“It is never too late to be wise.”– Daniel Defoe
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I recently read Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe for the first time. I don’t know how I missed it during my educational training, but I did.
Robinson Crusoe is one of those books that has left indelible fingerprints (or footprints) on our collective language. When we think of a deserted island, Crusoe comes to mind, and the term “Man Friday” or “Girl Friday” is commonly used to refer to an efficient assistant. (Wouldn’t it be wonderful to know that one of our books would have that kind of impact several hundred years after its publication?)
Robinson Crusoe was published in 1719 and is considered by some to be the first modern novel in English. You wouldn’t think a book about a lone individual stranded on a deserted island for decades could be interesting, but I understand it was enormously popular during Defoe’s lifetime and has become one of the most widely published books in history.
Although the book’s sociological aspects might concern some in the 21st century, I found it to be a lens onto another time that I don’t know much about, and that made it particularly interesting. It was also a deeper and richer story than I had anticipated, with themes of self-reliance and redemption.
One scene, in particular, captures the imagination: the footprint scene. An article about Daniel Defoe on americanliterature.com claims Robert Louis Stevenson felt the footprint scene was one of the four greatest in English literature. I don’t know if Defoe intended it, but it seemed to me to be a metaphor for life. Just when you think you understand the lay of the land, some small thing appears that shakes the foundation of your security, and everything changes.
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I had always imagined Daniel Defoe to be a kind of rough and ready type. How else could he write a novel about a man stranded on a deserted island who invents all kinds of novel (pun intended) ways to stay alive? But reading about Defoe’s life and looking at images on the web, I see Defoe as a proper English gentleman, complete with cravat and full powdered wig.
But what a time he lived in! Born in 1660, he was a child during the great plague in Europe that claimed over 70,000 lives. He lived during the lifetime of Sir Isaac Newton and some of the great explorers. It must have seemed like an era of unlimited possibilities.
Defoe wrote more than 500 books, articles, and stories. Interestingly, he was 59 years old when Robinson Crusoe was published, and his other famous work Moll Flanders followed that one.
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All of this thinking about being stranded on a deserted island put me in mind of a question we hear occasionally. Here’s a variation of the setup:
Suppose you were stranded on a deserted island for a week with no phone, internet, or other means of access to the outside world. You can pick one person to be on the island with you. Let’s say the other person has to be an author who is no longer alive.
Here are a few questions I’d ask Mr. Defoe:
Why did you decide to write Robinson Crusoe?
Why did you leave Crusoe on the island for 28 years? Wouldn’t a few years have been enough?
Were you surprised at the popularity of your novel?
How much were you paid for your book?
How did you know so much about surviving on a deserted island?
How did you come up with the idea of the single footprint?
Are you a plotter or a pantser?
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So TKZers: If you were stranded on a deserted island for a week with no internet, no phone, or other means of communication with the outside world, what author from the past would you want to spend that week with? Why would you choose that person? What questions would you ask?
I’d hope to spend the week with Kurt Vonnegut. Imagine how much a writer could learn from him
Vonnegut would be a fascinating person to talk to. Here’s a quote from Player Piano: “Nobody’s so damn well educated that you can’t learn ninety percent of what he knows in six weeks. The other ten percent is decoration.”
So take six weeks to talk to him. 🙂
❖ What author from the past would you want to spend that isolated week with, and why? What questions would you ask?
❦ Robert Louis Stevenson.
❦ He is one of the greatest writers of the modern era. His immortal story, Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde, parallels my Guardienne Hypothesis―that each of us has a powerful, semi-sentient, autonomous ʘther in our brain, faster than our frontal cortices, and without conscience. She is our protective emergency response network and, ipso facto, our creative center, and, dipso facto, the driver of alcoholism and other phenomena.
