Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe

I suppose everyone knows a little something about Robinson Crusoe. If we haven't read the book (which I hadn't), we have seen movies or TV shows, or cartoons about his adventures on a desert island. He has been portrayed by many actors from Dan O'Herlihy (lately of Twin Peaks fame) to Pierce Brosnan, and boy, does that Brosnan version look cheesy.

What's more, Robinson Crusoe has many heirs. While we were watching the new Netflix verison of Lost in Space with our grandson the other night, I realized that it was an offspring of Defoe's classic. The Swiss Family Robinson was inspired by Robinson Crusoe, and the the original Lost in Space was an updated version of The Swiss Family Robinson.

I have always enjoyed stories about people who were in difficult situations and had to be really resourceful and innovative (I never wanted to BE one of those people.), so I looked forward to seeing how Crusoe coped, but a little background first for anyone who knows as little about the book as I did.

Robinson Crusoe is a young man seeking adventure.

Being the third son of the family, and not bred to any trade, my head began to be filled very early with rambling thoughts. My father, who was very ancient, had given me a competent share of learning, a far as house-education and a country free school generally goes, and designed me for the law; but I would be satisfied with nothing but going to sea; and my inclination to this led me so strongly against the will, nay, the commands of my father, and against all the entreaties and persuasions of my mother and other friends, that there seemed to be something fatal in that propension of nature tending directly to the life of misery which was to befall me. 

After his father pleads with him to stay at home and live the middle life (neither too high, or too low, but comfortable) for several pages (too many pages), the younger Crusoe meets someone who can get him passage on a ship and he leaves without even saying good-bye to his family.

Within a week of sailing, they come into a terrible storm. In the midst of the storm Crusoe believes that he is being punished for his rash decision, and says he will go home if he only survives, but in a calm lull, he forgets his resolution. Later, the storm worsens so that even the captain believes that there is no hope. Thankfully, they are close to shore, and after a great struggle, they are rescued shortly before the ship founders.

Having weathered one storm, Crusoe almost immediately finds another ship and begins a venture as a trader. On this voyage, they are attacked by Moors. Crusoe is captured and made the slave of the captain. Eventually he escapes in a boat with a young boy named Xury. After more trials they land in Brazil, where Crusoe settles and after a while becomes part owner of a plantation, which begins to thrive. At this point, a group of planters have secretly planned to send a ship to Guinea to purchase slaves, and ask him to be supercargo on the ship, and not having learned a thing from his former adventures, Crusoe agrees to go, and we know what happens next.

By now you are probably thinking I've told you the whole story, but no, we are only about 50 pages into a 400 page book. Crusoe still has 28+ years to live on his island, alone for the great majority of that time. Luckily for him, and he seems to be very lucky for someone who is so unlucky, he is able to rescue a good many things from the ship before it sinks, and there is food to be found on the island, so his circumstances aren't quite a bad as they seem, though bad enough.

One of the most difficult obstacles for Crusoe to overcome, maybe the most difficult, is fear. Fear of some natural disaster, or wild beasts, or wild men. Until his arrival on the island, he hasn't thought much about God, but now he finds that it is only with the help of God that he can survive, and he begins a sincere life of faith, praying and reading the Bible every day. I was surprised at how important his faith is to the book.

Crusoe's companion, Friday, does not appear until fairly late in the book. They have a complex relationship, and I keep comparing it in my mind with the relationship between Ishmael and Queequeg, the South Sea Islander, in Moby Dick. While Crusoe and Friday have a deep trust, and love for one another, Crusoe is always the master, Friday calls him Master, and Friday is his slave; whereas, the relationship of Ishmael and Queequeg is a relationship of equals. Crusoe converts Friday to Christianity, and I can't complain about that (especially since part of his religion entails eating people), but Ishmael accepts Queequeg for who he is.

I wondered if perhaps at some point Crusoe would realize that his great disaster happened when he was on the way to purchase slaves, and that he would repent for that, but, no, he has slaves until the very end. Wrong as that is, it isn't at all surprising for the time in which the book was written.

Sometimes the book is very repetitive and chronologically confused, but aside from that, it is a great read. The further I got into the book, the more engaged I was.

The book jacket of the Oxford Pocket Classics edition says that Robinson Crusoe was based on the life of Alexander Selkirk, who was marooned on the island of Juan Fernández. Selkirk was a very different man than Crusoe and he was only marooned for four years and four months, and for a very different reason; however, there are many resemblances to his life in the story. You can read more about Selkirk (Selcraig) in this Smithsonian article written by one of his brother's descendants, Bruce Selcraig.

It is also thought that Friday was modeled after a Moskito Indian who survived on this same island alone for a year.

Statue of Alexander Selkirk at the site of his original house
on Main Street, Lower Largo Fife, Scotland

AMDG

What I'm Reading Now

Peony by Pearl S. Buck

Until I looked up a list of Pearl S. Buck's novels previous to writing this post, I had no idea how many novels she wrote. I count 42 on Wikipedia, of which I have read maybe four or five. She is probably best known for her Pulitzer Prize winning novel, The Good Earth, which was the best-selling fiction book in the United States in 1931 and 1932.  (Once again, I paraphrase Wikipedia.)

I read The Good Earth and enjoyed it a good many years ago, I have no idea how long, and so I have occasionally picked up Mrs. Buck's novels at book sales. Mrs. Buck, having grown up in China, includes a great deal of cultural, and historical information, which I like, and her characters are complex and well-drawn. I think that my favorite is Letter from Peking, which has some of the loveliest passages I've ever read--or heard--I think I listened to the book on tape. Her novels remind me quite a lot of those of Rumer Godden, another westerner who grew up in the East, although while Ms. Godden's novels are usually written from the perspective of white women living in Asia, Mrs. Buck's have an eastern perspective.

