I have never experienced thing like Crosoe.
His ship goes down, and everryone dies.
Crusoe is on island.
If I am on island by alone, maybe I cannot live.
After reading this book , I thought I should live strongly like him. ( )

Wow, what a great read! This definitely has to go down as one of my all time favourite books - incredibly easy to read considering the timeframe in which it was written, and still as exciting and hard to put down today as I imagine it would have been when it was first released. Truly a work of genius! ( )

This is possibly the most mindnumbingly boring book I have ever read. I may have read worse, but if so I have removed the memory of the horror from my conscious mind.

The worst bit is I thought I had read it before and rather liked it. I can only surmise that I have read one of those re-written versions for children, one that put rather more weight on the cannibals, finding Friday, the hindering of the mutiny ... you know, that sort of thing. I am of course referring to the rare moments of "something happens".

I am not saying the book is bad. It does a very good job of conveying the feeling of being stuck on a desert island for 28 years. The sheer mind-numbing slowness of it. And while it is a dreadfully religious book, and my patience when it comes to sermons in books is limited to accept only two repetitions per topic, I enjoyed the occasional kicks aimed in the general direction of the Stuart monarchy, the Catholics and other people Defoe did not like in general.

Perhaps I found it so boring because I am not a Victorian boy. I find it as a staple of any male character set in the Victorian era (and often later) that he will have spent his childhood reading Robinson Crusoe and enjoying it tremendously. Half the male authors I have been reading about considered it one of their formative books. Ironically, these authors write books I like, books that do not go on for 180 pages about the detailed measurements of the cave, the table, the canoe, the wall and all the rest.

I know why it is there. I know it is supposed to back up the illusion of truth, the claim that it is a memoir, not a fiction. But knowing does not entail enjoying.

Finally, for I should stop now, I must say this: I am sure this could be an intriguing book to analyse. Both for its attitude to politics and religion, for its very interesting treatment of slavery (which did fascinate me when it showed up), for the meditations on cultural relativity, or even for its use of mind-numbing detail of mundane tasks as a literary tool which really does communicate the experience of the cast-away in a way that no mere "I was alone on the island for 25 years" can do.

I am not saying that you shouldn't read it. But don't go into it thinking it will be fun. ( )

Telling the incredible story of a man shipwrecked for over two decades, Robinson Crusoe is part adventure, part fantasy, and part conversion story. Much of the story actually deals with Crusoe's coming to real faith in God along with various descriptions of how he manages to survive over two decades alone. The last part of the novel reflects the mores of the time, where class distinctions were much more defined. Crusoe's relationship with Friday would be quite offensive today, but appears completely logical and natural in the book. ( )

When I first read this book I was around 10 years old... So you might be able to imagine how that went. Honestly, it was way too complex for my age, with vocabulary and grammar way over my head. Unfortunately, the second time I read it was only a year later... So once again, you can probably imagine how that went. But the reason this book had such an impact on me, the reason I will never forget it, is that I thought it was the most interesting adventure story I had ever read. Even though I had the utmost amount of difficulty dissecting the paragraphs and trying to figure out what people were saying (including the narrator), I did find myself following the basic plot. All I can remember was feelings of pain for a man who was stuck on an island along for so long, and the joy of all the accomplishments he made while on the island. I always think of it as a truly epic story of a man overcoming adversity. How could it be possible that a book as long as this, and as complicated as this, managed to capture and hold the attention of a 10 or 11 year old kid? It was simply the gripping storyline and emotion-stirring events that took hold of me. Because of this, I found myself unable to put a book down that I couldn't completely understand. I do plan to go back and read it again when I have a chance. Hopefully will more comprehension it will have an even greater impact on me. ( )

It's pretty slow going at first, but the pace picks up after the first 80 pages or so. It is pretty racist, but you make allowances for the time period, etc. Just a good adventure story, but to be honest I much prefer some Jules Verne. ( )

There are a lot of dragging events about how he survived the wilderness and made do with what he has. I liked how he has these reflections, how the experiences he had made him a better person, and how despite all that he went through, he thanked God because he realized that being alive is the greatest blessing of all. There are a lot of misspelled words but the description is excellently written. It would take you to a place where you'll just find calm, trees, and blue waters, and would make you ask yourself what you'd do in his position. I thought it would never end but things got more interesting when he found Friday. His character is really stubborn from the start, but he's only human and the great thing about him is improvising with scarce resources. This story just tells us what happens when we take the big plunge. We learn from mistakes and sometimes enjoy making the mistake. ( )

In Robinson Crusoe, an Englishman, Robinson, gets shipwrecked! He is stranded on an island for about 35 years... until hes 55 years old! He rescues a man that is being kept hostage by the island natives. He names this man Friday, because thats the day he met him! This book was very adventurous, which is fun to read about! It was written in Old English which was sometimes hard to understand.

