The Island: Robinson Crusoe

The reference is so well-known that a single word conjures the whole story: Crusoe. The supporting character has become a self-standing moniker for a helpmate: Friday. Yet the classic tale of shipwreck, isolation, and redemption I had never read. I think I may have had a choice to read it in high school English class, but chose Tom Jones instead. Over the last two months, though, I have at last read the first official English novel ever written: Robinson Crusoe, by Daniel Defoe (Signet Classics, 2008).

The manner of writing, the jargon and vocabulary, and the overwrought self-reference peg this book as an early eighteenth-century piece. The allure of shipwreck deliverance, the struggle of one man surviving entirely on his own, and the discoveries made while thriving in isolation make this book a timeless classic.

What surprised me most about the narrative was the religious content. Robinson Crusoe, though a fictional character, lives through the religious experience of his age: realization of his condition revealed by scripture, extended meditations on Providence (with a capital P), and deliberations about whether Papists, Protestants, and "savages" can live together in peace. In spite of the sometimes laborious religious meditations, the spiritual discoveries of Crusoe are embedded within a survival narrative which is mundane in its simplicity. The narrative arc is long, without the twists and turns of plot and conflict that I have come to expect from early twenty-first century novels. Yet I was carried along by the current--perhaps I should call it rather at tide--that built up with the slow movement of day-to-day events. Defoe masterfully leads us on a journey of the commonplace made urgent, eccentric, or uncertain by the fact that Crusoe is trying to be normal on an uninhabited island. The revelations of spirit come as gems embedded in the rough, unhewn stuff of subsistence.

This is the great thought experiment of all humanity, writ large and detailed in the original English novel: what would we discover about life if we suddenly had to live it alone, beginning again with our bare hands? What would we think about work, about rest, and about God? And finally, would our being cast away qualify more as punishment or redemption?

Though at times shocked by Crusoe's prejudice, his lack of foresight, or his lack of angst, I am nonetheless drawn in by his humanity. I can imagine myself doing what Crusoe did: suffering, mistaking, and triumphing over the same things, small and large. This, to my mind, is the gift of the good novelist: to make the story a mirror for everyone who reads it.

Kudos, once again, to Mr. Defoe for writing a piece which will count as a classic for another generation.

~ emrys