Peony is the story of a bondmaid who works for a Jewish-Chinese family. I found this fascinating. I had no idea that there was a Jewish community in China. The novel takes place in the 1850s in Kaifeng, where the father, Ezra, is a wealthy trader. He is half Chinese-half Jewish and would probably have become lax in the practice of his faith had he not married a very religious and determined woman. Madame Ezra loves her Jewish faith, longs for the day that she can return to the home of her people, and is a great supporter of the the synagogue and the Rabbi.

Throughout the novel, we see how the tension between the Jewish and Chinese philosophies weighs on Ezra and his son, David. We also see how all but a few faithful Jews have been assimilated into the Chinese culture around them. The beautiful, deteriorating synagogue, and an aging rabbi are images of a way of life that is gradually disappearing.

Peony was bought when she was very young to wait on David, the son of the family. They grow up as brother and sister, but gradually Peony realizes that her love for David is changing into something deeper. David, oblivious to this change in Peony, is torn between his determination to marry the rabbi's daughter (his mother's choice), and remain steadfast in his faith; or to marry the beautiful young daughter of a Chinese business associate of his father, which will draw him deeper into the Chinese way of life.

Although we are allowed to see into the thoughts of all the characters, it is through Peony's eyes that we mainly view the narrative. Peony is firmly Chinese in outlook. She finds the Jewish customs and attitudes sad and difficult in contrast to the Chinese emphasis on pleasure and happiness. As the story progresses, we see Peony grow and change in surprising ways. As a bondmaid, she has definite limits on her hopes and dreams, but she finds way within these limits to become indispensable to the family, and develop into a mature and wise woman.

As my copy of Peony went out the door with my copy of Prairyerth, there are things that I would like to quote, that I can't quote. I won't make that mistake again. While I was looking around the internet trying to refresh my memory about some details I could not recall, I found that my friend, Gretchen, has also written about Peony on her beautiful blog, Gladsome Lights. I have not yet read her blogpost, not wanting to be tempted to plagiarize, but I'm sure that it is better than this one, so if you have any interest in finding out more about the book, you can read her post here. That's what I'm going to do now.

AMDG

PrairyErth:A Deep Map by William Least Heat-Moon

My first introduction to William Least Heat-Moon was about 35 years ago when I read his first book,Blue Highways, which tells the story of his trip around the perimeter of the continental United States on the highways that were marked in blue on the map, in other words, not the interstate. I don't really remember a lot of details of his trip, but I remember that the book was enjoyable, and so, I suppose, when I saw PrairyErth on a library sale table a long time ago, I thought it might be worth a dollar or two. So, I took it home and put in on a shelf and it has traveled around my shelves ever since without ever being opened until last month.


In contrast to a 13,000 mile journey around the United States (or a 13 mile journey around the bookshelves in my house), PrairyErth takes place in one county. Chase County, Kansas is by some measurement I don't remember, in the exact center of the continental United States. Heat-Moon spent several months--maybe a couple of years--staying in, studying about, and walking this county to produce his "deep map." The map is deep in the sense that he examines the county from many different perspectives including: myth; natural history; political history; the personal lives of residents, both current and past by, means of interviews and courthouse records.  He divides the county into 12 quadrangles, each section of the book concentrating on one quadrangle.

This is a map of the county found in PrairyErth. As you can see, there is not a lot of detail. Heat-Moon divides the map into four horizontal and three vertical sections to find his twelve quadrangles, and writes about them beginning in the northeast quadrangle from top to bottom, and right to left (like Asian pictographs). 

Each section begins with a map of the quadrangle that resembles the one above and has a bit more detail, but not much. Then, there are several pages from his common place book with quotes from a variety of people, some of whom you will recognize, including: Wendell Berry, Ovid, Victor Hugo, Henry David Thoreau, and many political and historical figures. Next come several chapters about various things: the flora and fauna of the area; the people who lived there in the past and the people who live there now; the geological structures; and usually--maybe always--a chapter about his personal experience walking through the quadrangle. 

In every section there is a chapter called On the Town and I'm pretty sure they all center around Cottonwood Falls, the county seat of Chase County. I say pretty sure because I've already given the book away--not much foresight there--and so I can't check. These are about a variety of things. My favorite is the one about the feminist college professor who came back home to Chase County for a while, and opened a diner on the main street of the town, and found out in the process that men were more than opponents.

For the most part I really enjoyed the book. My favorite chapters were about the people of Chase County like the five remaining residents of Saffordville, which floods fairly often, who just move upstairs until the flood is over, or the couple that was taken up by a tornado--twice--and lived to tell the tale. There are two running stories in the book: one about a murder and the subsequent trial of the suspected killer, and another about the life and career of Samuel Newitt Wood, Quaker, abolitionist, member of the Kanas House and Senate, and probably the most influential person in the history of Chase County.

What annoyed me about the book was Heat-Moon's fairly frequent disparagement of European culture as compared to Native American culture. It is pretty much European bad-Native American-good. I don't really want to say much about this other than I am sure that there is plenty of both blame and praise to be found to go around in both cultures, and the one-sided, and it seemed to me sometimes unfair commentary was a bit irksome. Nevertheless, this wouldn't keep me from recommending the book to anyone who might be interested in this comprehensive account of the center of our nation.

AMDG