Review: Verne's version of Robinson Crusoe
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 06 11, 2010
This is Jules Verne's attempt at writing a Robinson Crusoe / Swiss Family Robinson castaway story, with the twist that the five castaways crash-land a balloon and thus come to the island with almost nothing -- unlike Crusoe or the Swiss Family, the castaways here don't have a boat-full of resources, tools, etc., to fall back on, and have to make *everything* themselves, from the ground up, armed only with their knowledge of science and engineering. Since it always seemed to me that Crusoe and the Swiss Family cheated a bit by bringing so many tools and so forth along with themselves, I really enjoyed the more scientific focus, and this has now replaced Swiss Family as my answer to the "what one book would you want with you on a desert island?" question.Parts of the novel drag a bit, but it's a Jules Verne novel so there's a good story here -- the Island has a mysterious unseen inhabitant, also, there are pirates, which is always awesome.The main flaw is that this is based on the 1875 Kingston translation, which makes a fair number of edits on Verne's original -- for example, it changes some of the protagonists's names and removes some of Captain Nemo's anti-imperialist, anti-british rhetoric. There's a more accurate translation available for free in the Kindle store, so I'd recommend grabbing the accurate version instead (look for the edition where the engineer is named Cyrus Smith, rather than Cyrus Harding;  Kingston reportedly felt "Smith" was a "gypsy name" and hence unsuitable for a heroic character. You can find that version in the kindle store here:The Mysterious Island)Oh, yeah, Captain Nemo. This book is in some ways a sequel to Verne's _Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Seas_, as well as to his _In Search of the Castaways_. The sequence isn't direct -- really more a case of cameo characters than a direct plot sequel to either book -- but you might want to read those two books first before picking this one up.