Robinson Crusoe

Yet another entry in my collection of classic fiction: Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe.

It's one of those stories that everyone thinks they already know, guy gets shipwrecked, survives on an island, gets a buddy he names Friday, and presumably there are monkey butlers.

While all that certainly does happen (excepting the monkey butlers), and it is the lions share of the narrative, there's actually a whole other adventure beforehand. Crusoe, on an earlier voyage, gets kidnapped and made a slave for three years before he manages to escape on his masters fishing barge (it's a super nice boat that was exceptionally well provisioned even before Crusoe snuck on extra stuff before escaping, so I call it 'barge', regardless of whether that's the right term or not.) and all the while he's escaping in that boat, any change in the weather had me asking "is this it? Is he about to be hopelessly shipwrecked on an island with only these provisions to sustain him?" and then he makes it safely back to civilization.

What?

Then he goes on to own a semi successful plantation in, wait, Brasil? I think it's Brasil, specifically NOT "Brazil", I guess this is in Spain? I forget.

Later he's convinced to go on another voyage, and here is where he gets shipwrecked- finally!

We get to follow the steps undertaken for Crusoe to survive, detailing the what he needed and made for himself, but losing out on exactly how he does it. Not to suggest some flight of fancy on Defoe's part, more like the steps to making X are so natural that it would have seemed silly to write them out for the modern audience of 1719. That's my guess anyways.

You know the guy was stuck on the island for about 30 years (assuming, again, that I'm remembering the number from the book right)? You sure didn't expect that from the Swiss Family Robinson- which I barely registered anything of when I was little, but they were probably the ones with monkey butlers.

The ending had a pretty clever bit of pirate out-smarting, well, they were mutineers more than pirates, but it's all the same to me. Defoe isn't likely to argue with me. But then after this end of action the story goes on to follow what Crusoe does back in civilization, ending with a mention that he went on ANOTHER exciting voyage, and that he'll tell us about it sometime, maybe. That's right, Robinson Crusoe ends with a sequel hook! It's the Back to the Future of classic literary endings.