Robinson Crusoe
1686
- crusoe, robinson (fictitious character), fiction
- british and irish fiction (fictional works by one author)
- survival
- fiction
- dans la littérature
- îles
- islands
- naufrages
- robinson crusoe (fictitious character)
- translations into swedish
The story
During one of his several adventurous voyages in the 1600's, an Englishman becomes the sole survivor of a shipwreck and lives for nearly thirty years on a deserted island.
What it’s like
Plain, forward-moving prose with a journal's matter-of-fact cadence, the voice of a practical man narrating every hour of his day: counting stores, weighing options, building shelter from salvaged timber. The sensory world is mostly bare and tactile: sun-scorched sand, goat hides, the rough grain of clay pots, the wide blue sweep of an empty sea from a high ridge. Nothing is lushly described, so the island's heat, loneliness and slow domestic routines accumulate through repetition rather than ornament. The tone is steady and earnest, with long stretches of quiet labour punctuated by sudden alarm, such as a footprint in the sand or a far-off cannon fired from a ship. Violence is occasional and brief: a storm at sea, a few tense encounters with islanders, and a grim thread of cannibal rumours handled with period bluntness rather than gore. Pacing is episodic and unhurried, a slow arc from desperate survival toward ordered self-sufficiency and a faith-tinged reckoning with solitude. Suited to a rainy Sunday, an unhurried read for anyone who enjoys castaway fiction, practical problem-solving and the gradual build of a lonely man's daily life.
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