Robinson Crusoe

Rating:
Summary: An Inspiration to the Common Man
Review: Robinson Crusoe is the perfect treat for the wilderness lover. The novel takes the reader on a journey through many hardships that the main character encounters in order to display just how trying nature can be. Almost every new day, Crusoe must find and develop a new survival tactic in order to stay alive. There are several reasons why one should engulf in reading this book.
Robinson Crusoe displays strength and incredible will to survive. This can be very inspiring to someone who does not have a lot of confidence in themselves. Crusoe has faith in himself and God, believing that he will be guided in the right direction. God plays a large role in his everyday life. Crusoe never was a religious man before he was stranded on the island, but he believed God had allowed him to be the sole survivor of the shipwreck for a reason and he owed it to God to be the best man that he could be.
Another reason to read this book is that it shows that one can do whatever they put their mind to. Crusoe worked long and hard to create things that will facilitate his survival and make things more convenient for himself. He creates a protective shelter, makes his own tools, baskets, and pots, and even grows and raises his own food.
This book will also get many people to realize just how good their lives actually are. Many, not all, of us have lives that are not threatened by wondering how we will get our next meal or if someone or something is out to hunt us down, but Crusoe must face these dilemmas and find ways to secure himself. The wonderful thing about this novel is that it shows how difficult these tasks can be, yet Crusoe does not give up and he pursues his goals until they are accomplished.
This novel can instigate someone to try something new that perhaps thay were uneasy about doing before. Robinson is faced with so many new surroundings at once, yet deals with them so well. If he would have panicked, he eventually would have starved to death. Instead, Crusoe thinks logically and pursues what is needed to survive.
Robinson Crusoe is an amazing adventure novel that explores the life of a very strong-willed man. The main character tells his own story and it is as if he is speaking directly to the reader, which makes it seem even more like reality. Daniel Defoe has written a great novel.

Rating:
Summary: Creativity at its best
Review: It would be a shame to give this novel anything less than 5 stars. With Robinson Crusoe, Daniel Defoe created the first true English novel. The novel contains character development, plot, suspense, and all other elements seen in thousands of books today. Too many readers judge this book with a limited perspective by today's standards. This book was the first of its kind. It left a legacy and a huge impact on the world. Countless others have mimicked the plot of Robinson Crusoe. Just turn the TV to "Survivor" or reruns of "Giligan's Island" and you can't help but see the same plot. Open "The Mysterious Island" by Jules Verne or "The Lord of the Flies" by William Golding and you will relive the setting of Robinson Crusoe. No book has influenced the English novel more than Robinson Crusoe.

Rating:
Summary: I can't believe I waited 30+ years to read this!
Review: What a great book. It has the style and grace of the 18th and 19th centuries combined with the survivalist adventure of Tom Hanks' "Castaway". Better than "Castaway" in my opinion and grander in scope. It would be a mistake to classify this as "young adult fiction" when it's obviously a ripping read no matter what your age.

Rating:
Summary: A well-crafted adventure (for a Calvinist).
Review: I recommend this book not only for its historical importance as an early example of the English novel and it's interesting (albeit erroneous) theological opinions, but additionally because it is a very enjoyable (and quick) read. Defoe has a real knack for bringing Crusoe's extraordinary adventures to life. But Defoe's talent is not limited to pulp.

The book also contains a discussion of Man's relationship to God and Providence and the plentiful gifts provided by God to his "elect." Defoe never uses the word elect but, if he's not a full-fledged five pointer, there can be no question that his orientation leans in a Calvinist direction.

It should come as no surprise, then, that the book contains a good deal of not so subtle anti-Catholicism and arrogantly implies that the rich are elected to that position by God and will thereby go to heaven and, likewise, the poor and dispossessed are despised by God, hence their poverty. Evidently our Sola Scriptura friend missed the Beatitudes in his study of Scripture.

But a reader prepared to confront Defoe's theological wackiness will nevertheless enjoy Crusoe for the good yarn that it is. And a keen observer might recognize with a shudder Crusoe's/Defoe's unmerciful paternalism towards the "damned" and his near complete disregard for their dignity nearly 300 years later in our own political discourses. The more things change, the more they stay the same.

Rating:
Summary: Not bad for the first novel in the english language'
Review: I admit, I was truly impressed by this book. Of course, I've heard of the book for years, but for some reason always just assumed it would be dull. Well, dull it was not! It was really a beautiful story. Actually, it took a little while to become beautiful, as its first hefty chunk, with Crusoe leaving England, travelling around the world, trying to become rich, becoming an adventurer and then a slave, it was all a little slow'and perhaps fake. But once he made it to his deserted island, THIS BOOK BECAME A TRUE WINNER! His struggle to make it and survive and live a life of some quality and not go absolutely nuts from isolation and loneliness, it was a true gem, and for me, easy to relate to, despite the fact that defoe wrote it nearly 300 years ago. I really did not expect much from this book, not nearly as much as I got. I found the detail involved in his life on the island surprisingly welcome, and I found myself very caught up emotionally in crusoe's struggle, and almost sick at the idea of him ALL ALONE on that island for decades.

