Reading Notes

I started reading this after the whole Mr. Smith incident. I've been feeling an intense desire recently to fling myself off to a deserted island and be done with it all. So reading some extremely down-to-earth direct survival books has felt like a good idea. I feel like I need to ground myself back to earth where things are real, otherwise I'm liable to get into mind loops.

I'm finding myself somewhat annoyed at Robinson. He comes across as whiney. I mean I get that this is like the book that started the genre of being stranded away from civilization. I wouldn't expect him to be happy. But as of where I am now, when he has just been stranded and is collecting supplies...I swear to God every other paragraph is him whinging about being doomed and going against his Father. Woe is me, if only I knew the dread that awaited me. He just keep saying it over and over. I 100% get his point, he needs to knock it off.

I am enjoying the slow building up of civilization. It's exactly why I started reading this book. Crusoe himself does tend to annoy me though. He's really casually an asshole. I swear every single time he kills a goat, it just happens to have been a mommy goat and we have a whole little description of her children weeping over her broken body. But Crusoe just comes by and goes ""Mmm-mm delicious kid goats too? Bonus!"

I also find myself annoyed with the religion. There's hardly anything to be done about it. I understand. I just find it frustrating to listen to for long periods of time. God is so good to us. He is so so good and loving. We suffer and he loves us. We suffer and he loves us.

I think my big annoyance is that Crusoe rarely meets any setbacks. I feel like that's the fun thing about survival scenarios. When things go wrong. You're building yourself up in such a way that you try to minimize setbacks. But they do happen. And in the wake of them you patch the holes in your defenses such that they don't happen again. In effect, you build yourself up in such a way that you're never permanently losing ground. You are, on average, moving forward. That doesn't really happen in this book. Rather, Crusoe has tons of stuff in the beginning and simply improves his life over time.

Friday feels weird to me. Firstly, do we have to rename him? That's rather presumptuous. I mean, we end up talking to him and communicating. But at least so far as I have read, we've not asked him his name. But in general he just feels weird because we're clearly delving into savages/racist territory. He's treated as lesser than Crusoe and refers to him only as Master. That's hmmm...but he's also never shown as being stupid. I think my problem with it is that he's sort of created to be a perfect vessel for Europe to step on and mold. It's ok, he loves it! It's just too neat. Thus far, he doesn't come across as a person, just an idea. The ideal savage that is desperate to be free of their sinning, they just need a European to come and lead them.

Overall I liked the book. Simple easy read, though I would have liked a bit more actual survival and adversity. A good place to start, at any rate. I don't think I really care for the last couple chapters of the book. Firstly, why do we hate the Spaniards? I was certain we were gonna take them with us. I mean I thought it was weird we sent off the one Spaniards and Friday's father and then immediately switch tracks to dealing with the mutineer people. But after that, I was so certain we'd have all the Spaniards show up and we'd all leave on the ship together. No, we kinda just fuck off and say whatever to them. I guess they don't speak English so they're trash.

But generally, everything after we actually leave the island felt totally unnecessary. I didn't want the little mini-adventure of going back to England. We should've just stopped as we're getting on the ship to return. I think that for a couple reasons. Mostly, it just feels untidy. It's this little vestigial bit on the end that doesn't do enough. But also, I don't like us getting into the specifics of the money. I know Crusoe gives away portions of it. But he's still described as being well-off (literally no point of comparison as to how much money he actually ends up with, I ain't doing those conversions). But why are we getting into the money at all? I was certain our lesson would be that money is meaningless and Crusoe no longer gives a shit about it. But no, we do care about it and it makes him quite happy how well things go. Weird. Feels like we've missed the point.

The real hero of the story? The semicolon.