Robinson Crusoe - Daniel Defoe (Robinson Crusoe #1)

Okay, first off--who the heck knew that Robinson Crusoe actually kicked off a three book series?  I did not know this.  I was not aware of this at all.  Imagine my surprise when, getting to the end of the book, I found that this is continued in not one but two more books.  Oy.

When I needed a pick for a book set in the wilderness for the Popsugar 2017 Reading Challenge, I thought Robinson Crusoe was the natural pick.  It's a classic, and I want to read more of those, and I also had a foggy memory of reading the Great Illustrated Classics version when I was little.  Of course, I didn't realize then that those versions are pared-down significantly and in fact only found this out in the past coupe of years.  Oops.  Anyway, it meant reading the original long-form was a pretty easy decision.

This is a book typical of its genre--the early seafaring or adventuring tale, in which there isn't a strong central plot per se but is more just a character relating his adventures from a point later on in his life.  For our purposes, the character is the eponymous Robinson Crusoe, who tells of his misbegotten youth and many years shipwrecked on a deserted island in the Caribbean.  I suppose you could say the "plot" is that he gets shipwrecked and spends the rest of the book looking for a way to escape, but that's generous at best as most of the book is telling us how he survived on the island, combated fears and threats of native cannibals, etc.  There is a weird segment at the end after he does escape the island and is back in Europe, but that's clearly meant to segue readers into Defoe's second volume and, honestly, can probably be mostly ignored.  It really didn't fit the pacing or themes of the rest of the book at all, and felt very disjointed tacked onto the end as it was.

Because this isn't a book with a strong central plot or a lot of characters to carry the story without a plot, it means it really can be dry and boring.  For much of the book, Crusoe is the only character on the page, and when other characters enter at the beginning and end they are much simplified.  Much of the book is Crusoe telling us of his daily tasks and, to an annoying degree, the religious awakening he underwent while on the island.  Yes, this is a preachy book, which I was not expecting.  And yes, the recitation of the daily facts of life, which are mostly the same from day to day, got really old really fast.  I was kind of hoping Crusoe would make a break for it on the open sea, but alas, that never came about.  Because there are few big, story- or life-shifting events, the book is slow and dry for long expanses at a time.  Also, Defoe kept repeating things, like how Crusoe referred to a part of the island as his castle and another part as his bower--I got it after the first five times, thank you very much.  Maybe he was paid by the word.

Overall, it was fun revisiting this and seeing how much it differed from my childhood version (a lot!) but it wasn't really a riveting read, and I don't think I'm up for two more books of it.

2 stars out of 5.