Original title: 

The Life and Strange Surprizing Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, of York, Mariner: Who lived Eight and Twenty Years, all alone in an un-inhabited Island on the Coast of America, near the Mouth of the Great River of Oroonoque
 

‘I walk’d about on the shore, lifting up my hands, and my whole being, as I may say, wrapt up in the contemplation of my deliverance … reflecting upon all my comrades that were drown’d, and that there should not be one soul sav’d but my self … ‘

Who has not dreamed of life on an exotic isle, far away from civilization? Here is the novel which has inspired countless imitations by lesser writers, none of which equal the power and originality of Defoe’s famous book. Robinson Crusoe, set ashore on an island after a terrible storm at sea, is forced to make do with only a knife, some tobacco, and a pipe. He learns how to build a canoe, make bread, and endure endless solitude. That is, until, twenty-four years later, when he confronts another human being. First published in 1719, Robinson Crusoe has been praised by such writers as James Joyce, Virginia Woolf, and Samuel Johnson as one of the greatest novels in the English language.

It’s been a while since the last Liis & Joz buddy read, so today we return with some thoughts on Robinson Crusoe. Joz read the Penguin English Library edition, 2012, and I read the translation to Estonian from 1984. I apologize for the poor image quality of the Estonian book cover. I couldn’t find a high rez image so had to improvise…

Oh yes, *SPOILER ALERT* however, I do believe the book does not need a special introduction nor an overview of the plot. Robinson Crusoe is a book that everyone has either read, heard of or watched as a movie adaption. Some may, and probably will, argue that the book has not “aged well” due to various –isms, but the fact is the book was published in the year 1719 and in these here parts we do not discount historical setting. Not only did Robinson Crusoe inspire a whole literary movement called the “robinsonade“, it has inspired movie adaptions and even philosophy since.

Liis: So, did you figure out where the island is at? I am reading the back of my copy and it says here it’s possible to locate the island and they give the name of it here too.

Joz: The island doesn’t exist. The story places the island somewhere East in the Caribbean region. There’s the real background story with the Scottish dude who was somewhere in the East Pacific. That island is actually called Robinson Crusoe island, but that’s fake. The Robinson Crusoe Island is in the wrong hemisphere.

Liis: Ah, interesting, my book claims the island is Tobago albeit, the flora and fauna is very inaccurate.

Joz: Btw, I feel tricked. You promised half way through that the religious blah will get less later. And that wasn’t the case at all!

Liis: To me it didn’t feel like he was all ‘god’ and ‘loopy religion’ though.

Joz: Ahh, it was. Omg!

Liis: But did you like the book? Are you happy you read it?

Joz: I’m happy I have read it. It was much different than what I had expected. For the first half of the book I was extremely impressed. This feeling then took a lot of damage later.

Liis: I think I started liking it more as the story went on. What went wrong for you?

Joz: The back of my book says: “Vividly depicting an individual’s psychological development from terrified survivor to master of man and nature…” I didn’t quite get neither the terrified survivor nor the master of man. First of all, I think the young RC’s mindset was very similar to mine. He didn’t listen to good advice and he knew it. He had to have it his way. I can relate to it. I have a lot of respect for the seamanship he has learned (as a fellow sailor.) And I’m very impressed by his composure and hard work he had done on the island. He was very concentrated and methodical. And he got a great deal done! Well done RC, excellent job!

Then the religion thing started, that he used at the start as a tool to organize himself even more, to explain some emotional troubles he occasionally had. And this helped him a great deal to see his situation objectively, and generally made him very happy. Actually the happiest he has ever been! Until Friday…

So he went from not being religious at all to being the religious leader and mentor of Friday. The “poor savage”… Who was better than himself in absolutely everything. He was fitter, faster, better hand-worker, better marksman, even a better christian. And yet he called him a poor savage on every single page!

Liis: I think it was the case that to him anyone without the conventional God would have been a savage, a lowly being because for some reason, religion meant high culture and education being from where he was.

Joz: But he himself was neither religious nor educated at the start. Or his mates. And they certainly didn’t call each other savages. To me, he had the quest to survive on the island. If a certain amount of religion is necessary for this, then so be it. But for at least the last 3rd of the book it seemed that becoming a good christian and forcing it onto Friday was the quest itself. So in short: it was way too much religion for me.

Liis: Interesting, I did not get this vibe at all… must have been the translation giving a different vibe?… Oh, hang on. Found a sentence where RC implies he started dressing Friday properly, as expected from a religious person.

Joz: A very good example to some kind of ignorance – eventually bending everything and everyone around him just the way it was proper at home… But let’s go back a bit. I wanted to talk about his journeys and the sailing he has done. I don’t know if you have looked up his time and the instruments available to them.

Liis: Er…no.

Joz: He’s about 100 years too early for a good sextant and they had no proper clocks! This means that the latitudinal position is so-so, but for the longitudinal pos. they are pretty clueless. And it’s interesting that whenever he writes about their position, he only mentions their latitude. So. It’s also interesting how often these ships get into trouble and become dependent on repair / resupply. Which is difficult in most countries of Africk [sic] or South-America. So generally, what a constant adventure! Half the time they only have a vague idea about their position, and they are at constant war with pretty much everybody else at sea! Are you familiar with the Privateer expression and the times it comes from?

Liis: I will always say no to these types of questions. Tell me more!