❦ I’d ask RLS whom he based his MC upon. Was he the precisely contemporaneous Louis Vivet, as some say? Or was he a composite of several dual personality cases? (RLS was possibly the most well-read psychology aficionado of that era, fully fluent in French and a frequent visitor to the land of Alfred Binet, Pierre Janet, and Gustave Le Bon.) What was the exact history of the manuscript? (Legend has it that the original m/s for Jekyll & Hyde was written in a fever, destroyed, and then rewritten.) What other psychological knowledge did RLS use in his works? What, if anything, did he learn about himself, as a result of his studies? What did he think of E.A. Poe? Could RLS believe that Germany would become seized with anti-Semitic madness and start a world war based on one man’s projection of his own incestuously corrupted genetics? Whom should we invite for lunch? Is he still an atheist? Has he seen any footprints, other than our own, since he arrived on the island?
Thanks for the information about RLS, JG. Your conversation with him would be fascinating. I’d like to sit in on it.
I particularly like this question you mentioned: “What, if anything, did he learn about himself, as a result of his studies?” This sounds like a good topic for a TKZ post.
“Legend has it that the original m/s for Jekyll & Hyde was written in a fever, destroyed, and then rewritten.” I didn’t know this. Do you believe it?
I mostly believe it, but I’d rather it be lore, rather than fact. It’s a relatively short piece, 30K, so it’s possible RLS could have reconstructed it from any notes made, or from memory, if necessary.
If you’d like to take deep dive into RLS, here’s the place:
https://robert-louis-stevenson.org/works/strange-case-of-dr-jekyll-and-mr-hyde-1886/
What an interesting post, Kay. I read Robinson Crusoe when I was quite young and don’t remember much except that it was an adventure story. At that age, sophisticated themes went over my head. it’s time to reread it.
As an aside, the americanliterature.com link to Moll Flanders is fascinating b/c the title is actually a synopsis of the story:
“The Fortunes and Misfortunes of the Famous Moll Flanders, &c. Who was Born in Newgate, and during a Life of continu’d Variety for Threescore Years, besides her Childhood, was Twelve Year a Whore, five times a Wife (whereof once to her own Brother), Twelve Year a Thief, Eight Year a Transported Felon in Virginia, at last grew Rich, liv’d Honest, and died a Penitent. Written from her own Memorandums.”
Which author? Ben Franklin b/c of his many innovations; George Eliot to learn what she went through as a woman author passing as a man; Sue Grafton to ask how she kept her stories fresh after so many Kinsey books.
Laughing out loud at that title for Moll Flanders. I’m going to ask Mr. Defoe what the publishing guidelines were at the time for number of words in the title!
Defoe led quite an interesting life. He was politically inclined, and was either accused of or imprisoned for sedition. He was also pilloried several times. Thank goodness they don’t pillory authors nowadays.
We’re going to have to install a revolving door on your deserted island for the authors you interview. Those are three great choices.
Can I bring Poe, the crow, instead? Imagine all the writing I’d get done with no interruptions and Poe watching my six. Sign me up! 😉
Wouldn’t it be fun to have a little private island where you could go write? Fresh air, beautiful scenery, no interruptions. Just be sure to pick an island where there’re no wild animals. Except for Poe, of course.
i was leaning in Poe’s direction. He, as I said here a while ago, was the first to mention what we now call “Freudian slips,” 56 years before Freud, who called them “Fehlleistungen.”
https://killzoneblog.com/2023/05/eavesdropping-and-writers-research.html#comment-118126
I chose RLS, instead, having already commented on Poe in May.
Definitely Ernest Hemingway!
I’d ask Papa which quotes attributed to him are real and which are fake. I’d ask if he had any guilty pleasure reads. I’d ask what he thought about the new scene of indie publishing.
I’d love to hear what Hemingway would say about quotes attributed to him. Of course, he might claim the good ones whether he actually said them or not.
Great question about the new scene of indie publishing. I’d like to hear what all authors of the past think about that.
Fun questions, Kay.
I would choose C. S. Lewis, because of his impact on both fiction and nonfiction.
I would ask him about his conversations with Tolkien.