Overall, I thought this book was very interesting! And you should read it! :) ( )

Defoe Complicates Ethics in Early Novels: Developing Moral Tolerance in 18th C London

Daniel Defoe grapples with complex ethical issues earlier novelists had avoided by having Robison Crusoe and Moll Flanders suffer moral failures while still garnering our sympathy as readers.

For More See Orato Review Below ( )

Substance: A series of connected anecdotes, there being no real story beyond th experiences of Crusoe on the not-quite-desert island. The moral of the story purported to be Crusoe's repentance of his previous immoral life and reprobate deeds, but in fact he never seemed to get beyond them. His casual acceptance of his right to be master of his fellow escapee extended to his making Friday his servant, despite extending many deserved accolades to the "savage". Once released from the island, he faced no tests of his new-found Christianity, which consisted primarily of gratitude (well-enough) and seemed devoid of any real understanding of Christian doctrine (understandable in the period in which Defoe lived).
Style: Entertaining, engaging, and everything your English teacher ever told you. ( )

wonderful. worth a detour. reads like a modern novel ( )

There's a strange feeling when you're reading classics like this that you've read it all before. So much culture is based on being marooned on a treasure island. ( )

A fictional autobiography of Robinson Crusoe, who is stranded on a deserted island for 28 years, telling his tale of encountering cannibals, Native Americans, captives and other foreigners before his rescue. It gives you a false reality that this man was real. Further digging shows it may have been influenced by the life of Alexander Selkirk who lived four years on island near Chile.

After watching the premiere of Lost after almost a year, it was interesting finishing up this story about a castaway since all the members of Lost are on an island waiting to be saved.

I really enjoyed this story. Defoe does an amazing job of keeping he readers attention despite the fact that most of the story has no dialogue. Which then reminds me of Castaway.

Robinson Crusoe is the original 'deserted on an island' story. It has everything you could hope for, except perhaps the beautiful island princess. Crusoe seems from the start to be doomed for misfortune. He says it himself, that after his first disaster at sea when his ship sinks in a storm, that he should have headed straight back to his parent's home and perused another way of life.

But something drove Crusoe to the sea. His misadventures had only begun with the sinking of his first ship. HE finds himself taken captive and serves several years as a slave. When he finally escapes it seems that Crusoe's troubles are over. He sails to Brazil with his savoir of a captain. The captain takes Crusoe under his wing and helps Crusoe establish himself and learn the ways of trade and life in the Brazils. Crusoe is able to build a life for himself and amasses a fine amount of land and wealth.

He is unable, however, to resist the opportunity to make even more money in the slave trade. It is on this expedition that Crusoe is famously ship wrecked and begins his 27 year stay on the island. The majority of the story tells of his industrious life on the island, making caves and groves of trees respectable habitations, as well as many adventures in exploring island. It is on one of these explorations that after 20 years on the island Crusoe discovers he is not the only human to use the island. In fact, the island is used by none other than cannibals from the mainland! Many adventures ensue from this discovery.

Ultimately, through a delightful twist of fate, Crusoe is able to save a captain's life (just a captain had saved his so many years ago) and return to his old way of life. Though there is not much in the way of dialogue, this book keeps a pleasant pace and engages the imagination of the reader. ( )

This novel is so good and such a bulwark of the proverbial canon that this series' editor's choice to modernize the language and syntax falls a bit flat. A good version for the un-initiated, though it pales in comparison to the experience of the original novel. ( )

Managed to avoid reading this before now, and I read this one round-robin style with a 12 yr old. The 12 yo's vocabulary jumped to the stratosphere reading it... and I can see why they don't teach it in high schools anymore (aside from the difficulty)--tons of religious fervor and winding timelines. Still, classic for a reason. Certainly an early novel and without what we accept as conventions associated with that genre. A good read if only to examine the evolution of the novel form. The dragged out ending was quite unexpected. ( )

I loved reading Robinson Crusoe, despite the fact that it was written with 1700s archaic language, with long sentences stringing thoughts together, with essentially no dialog and no characters (beyond Robinson Crusoe himself), and with basically no plot.