Joz: Well, basically in those times the French, Spanish, English, Portuguese and pretty much everybody else too, they were constantly fighting each other at sea (colonial shit, treasure fleets and so on). Private and commercial ships therefore were all armed (cannons, guns, everything). Attacking and general plundering was as much part of the deal as getting wet. A Privateer is a private ship armed and authorized by whatever government to attack and rob pretty much any other ship. Kind of legal piracy. 

Liis: Huh, of course.

Joz: So basically instead of sending warships everywhere, they just armed pretty much everything that could carry a cannon and said: go for it! That’s why RC feared the Spanish and the Portuguese, and was so happy for the English captain. Well, and under these conditions it’s even more impressive how they helped each other at sea! Their cavalry and honest helpfulness.

Liis: Yes, I did like that! Kindness didn’t seem to take a bite out of anyone.

Joz: Yes, I was thinking about that too. He kinda made a deal to save them if they work for him building a boat. Then he left the island before they could even come back.

Liis: In RC world kindness was repaid in treasure… these days you hardly get a thanks.

Joz: Not only he left the island, he left English criminals on the island!

Liis: And taught them how to survive there!

Joz: That was actually very… Hm, it didn’t make much sense, I wanted to ask you about this…So he feared the Spanish a good bit, that’s fair. He sent back father Friday to make a deal. And he gave them guns! Why?

Liis: I wonder now if it was another show of kindness and being a god-believing man? Or, well, he thought he was being nice?

Joz: If the deal goes bad and the Spanish kill the messengers, they come back for RC. AND they have the guns. How did it make sense?

Liis: I guess he “had faith” in their deal? Principles? I feel like back in that day, making a verbal agreement had a LOT more weight than it does now. As in: “I give you my honest word!” and so it was and mostly it held.

Joz: Had faith, but insisted on a contract on paper. As if it would mean anything in those conditions anyway.

Liis: True, but… again… we make an agreement, it should hold no matter the conditions.

Joz: You know what else I thought was funny? So there comes a boat (not a ship). Let’s say from the English ship. With 10 men, just to land for whatever, say, kill their captain. Then they unload the boat and they unload:

100 weight of rice

500 apples

22456725408 biscuits

30 barrel of gunpowder

20 guns

39 bottles of rum

120Kg beef and 300kg pork

Oh, and! He was very generous and after God has saved him from the island, he sent supplies to the people living there. He didn’t forget to send slaves and 10-20 women. You know, for wives if they want, or whatever else.

😀 😀 😀

Liis: I did find the story to be presenting very convenient happenstances every now and again… very convenient. Structure-wise, the story does go and repeat the problem/solution pattern, very obviously, just to take us from one thing to the next. But the generosity bit… That was one thing I sort of liked. As in, he knew the difficult life, getting by without much at all… And when he himself had a lot, he didn’t mind giving a lot of it away either.

Joz: Yes, but it was also so orchestrated. The old widow in England who became poor, and how he helped her, and the Portuguese captain and his son and this and the other and basically everybody… like a good christian.

Liis: Or just a good person?

Joz: Surviving on the island was fun, his efforts to make baskets, all that, how he spread the gunpowder, it’s all well. But when it smells like a moral educational story about helping everybody…. I also liked a lot how he said that most things he has made were ugly to look at, because he didn’t have proper tools. I thought it was great! It depicted well that he was in want of things. I liked him when he was in trouble. Otherwise he’s not the most interesting person.

Liis: I guess it was author’s moral duty to get the moral of the story in there.. to educate the flock reading the book. Like good old fairy tales. But I think RC was a very good example of someone making his own way in the world and accepting the shitshow that it turned out to be and, dare I say, actually enjoyed it. I think RC found solitude and island life rather fetching. That having less in material terms seems like a lot of problems, but is actually less worrisome than living in a bustling society with rules and expectations and abundance.

Joz: Yes. He said, in the old world he had society – a thing he didn’t enjoy that much anyway, but had no God at all. And on the island he lost society but found God. He said living in a society without God is infinitely worse than having no society but having God with you. That’s not to say that you can’t live in a society and have God with you, but I still liked the analogy.

… who cannot enjoy comfortably what God has given them; because they see, and covet something that he has not given them: All our discontents about what we want, appeared to me, to spring from the want of thankfulness for what we have.

Liis: I really enjoyed a little musing about necessity. But it’s in Estonian and I do not want to butcher it into some weird translation of English, so I’ll paraphrase… It’s right after he builds his boat and thinks about how to get it to the water via a channel which he reckoned would take him 12 years to dig with his hands, so he starts to muse about how he has learned that having enough is all the value that he needs, because if he has MORE than what he can use himself then that value is actually worthless… Like hunting for animals, he only hunts what he needs, otherwise the meat will spoil and that’s just a pointless waste.

Joz: There’s also one passage I didn’t mark, just before RC saves the English captain. He finds it very interesting the way the captain thinks that it can not get any worse, where in fact he has an armed ally hiding in the bushes. And the island is a wonderful safe place with plenty of food, even sheep, fruits and cheese. These are the parts I have enjoyed very much. When he learns to be happy and he’s productive. These parts are really good for everyone I think. Very good values.

***

Such were out thoughts after reading Robinson Crusoe. I daresay, both of us took away some really good thoughts and some exciting reading from the book. Whilst the religious yammering might have gotten a bit too much, there was plenty of other ingenious the man showed when in need. What is the saying again? Something about need and innovation… Ah! “Necessity is the mother of invention” and RC most definitely made at times things out of nothing, or had the very convenient “seed” for something and he put it into fruitful use. All in all, we call this buddy read a success and hopefully there will be another one very, very soon!