The Adventures of Robinson Crusoe
by Daniel DeFoe
I am a little surprised by the poor writing - Guilliver's travels of the same time is a wonder - but the story is as eternal as it has been: survival of a castaway from the human society. on a lonely island far away. unforgettable, too, is the characterization of Crusoe and his Man Friday.the only book Crusoe took (rescued from the shipwreck) was Bible, thus the constant moral musings, which were so out-of-date that they impressed me as being "cute", illuminating an era of innocence, or the lack of self-reflection, during whose time, people could capture, trade and use slaves as honorable good men. a hint of emerging moral relativism was evident, however, as Crusoe became reluctant to intervene with the natives' man-eating culture. the budding thought, however, evaporated immediately when he saw the next one to be butchered was a white. of note was Crousoe's condemnation, obviously common sentiment of the time, of Spanish slaughtering of natives - talk about moral relativism.
the ending was somewhat a surprise to me, too: his impossible passing through the snowing Northern mountains to get home. i wonder whether this was the first fantastic description of men fending off wolfpack attacks - so prevalent in fantasies both English and Chinese.
the reading makes one yearn for an idyllic time long gone, or never existed, a time long before Robinson Crusoe.
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