Thoughts on Robinson Crusoe

Instead of taking the secure route that was expected of him in life, as a boy born into a middle-class family, Robinson Crusoe decided to venture out to sea rather taking up law as a profession. This led to a life of loneliness and difficulty, making this a pretty weak book for younger teenagers to read, because it is basically showing that instead of doing what you really want to do, it is better and safer to just do what your parents want you to do. This story solidified my thoughts that I should just go through college and end up at law school instead of going to culinary school, which is what I’ve truly wanted to do my whole life. Thanks Defoe for shutting down my dreams!

Though I find it to be a pretty captivating and interesting story, I don’t necessarily understand what makes certain books considered “classics”. At the time, this story must have been extremely interesting to people around that time who were generally unable to break out from what is expected of people in their social class or even travel more than a few miles away from their homes. But today, I see it as an interesting story, but not necessarily anything that is life-changing or deserves to be considered a “classic”, because in my opinion even the Harry Potter series was much more entertaining. Little bit off topic, but I think that the Harry Potter series will stand the test of time as a classic. I have a feeling that Robinson Crusoe will as well, but I don’t think that it is any more interesting than books that are coming out nowadays. I appreciate that it was one of the first of its kind, but that doesn’t mean that it’s the best.

In general, I find fiction stories to be much less necessary to read. Because in the end, it may have been entertaining, but I always feel like my time could’ve been spent more intelligently reading something that is not false information. Not that I enjoy reading autobiographies, or dry nonfiction very much, but at least after reading it I feel like I picked up some new knowledge along the way.

Still, I thoroughly enjoyed reading this story, and I look forward to our next semester of Arts One!