My childhood nemesis, finally taken down!
When I was in 6th grade (around 11 years old), determined to expand my vocabulary, I inserted this book between my nonfiction extracurricular reading selections. (I was a total Hermoine type back then.) At my school at that time, students were able to earn bonus points of a sort for passing quizzes on whichever books from the school's vast library selection they elected to take on. Each book had a grade level rating from 1 to 12+, based on the approximate grade a student would likely need to be in to adequately comprehend it's material. Discovering Robinson Crusoe was a 12+, I was captivated. Nearly all the other 12+s I'd come across had been nonfiction.
I was well and truly out of my depth, but my relentless stubbornness wouldn't let me let it go. Despite Robinson Crusoe's old language, sailor's jargon, and geographical references I was entirely unfamiliar with, I refused to give up reading the damn thing. No joke, I had to read the freakin book THREE TIMES before scraping a pass on the quiz.
Over 20 years later, I've now come across the book again by chance, having recently found it cast away 😜 on the sidewalk in my neighborhood amongst a pile of carelessly discarded clothes and other unwanted items! Being the avid book reader I once was seems like a lifetime ago now, but I obviously had no choice but to take up the challenge the universe was so blatantly suggesting by placing this book at my feet after so long. There really seemed to be no other option but to take down my old foe — the author, Daniel Defoe — and thoroughly get to the bottom of exactly what he was trying to communicate here.
Though there was no final quiz this time, I couldn't not be sure to absorb every last drop of content possible within the pages' words, so I can't deny that the read did take me a short while and quite a few trips to Google and Google Maps, but I do feel like I've indisputably done it justice. Now, what more of a fitting ending for Robinson Crusoe than to be delivered from the destitute state it was in on the hot sidewalk down the road and find salvation, by my rescue, with me. 😂 I'm not sure I can imagine anything more appropriate.
Going forward, perhaps I'll aim to keep a book nearby for moments when anything more productive or enticing is out of reach or out of the question. 🤔
Note: Robinson Crusoe is an old book which, I've found, contains very dated and morally controversial views.