Have a great week!
Good morning, Steve!
Interesting that you bring up C.S. Lewis. My husband and I were in Pittsburgh for the last ten days, competing in the Senior Games. I didn’t have much time to myself, but managed to read The Screwtape Letters while we were away. I’ve read several of Lewis’s other famous works, but this was the first time for TSL. I’m still digesting the wisdom in that book, and I hope to re-read it after I’ve given it a while to sit in my subconscious. I’ve been bogged down in The Abolition of Man for a while, but I’m determined to find my way through it.
I’d love to hear what Lewis and Tolkien talked about.
I love TSL! And C. S. Lewis…
Great question, Kay!
C.S. Lewis is my pick. I’d ask him if he really ever spoke to a beaver or a fox.
Here’s an idea: We can line up our islands like the Aleuts, call it the TKZ Islands, and switch out our authors with each other every so often.
Yeah? 🙂
Another apt choice, Deb! I am a member of the Southern California C. S. Lewis Society, founded by Paul Ford, PhD, the man who taught my course on Lewis,
I like that idea, Deb. Or line them up in a triangle and call the space inside the Kill Zone Triangle.
Oh yeah!
TKZ Triangle . . . see how many authors disappear there.
I’m responding to this via cell phone to see if I can circumvent the dreaded “Denied for too many attempts” message I keep getting. (Maybe I’m in the Kill Zone Triangle!) 😎
🤣🤣
Another vote for C.S. Lewis! Good choice, Deb.
I like your idea of an island chain. Sort of alone while together.
Very few philosophical and writing questions would be asked and answered while trying to survive then falling into exhausted sleep when dark comes. Better a well-stocked house somewhere quiet. And the author would be far more interested in this new world and asking his/her own questions, too, so your questions would get short shrift.
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. I’ve always been fascinated with his life outside of his writing so the talk would be about his friendship with Houdini, his work for the government during WWI, and his interest in spiritualism among other things.
Sir Arthur would be one of my top ten choices. I’d love to hear his answers to your questions.
Oh, goodness, there are so many authors I’d like to talk to. One of the first books I ever read was a biography of Will Rogers, so I think I’ll be different and pick him. I’d love to know what he thinks about the current political situation, among other things.
I’d love to sit down and talk to Herman Wouk and ask how he kept writing until age 100…
I hadn’t thought of Will Rogers, but like you, I’d love to know what he thinks of our current world.
I’d like to get that answer from Herman Wouk, too!
Will Rogers observed that America would be the first country in the history of the world that went to the poorhouse in an automobile. I wonder what he’d think of our world today.
I would learn so much from John Muir. Not only was he a naturalist, but I have never read anyone who could take an entire chapter to describe tracking a lizard in the sand, and do it in an entertaining manner. Much of what he feared would come to pass, did.
Muir would certainly be a good choice.
“an entire chapter to describe tracking a lizard in the sand, and do it in an entertaining manner.” I’d like to read that chapter. Let me know where to find it.
Welcome, Ken!!
Interesting stuff. It would be George V. Higgins for me. I’d make sure the island was well stocked with bourbon and cigarettes first. Maybe an abandoned WW2 air base like Palmyra Atoll? I think I’d also invite Vincent Bugliosi as well.
We could ask Higgins what was in the first fourteen novels he wrote that nobody saw fit to publish before he broke big with The Friends Of Eddie Coyle. Elmore Leonard said it was the greatest crime novel ever written.
Higgins and Bugliosi would make for some very interesting conversation.
I didn’t know about the Palmyra Atoll. Looks like a good candidate for the TKZ Atoll, and there’s a runway. 🙂
Agatha Christie. Because she was a great mystery writer.
What happened to her when she went missing for ten days?
How does she feel about her books still successfully selling after all these years?
Would she like to write a book with me while we’re waiting to be rescued?
I’d like to sit in on that conversation with Agatha Christie! I love the questions you came up with.