fast forward sixty years and I thought I should give it another try. I now find it very readable, interesting and even enjoyable. So never say never! The version I bought is from the hard cover, Collectors' Library edition. These books are a handy pocket size and smart looking with gilt edged pages, a page saver ribbon, and a durable spine. On the down side, the print is necessarily small and some may have difficulty with this size font. Maybe a touch expensive at £8.99, when you can get a paperback copy for £2.00 or less, but okay if you intend to keep it.

I can recommend this edition for the clear print and excellent intro and biographical and textual notes and exhaustive bibliography that made me curious to read the rest of Defoe's work. The only problem is that these various sections are strewn around the book (both for'ard and aft :-) so as to make a close reading dependent on a system of several simultaneous bookmarks. I also missed the presence of a modern map, and the small repro of Crusoe's own map of his voyages definitely deserves a further commentary in itself and a clearer modern version of it. (The reader who is not clued up will find it difficult to work out where Crusoe was allegedly stranded, and yet that map with more detailed map inserts would be so easy to supply these days.) But these are the niggles of a rather untypical reader.

It's easy to forget quite how boring the unabridged Robinson Crusoe really is.Imagine audio documenting all the happenstance of your average day - swept carpet, washed dishes, went to toilet, etc, etc.And repeating that for chapter after chapter after chapter after chapter ....Occasionally adding in a reading from a Jehovah's Witness pamphlet that had come through the door.That would be equivalent to much of what this offering comprises.And Tom Casaletto may well be an estimable voice actor in his own milieu, but as a purveyor of an "English" accent and style of reading he is toe-curling.

I first read this many decades ago after watching the excellent BBC serial on children's television that I think was a French production. Coming back to it all these years later I'm struck, once again, by how, although appearing slightly `overblown' for some modern tastes, engaging the writing is and how the story of this young man's gruelling coming of age still resonates down the centuries. Thus, one understands why the book quickly attained classic status and remained a favourite for more than 300 years.According to Colin Wilson (in A Criminal History of Mankind) Defoe based the story on the adventures of a Scottish pirate named Alexander Selkirk who, following a quarrel with his pirate captain, asked to be marooned on what was then, one of the uninhabited islands of the Juan Fernandez group about 600 km off the coast of Chile in the South Pacific. After five years Selkirk return to England and became an overnight `celebrity' and Defoe (who began life, in 1660, as Daniel Foe) went to see him in Bristol in 1713 and probably paid for his written reminiscences. The interesting point to note is that Defoe was an agent provocateur and spy, a kind of forerunner to those more recently employed by MI5, and built up a network of spies as well as spending time `inside' and in the pillory!Why it's interesting, at least to this reader, is that this seems to indicate a certain type of person; i.e. not particularly pious, unlike his fictional creation Robinson Crusoe, who, during his long solitary sojourn on his fictional island, develops, possibly, quite understandably under the circumstances, a distinct religious sensibility and frequently and at length thanks God for providing for him so bounteously. Crusoe reflects on this many times during the book and this is just one example of a degree of repetition that a good editor would surely have remedied.Nevertheless, this book is a classic for a good reason and provides hours of enjoyment for the patient reader in addition to a great deal of food for thought!

The book was in brand new condition and delivered fast. The packaging could be more insulated to protect the book in transit though. The book itself has a font size of around 11, not nearly as small as Wordsworth Classics, and fine for me but others may find it too small. The book pages were a nice colour and great quality. As for the story, it's quite rambling and thick to get through, like wading through butter, however once you get into it it can be mildly interesting.