My plecostomus died today. Or last night. (In case you joined us since my last fish update, we have a fish tank in the library where I work. The plecostomus is an ugly, brown fish which eats scum, and I’ve kept a series of them in the tank, with greater and lesser success). This specimen had lasted a fair amount of time, but he’d gotten fussy lately, liking neither his native algae nor the commercial wafers they sell you to vary his diet. This morning I found him on the floor next to the tank, dried up and stiff like a plastic novelty fish. So the algae will accumulate over the New Year’s break, and I’ll have to buy a replacement soon.
I just finished reading Robinson Crusoe. I ran out of reading material over Christmas, when all the stores and libraries were closed. I’d been watching three versions of Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, as is my Christmas tradition, and there’s a scene in the original book (and in the George C. Scott TV movie) where Ebenezer recalls the books he enjoyed as a boy, and one of them is Robinson Crusoe. I had a copy on my bookshelf (a paperback left behind by a long-ago roommate, stamped as property of “English Resource Center, Bemidji High School”), so I figured I’d go ahead and add it to my reading achievements.
I think it was fairly rare for a bookish boy of my generation to miss reading R.C. I seem to recall trying it once, but it failed to grab me. I have more patience now.
Novels were written differently in the 18th Century (which isn’t surprising. Robinson Crusoe is considered by many the first English novel, so DeFoe was making it up as he went along). Today they teach writers to start with an action scene, to get the reader engaged immediately. Back-story can be added later. DeFoe began in the natural, logical manner that modern writers have to un-learn, by starting at the beginning. Robinson Crusoe tells us more than we really want to know about his birth, education and early life. We’re told from the beginning the chief lesson DeFoe has in mind to teach us—stay at home. Don’t have adventures. Crusoe bewails his youthful folly in insisting on going to sea instead of remaining in York, to be set up in business by his father.
We all know the bulk of the story—the shipwreck, the salvaging of the ship’s supplies by Crusoe, the sole survivor. His years of solitude until he sees a footprint in the sand, and finds a friend in the native he calls Friday, whom he rescues from cannibals. I had been unaware of the shorter exploits before and after the island episode—Crusoe’s early adventures at sea, including slavery in North Africa, and afterwards a harrowing winter journey through Europe on his way home to England. Any competent editor today would have advised the author to leave that stuff out. Or save it for the sequels.
The prose was pretty vivid and engaging in the early 1700s. Today it’s a little tougher to follow, though that’s mostly the fault of our inferior educations. Even so, the story remains compelling, and once I was into it, I turned the pages eagerly.
If you only know the story from a cartoon or a children’s book version, you may not be aware how religious it is. Robinson Crusoe sees himself as living proof of God’s providence in the world, and his story as a series of lessons in faith and trust in God’s plan.
The chief problem with the story, for the modern reader, is its primitive, unself-conscious racism. Although Crusoe bewails the wickedness of his early life, before the shipwreck brought him to repentance, the fact that he was on a slave-hunting expedition at the time of the disaster does not seem to count in his mind as one his sins. Although he has the highest praise for Friday’s courage and character (in one place he judges him a better Christian than he himself is), his assumption seems to be that dark-skinned people (like dogs) are happiest when they are owned by kindly white people.
Which means, sadly, that this book will probably not be read by anybody except scholars for a while. Perhaps the day will come when we’ll have gotten past the race thing sufficiently to be able to evaluate a book like this in the context of its own culture and time. Because it’s an important classic, and a very good story with a large “footprint” in English-speaking culture.
I’ve never read the original Robinson Crusoe, only the versions edited for children. But I love Jane Austen, and Sir Walter Scott, so I will give Mr. DeFoe a chance. I expect that DeFoe’s prose is paced as precisely as Sir Scott’s.
I will put Robinson Crusoe on my list of reads this year. I understand what you mean about racism. Our modern sensibilities take a beating in earlier works. Jane Austen’s comments about heavy people in “Persuasion” are jarring. But perhaps I just have “issues.” (-;
What do you think of modern authors, writing period stories which incorporate faithfully the values of the time? I’m thinking of Patrick O’Brien’s Aubrey/Maturian, Regency Period series. Both protagonists speak casually of most dark-skinned people using the “n” word, and he used period vernacular for the Spanish, Italians etc.
I think it’s important not to whitewash the past. There are ways to tell the truth about race (and other things) through the story, without making characters say things they’d never have said in real life.
Susan, I touched on this a little in this post, https://brandywinebooks.net/?post_id=575, on a story from early last century and something the author said about using the N word.
I’ve read Robinson Crusoe, and I imagine the book will continue to be read by anyone who reads 200-300 year old books. A person wishing not to be offended had better not read old books at all, or books from foreign countries.
Defoe’s style is very distinct from Scott’s although I’ve enjoyed them both.
I also recommend Defoe’s _A Journal of the Plague Year_.