Some thoughts on Robinson Crusoe [updated]

I don’t have much to say about Robinson Crusoe. Probably won’t have much when I finish reading it either. 

As I explore the 18th century, I can see why Robinson Crusoe was huge at the time and became so influential—it was a new kind of writing; it was an invention of a modern myth; it explored the themes of self-reliance, civilisation, power, colonialism, faith, and so on—but I can’t help thinking that, compared to other 18th century novels I’ve read, it feels more dated, more like a relic of the past. All right, I know that Defoe’s book was published in 1719 and the others were decades later, but it feels very 18th, late 17th century, very much stuck in its time and place. Let me clarify what I mean. Tom Jones (1749) doesn’t feel much different from 19th century literature—if you have been reading 19th century British novels like Dickens, Thackeray, Trollope… and pick up Tom Jones, you wouldn’t feel like there’s a jump even if some words and expressions are more archaic. Gulliver’s Travels (1726) doesn’t feel like the 18th century either, though it’s probably because it’s fantasy/ satire, the same way Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (1865) and Through the Looking-Glass (1871) feel extremely modern, not at all Victorian.  

I’m probably not explaining this very well. More examples. When I read Shakespeare’s contemporaries, I always find that Shakespeare was light years ahead—his psychological insight and power of characterisation and range of sympathies make everyone else seem crude—but I do think that Ben Jonson’s The Alchemist (1610) feels more rooted in its time and place, more dated than, say, Webster’s The Duchess of Malfi (1612-1613) or Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus (ca. 1592), because it’s much more topical and thick with references to current events and current obsessions—it doesn’t transcend its time and place. 

In a similar way, Robinson Crusoe feels like a relic of the past rather than a timeless work of art, and it’s because of the narrator’s imperialist mindset and his plantations and his use of “Negroes” and his attitudes towards “savages” and his treatment of the “savage” he renames as Friday and his conversion of Friday to Christianity and so on and so forth. Defoe may or may not have shared these views—I don’t know—but his depiction of the simple, loyal, subservient Friday doesn’t particularly help. That is not to say that the book is badly written. After the tedious first 50 or so pages, the book (about 250 pages a whole) became much more interesting—not when Crusoe survives the shipwreck but when he starts his life on the desert island—and it’s much more exciting when Crusoe starts exploring the other side of the island after years of staying in more or less one place. 

Is this a book I want to read more than once? At the moment, possibly not. Do I think you should read it? Let me finish it and see. 

Update on 7/4/2025: 

I have now finished reading Robinson Crusoe. I maintain that Robinson Crusoe, more than other 18th century novels I have read, feels more like a relic of the past. I also think that Crusoe is not a particularly interesting character—or rather, his actions for sustenance and survival have some interest, his mind doesn’t. 

But if you are interested in 18th century literature and/or the development of the novel, it’s a book you should read. The first 50 pages are tedious, but it becomes more interesting, especially the second half, as there’s more conflict. Daniel Defoe is very good at filling the book with details, creating the illusion that it’s a real memoir, a real document of a man’s survival on a desert island, thus pioneering the realist novel. He is also very good at depicting Crusoe’s conversion to Christianity. I can see why the book was immensely popular, and can see why Gabriel Betteredge in Wilkie Collins’s The Moonstone is obsessed with it and uses it for a kind of divination.