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Apr 15, 2014lisahiggs rated this title 4.5 out of 5 stars
Robinson Crusoe is the firsthand account of the sole survivor of a shipwreck who is stranded on a desert island for almost thirty years. The simple and compelling adventure narrative is full of all the cool survival tricks you can learn to do on your own when you’ve got thirty years time on your hands. Beyond the adventure narrative, and the weird capitalizing of every Noun, there is also a consistently piercing self-analysis by Crusoe, as he examines the choices that brought him to be shipwrecked and spends thirty years making himself into a better man. Robinson Crusoe has a wickedly black sense of humour, too, and a self-awareness that might be the very thing that makes this book literature. Crusoe is painfully self-aware of himself and every single choice he made in life that led him to be shipwrecked – he has thirty years to spend learning about himself, judging himself, pondering religion and the world, and getting his story down on paper. That Daniel Defoe could create a character that is so vivid and aware that people thought this was a true story, and that he did this in 1719 while inventing the novel, blows my mind. What have we been doing for the last 300 years that we can't write as well as this now or debate religion as eloquently? Of course, even in the most enduring and classic literature, there are bound to be parts that don’t age well, such as Robinson Crusoe’s initial thought upon seeing other people for the first time in 24 years is that now he can get himself a black servant.