Severin, Tim. In Search of Robinson Crusoe. New York: Basic Books, 2002.
I have no idea why but in the beginning of reading In Search of Robinson Crusoe I couldn’t tell if it was fact or fiction.
Reading In Search of Robinson Crusoe reminded me a great deal of the show “Myth Busters.” Everyone knows the story of (or at least heard of) Robinson Crusoe. Tim Severin sets out to explain the landscape of Daniel Defoe’s imagination, beginning with the Isla Robinson Crusoe, 400 miles off the coast of Chile. Weaving together fact, fiction, myth, mystery, history and adventure Severin is able to produce a believable retracing of one of literature’s best known castaways, Robinson Crusoe. What’s more, Severin is able to retrace the ancestry of Man Friday as well.
Oddest sentences: “The overpowering influence is the surrounding ocean. Its weather system brings over 40 inches of rain each year, and although the average temperature is a mild 15 degrees Fahrenheit, the daily conditions veer abruptly from warm sunshine to gusts of cold wind and rain showers” (p 46).
BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in the chapter called, “Islands, Desert and Otherwise” (p 128).
~*LunaSea*~ 