Robinson Crusoe

Simon Vance is my favorite reader, but this title was marred be regular audio edits made with different acoustics, too distracting. The story is excellent, an old classic I wanted to "read" again. Audio is better than reading with a good reader like Vance, bringing the characters much more to life than actual reading would.

Not having read the full text before, I was surprised at the depth of this narrative. In its religious pedagogy and in the moments where we see Crusoe’s interior life – meaning his anxious ruminations on the meaning of adversity and prospect of salvation – the narrative is halfhearted and pat. But when it comes to describing the world outside, there is an unselfconscious realism and eye for detail that is fuller and more disruptive. The density and moral ambiguity of this narrative defies Crusoe’s conclusory interpretations. Crusoe is a likable chronicler, though, and reveals things despite himself. He switches in and out of the epistolary format, telling us what he saw and then telling us how he wrote the same thing down in his journal – usually in a more distant and compact fashion. This has the effect of drawing the reader into greater confidence than the intended audience of his journal.