Robinson Crusoe is the account of the life of a man by the same name, and it is an adventure story. I don’t tend to enjoy adventure stories, but this was one for me, for Robinson’s adventure was one of practical survival and religious realization. I also enjoyed the language with which it was told, archaic and unfamiliar though it was.

More detailed review on my blog

For a book that's so famously about being shipwrecked; an awful lot of time is spent on other bits; Crusoe's being taken by pirates, sold as a slave, escaping and starting a plantation in Brazil, and being attacked by wolves on a trip across Europe are all vignettes that get quite a bit of attention. Perhaps it was my own preconceptions, but I really felt that the other parts were filler, and would have been edited out if the book was being published today.

On the other hand, if it was being published today, you would really want to cut out a big slab of shipwreck time. Twenty-four years is an awfully long time to go without seeing another human being, and even if Robinson did have nothing better to do, I'm not sure that you can really buy into his ability to cast pottery, tame goats, plant farms, and build his pair of residences quite as efficiently as he did. One tends to wonder if he couldn't have simply built a foundry, cast engine parts, made a motor boat and sped happily off into the sunset.

The long period of forced seclusion does provide a good background for Crusoe's religious conversion however, which is probably the raison d'etre for the book's existence. The occasional references to the Papist religion occasionally also are a jarring reminder as to how close on the heels of the Protestant reformation this book was really writen.

Wading through the entire book is probably something best left for true reading aficionadoes, as it is quite the wade. It would be fun to see an abridged version for kids that covered the pirates and wolves as well as cannibals. Not sure if there is such a beast, but I bet kids would like it. Too bad Defoe never managed to work any ninjas in there though. ( )

I have never read a book like Robinson Crusoe. The ambiance of the book is only enhanced by both the time period it was written in as well as the books significance. Robinson Crusoe is one of the very first novels, and set a benchmark for other books to come.
I had my doubts about this book. Upon initial visual judgment, I thought this book would be too long. Knowing when the book was published, I assumed Robinson Crusoe would bore me, as did Wuthering Heights (no offense I love the song. Without the book there wouldn’t have been the song). Then I started to actually read the book. It was ok. The storyline at the time seemed all too familiar. Some young fellow ignores his, or her, parent’s wishes and goes gallivanting off only to face a series of challenges that eventually lead him/her to some sort of revelation. Than again, one must considered that this was the “original” novel, for which countless stories used as their basis. Also, I wasn’t too found of Mr. Crusoe, who seemed a bit too focused on his own dreams. Furthermore, I felt that Robinson Crusoe lacked a great deal of depth. However, the more I progressed, the more I began to see; the hidden meanings, the important ones.
Religion, the “human condition”(we were born to be our own destroyer), and justice are a few themes that this novel weaves into its pages. Survival obviously became the centerpiece. I love survival. I’m all for “Man vs. Wild”, “Survivor Man”, and “Cast Away”. Naturally, I found the latter part of the novel very appealing. Seeing Robinson Crusoe survive and persevere would lead me to appreciate the character. He earned my respect. I would love to give you examples of exactly how he earned my respect, but I don’t want to ruin the book for you. The call of the wild will always be a part of me, as it became a part of Crusoe.
Through the many page of Robinson Crusoe, I really enjoyed it. It wasn’t until I finished the book that I realized how great of a milestone this book was. Without a publication date printed on it, I would have taken it as an early 20th century novel. It turns out that this book is much older. However, it manages to present new ideas. ( )

Robinsons Crusoe is regarded as one of the greatest novels of all time, but this is based mostly on when it was released. Due to the fact that it was one of the first novels ever written, Defoe’s adventure novel is, and has been for some time, classified as a classic. While this is an impressive status to achieve, it is, in this case at least, achieved not by a riveting storyline, but rather because it was the first of its kind. While I suppose that the book’s idea was a good one, the way it was written was not accommodating to a modern reader. This is understandable, and I would not expect Defoe to know how to write a novel for the 21st century any more than I would expect Stephen King to write a novel for the 24th century (though he probably could!). Nevertheless I feel that in today’s society Robinson Crusoe is a book that only has a place in the classical section. To put it another way, Jimi Hendrix was a pioneer of music. He did things with a guitar that no one had ever heard before, and while (in my oh-so-humble opinion) he was not particularly good at these things, I still have his albums because of what he started. Hendrix himself wasn’t the greatest guitarist ever, but he inspired so many people and so many genres that he definitely deserves recognition for having the vision if not the ability. Robinson Crusoe is the same way. Though it is not the best novel ever written, it should definitely be read because of the impact it had on literature.

Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe offers up a great deal of adventure and excitement, but look more closely at it however, and you'll find that the novel also addresses matters with more depth. The idea of someone being completely isolated from society is both a frightening and intriguing situation, and we learn through Crusoe's role as a narrator about what goes through one's mind as he is coping with such harsh times.
As the novel progresses, we notice a shift in Crusoe's attitude towards being stranded. He begins to view the island he is on as “his kingdom”, and begins to think of himself as the king. This mental-shift becomes more apparent after he establishes an actual home on the island. When he is first shipwrecked on the island, Crusoe feels both greatly depressed and sympathetic towards his situation, but stays resourceful nonetheless, and eventually creates a sturdy and reliable home on the island. It is during these times of the book that we as readers witness how man's will to survive can get him though even the most depressing and hopeless situations.
After being in solitude for many years, Crusoe finally is exposed to other human beings. He then witnesses other cultures' ways of life, and morally questions what “right and wrong” really are. These questions of morality add to the enjoyment of reading Robinson Crusoe, but it never becomes completely clear as to what Defoe was trying to say at all. Though the novel undeniably had times of excitement, more often than not I found that it had an annoyingly-slow progression, and there were many times when I felt certain situations were drawn out much longer than they needed to be. Either way, it is still considered the first English novel, and should be read even if just for it's prominent place in literature.

Though I am not personally a fan of adventure stories, I found Robinson Crusoe very entertaining. This exciting story demonstrated the needs of all humans while providing an intriguing plot. Robinson Crusoe is not your typical story of a man stranded on an island. Crusoe has terrible luck. He gets shipwrecked more than once, encounters pirates, and stumbles upon a deserted island all in the first few pages. Throughout the story, Crusoe builds a relationship with God and discovers a best friend among a tribe of cannibals. It is very interesting to watch the relationships in this novel grow as time progresses, and how Robinson’s character matures as well. Robinson’s ultimate decision in the end is by far the most shocking and revealing part of the story. Feeling the need to return to his island shows us that the little things in life can in fact be the things that matter the most. Crusoe’s character definitely made the most of his stay on his island, so much in fact, that he realized it was what mattered the most to him. The lesson he learned was though he had lots of money, land, and a wife, the only thing that could make him truly happy was his island. ( )

This book was nothing short of a tale of a man who was shipwrecked on an island. Though it is considered a classic, it doesn't have any attributes other than being the first of its kind, to be in that category. I was looking forward to trying to understand complex thoughts, and really be entertained, but it was more of a mind-numbing story. In my opinion, it required next to no thought to read, and seemed too much like I was reading someone's memory, understanding details exactly as they happened. The only thing I liked was that towards the end, there were a few situations that occurred that required a bit of thought, but in all honesty, I found it very hard to maintain interest. Had I not been reading this book as an assignment, I would not have made it past page fifty. 1.5 stars. ( )

Robinson Crusoe was an interesting book, really different of what we read nowadays. The story of this man jammed on an island is very famous and it was a good opportunity for me to have to read it for my Novel class. In spite of this book is, to my mind, slower than modern novels, I especially appreciated three aspects of the book. First, as a child, I’ve often dreamt about what I would do if I was alone on an island as Robinson is, and through the chapters, I think I learned many things which could help me to survive in such a case. I had never thought about these possibilities before. For me, it really increased the realism of the book and helped a lot to project myself in the story. Indeed, Robinson really does well in his survival. Another side of the book I like was all the thoughts of Crusoe, which made me think about myself and human behaviors. His desire to go on a ship despite his father’s advices for a middle way of life, his devotion to God particularly in moment of fear for his life, or even his need for communication (he has to teach a parrot to speak to try to feel better). Finally, I liked this kind of sample of the way of life in the past. There were many dangers at this time, as pirates or weak wood ships, and still many new places to discover. Once Robinson meets Friday, the colonial view appears in the book and shows how Europeans find themselves superior to others human. In conclusion, this book is a good example of the society of the 17th century (time of the first settlements in North America) and brings entertainment for anyone interested in the human mind and body‘s survival/limits. ( )

It is so exciting story.
I thooght I couldn't live in desert island.
Robinson Crusoe is a great man! ( )