Book's weak points (in my opinion): I found almost everything on religion and morality in this book dull, and I skimmed over it. it frankly didn't make sense to me how robinson crusoe, who was (or became) so enlightened in so many ways never could really see beyond the bounds of his petty little religion, as exemplified best (or worst) in his (...) conversion of Friday to christianity. From the beginning of the book I found defoe's/crusoe's soliloquies on religion suspect, and I wondered if defoe himself was just putting them in to satisfy his audience's limited morality, to keep them off his trail, so to speak. Or perhaps he put them in just to allow the book to pass the censors' pens'or to keep himself out of jail'but that deep down he didn't for a second buy all the religion crusoe supposedly espoused. Perhaps I'll never know, but it's just a feeling'

Rating:
Summary: Really slow and boring, until the end
Review: This book was so hard to get into. It was really slow, and boring. Then Robinson got a companion, and it was a little better. And then at the end of the book, when there was all the people on the island, it got really confusing, and I could never tell who was talking, and doing the action and all. I wouldn't recommend this book to read for fun or anything, but it's a classic and all, so everyone should probably read it. Just try to read it all in one day though, or you'll never finish it.

Rating:
Summary: UNREADABLE NONSENSE; NOT SO MUCH A BOOK AS HANDY TISSUE
Review: "Robinson Crusoe" is tedious and foolish. It's silly and pointless. It's an adventure that generates less interest in the reader than would a technical manual on how best to stack microchips in industrial settings. This qualifies as a classic in only that it is a fossil. Rather than reading this novel I would advise you to dunk your head under water and leave it there for whatever period of time you had considered using for the reading of the book. This act will be more satisfying.

My basic problem with the novel is its lack of excitement, though there are also moralistic problems that one can't help but be troubled by. Robinson is a phrophet come to show us the way. He is the shephard and we should all be glad of his instructive presense. If "Robinson Crusoe" leaves you believing any of that nonsense or forming new ideas based on the text, see a doctor and/or confess your sins very quickly. Do not allow yourself to be intructed by foolishness spouted in a book entirely devoid of quality.

Yes, I am bitter. Time was wasted reading this book that could have been better spent trimming my lawn with scissors or warming bagels with a magnifying glass on a cloudy day. I wish that "Robinson Crusoe" would have at least cured me of my obsessive need to finish every book that I start, but it did not even do me that service. It is bad. Leave it well enough alone.

Rating:
Summary: Great Adventure
Review: This book is sometimes credited as the first official novel. It starts out slow, but the story pulled me in as I lived as a castaway along with Crusoe. His resourcefulness and thoughts and feelings are what keeps us interested in the story. Once you have read a few chapters, you won't want to put it down. A very good adventure story, this book works on different levels - a romantic tale for children and an intriguing look into human nature for adults. I would recommend it for readers of all ages.

Rating:
Summary: Not What I Expected...
Review: Although I've heard a lot of good things about this classic, I didn't find it as enjoyable as I had hoped. It wasn't, in my opinion, well-written. With the summary in the beginning and all of a sudden more details added as a sort of afterthought in the middle, it just didn't sit well with me. There were a few suspensefull moments and I did get caught up in some of the commotion. However, I don't think I would ever consider this a "reading for fun" book.

Rating:
Summary: An image of striving capitalism
Review: Besides being an admirable adventure story recounting the struggles of a single man braving the hostility of the elements, Daniel Defoe's "Robinson Crusoe" is an allegory of a striving capitalist. No other book stands so prominently as a product of the Puritan, post-Reformation environment, with its ideals of asceticism, self-denial and the accumulation of wealth. It has been also remarked that Crusoe is peculiarly oblivious to the craving for woman. The episode involving cannibalism (which can be read as an anagram of "capitalism") illustrates this, as Crusoe is menaced by the fear of being eaten. Moreover, the novel is invested with profoundly Christian symbolism, as the surname of the hero (Crusoe=crux=cross) attests. Note that Crusoe's "echo" in the narrative is Xury, the first letter of whose name (X) is patently Christian in connotation. Though a stirring and exciting tale of courage and survival, it is strongly underpinned by the Enlightenment ethic of man's domination of nature for the purposes of his own self-aggrandisment.