As I have claimed before, these pre 19th cent. books can be a little didactic as well as having a predictable happy ending; as our hero ends life rich in family and fortune.
It is a great adventure tale with several different adventures; not just the island.
Robinson finds in a slow way what is the nature of man in relationship to others by being without the others. He discovers self-reliance and mans inherent goodness in the midst of tragedy. He is however completely oblivious to the ills of slavery even though he was taken as a slave for 7 years and embarks on a trip to buy slaves! He reflects upon many things but never on the ills of slavery.
And I do like the world as viewed thru 18th cent. eyes.
This 100+ year old book is a pleasure.
Christmas 1901!
Notable passages:
"I had now brought my state of life to be much easier in itself than it was at first, and much easier to my mind, as well as to my body. I frequently sat down to meat with thankfulness, and admired the hand of God’s providence, which had thus spread my table in the wilderness. I learned to look more upon the bright side of my condition, and less upon the dark side, and to consider what I enjoyed rather than what I wanted; and this gave me sometimes such secret comforts, that I cannot express them; and which I take notice of here, to put those discontented people in mind of it, who cannot enjoy comfortably what God has given them, because they see and covet something that He has not given them. All our discontents about what we want appeared to me to spring from the want of thankfulness for what we have."
"How strange a chequer-work of Providence is the life of man! and by what secret different springs are the affections hurried about, as different circumstances present! To-day we love what to-morrow we hate; to-day we seek what to-morrow we shun; to-day we desire what to-morrow we fear, nay, even tremble at the apprehensions of. "
"How infinitely good that Providence is, which has provided, in its government of mankind, such narrow bounds to his sight and knowledge of things; and though he walks in the midst of so many thousand dangers, the sight of which, if discovered to him, would distract his mind and sink his spirits, he is kept serene and calm, by having the events of things hid from his eyes, and knowing nothing of the dangers which surround him."
"I told him with freedom, I feared mostly their treachery and ill-usage of me, if I put my life in their hands; for that gratitude was no inherent virtue in the nature of man, nor did men always square their dealings by the obligations they had received so much as they did by the advantages they expected."
FYI, the 1989 movie is terrible
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