Robinson Crusoe

I have just read me some Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe published in 1719.  It is about our man Crusoe who gets stuck on an Island and some Strange and Exciting Adventures Betwixt.  Crusoe meets his man Friday and makes him a proper Slave under the Lord, through Counsel and Learning.

Crusoe makes himself a Country House, a Castle (with a Kitchen), and several large Canoes.  He Observes the tides and the currents they make, but does not explore the Mainland, which is in fact Trinidad, where the Cannibals roam.  Caribbean is Spanish for "Of Cannibals", where the Savages eat each other and dance around and Fornicate.  Crusoe isn't a fan of that.  But he is a big fan of the Lord, and of Providence.

Not as popular in it's time as Gulliver's Travels, but still a best seller, back when everyone and their dog could not publish whatever, whenever (me).  It used to be so that a few people would publish books and everyone read them, now everyone publishes books and no one reads them!  It would take a lifetime just to read all the titles of books that were published in the year 2014.

I liked this book although I thought I was going to read Swiss Family Robinson, but I'm glad I didn't.  Being stuck on an island with the appropriate Means is an archetype.  I would like it!  It is one of Jonathan Franzen's dad's favourite books.  It is a lesson in how to be alone: Get dogs and parrots and cats, and make them talk at you as best you can.