00:06 Frank Hello, and welcome to Novel Conversations, a podcast about the world's greatest stories. I'm your host, Frank Lavallo, and for each episode of Novel Conversations, I talk to two readers about one book. And together, we summarize the story for you. We introduce you to the characters, we tell you what happens to them, and we read from the book along the way. So if you love hearing a good story, you're in the right place. This episode's conversation is about the novel Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe. And I'm joined by our Novel Conversations readers, Elizabeth Flood and Phil Setnick. Elizabeth, Phil, welcome.

00:39 Elizabeth Thank you, Frank.

00:40 Frank Thanks for having us, Frank. Glad to have you both here for this conversation. Before we get started, I want to give a quick introduction to Robinson Crusoe. First published on April 25th of 1719 and originally taken as a work of nonfiction, the biographical facts of Robinson Crusoe are given at the start of the novel by an anonymous editor. The first edition credited the work's protagonist, Robinson Crusoe, as its author, leading many readers to believe he was a real person, and the book, a travelogue of true incidents. Epistolatory, confessional, and didactic in form, the book is presented as an autobiography of the title character, whose birth name is Robinson Krautsnauer, a castaway who spends almost 30 years on a remote tropical island near Trinidad, encountering cannibals, captives, and mutineers before being rescued. It was published under the full title, and give me a second here to take a full breath. The Life and Strange Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe of York, Mariner, who lived eight and 20 years all alone on an uninhabited island on the coast of America near the mouth of the Great River of Oronoku. Having been cast on shore by shipwreck, wherein all the men perished but himself, with an account how he was at last as strangely delivered by pirates. Wow. That's quite a title, isn't it? Despite its simple narrative, Robinson Crusoe was well-received in the literary world. His focus on facts, actions, and details helps mark the beginning of realistic fiction as a literary genre, as well as the beginning of the novelistic form in English literature. Before the end of 1719, the book had already run through four editions. Though the novel's thoughts about slavery and colonialism no longer necessarily hold up and are now discredited in most of the world, its story of adventure, self-reliance, and perseverance have stood the test of time, spawning numerous sequels and adaptions for stage, film, and television. Phil, as I said, our novel doesn't really start with the story.

02:35 Phil We get a story about the story. Right. An unnamed editor explains his reasons for offering us the narrative we are about to read. He does not mention the name of Robinson Crusoe, but rather describes the narrative as a private man's adventures in the world and focuses on its realism when he calls it a just history of fact. He even states that there is nothing in the narrative that could possibly looked at as being contrived or false. He claims it is modest and serious and that it has an instructive value teaching us to honor the wisdom of providence. Thus, the editor says he's doing a great service to the world in publishing Crusoe's tale.

03:09 Frank Well, Elizabeth, how does the story of Robinson Crusoe begin?

03:13 Elizabeth A man named Robinson Crusoe records his own life story, beginning with his birth in 1632 in the English city of York. Crusoe's father was a German, originally named Kreuzner. Crusoe is the youngest of three brothers, the eldest being a soldier and the second one having vanished mysteriously. As the youngest son in the family, Crusoe is expected to inherit little, and as a result, his father encourages him to take up the law.

03:39 Phil But Crusoe's inclination is to go to sea. His family strongly opposes this idea, and his father gives him a stern and rather lengthy lecture on the value of accepting a middle station in life. Crusoe resolves to follow his father's advice, but when one of his friends embarks for London, Crusoe succumbs to temptation and boards the ship. A storm develops near Yarmouth, the weather so bad that Crusoe fears for his life and prays to God for deliverance. The ship nearly founders, but all are saved.

04:04 Frank And Elizabeth, as he will many, many times throughout the novel, Crusoe sees this storm as a sign.

04:09 Elizabeth Yes, he sees the ordeal as a sign that he should give up sea travel, and his friend's father warns him against setting foot on a ship again, echoing his own father's warning.

04:19 Phil And Crusoe, he does see it as a warning. But he doesn't take the warning. Crusoe parts with his friend and proceeds to London by land, where he meets a sea captain who proposes that Crusoe accompany him on an upcoming merchant voyage. Writing to his family for investment money, Crusoe sets off with 40 pounds worth of trinkets and toys to sell abroad.

04:38 Elizabeth He makes a net income of 300 pounds from this trip and considers it a great success.

04:43 Frank Yeah, that went pretty well. I think he might as well try it again.

04:46 Elizabeth Taking 100 pounds with him and leaving the remaining 200 pounds with a widow whom he trusts, Crusoe sets off on another merchant expedition, hoping for more success and more wealth.

04:57 Frank Elizabeth, the widow?

04:59 Elizabeth Appearing briefly, but on two separate occasions in the novel, the widow keeps Crusoe's 200 pounds safe in England throughout all his 35 years of journeying.

05:08 Frank Wow.

05:09 Phil Phil, another success? No, no. This time he is pursued by Moorish pirates off the coast of Sali in North Africa. His ship is overtaken, and Crusoe is enslaved, the only Briton among his Moorish master's slaves.

05:23 Elizabeth Crusoe is assigned the task of fishing because of his natural skill. One day, the slave's fishing vessel gets lost in fog, and the master installs a compass on board. The master also stores some gunpowder on board in preparation for a shooting party. But the guests do not come.

05:39 Phil Well, that kind of sounds convenient. So Crusoe sets off on a fishing expedition with two other slaves, a man named Ismael and a boy named Zuri. Sneaking up behind Ismael, Robinson pushes him into the water. Ismael swims alongside the boat and begs to be taken in, but Crusoe pulls a gun on him and tells him to return to shore or else be killed.

05:59 Elizabeth Crusoe then asks Zuri whether he will accompany him and serve him faithfully, and Zuri agrees. By evening, Crusoe calculates they have sailed 150 miles south of Sali. They see wild creatures on shore that Crusoe recognizes as lions. They proceed southward toward what Crusoe believes are the Cape Verde or Canary Islands. After meeting his Anglo-Brazilian neighbor, Crusoe conceives a plan to become a tobacco planter. For two years, Crusoe earns only enough on which to subsist, but in the third year he begins to do well.

06:31 Phil Having told the Portuguese captain of the 200 pounds he left in England, the captain arranges to have 100 pounds sent to Caruso in Brazil, along with many gifts besides. After receiving what the captain sent, Caruso feels quite well off.

06:45 Frank And eager for slave labor to extend his business further, he agrees to an acquaintance's plan to sail to Guinea for more black slaves in exchange for his own share of the slaves.

06:55 Elizabeth So, after writing a will leaving half his possessions to the Portuguese captain, Crusoe sets sail for Guinea on September 1st, 1659 with a cargo of trinkets with which to buy slaves. Sailing up the South American coast, the ship encounters a storm and two men are lost. Crusoe fears for his life.

07:15 Phil Continuing on and reaching the Caribbean, the ship is shaken by yet another storm that drives the ship onto the sand, breaking the rudder. The ship is clearly doomed, and the crew climbs into boats to make for shore. Crusoe loses sight of his mates when all are swept away by an immense wave. Finally, Crusoe makes it to shore, where he immediately prays to God in gratitude.

07:35 Elizabeth He never sees a sign of another living crew member. After drinking some fresh water and finding a tree in which to sleep, Crusoe spends his first night on the island.

07:45 Phil Awakening the next morning refreshed, Crusoe goes down to the shore to explore the mains of the ship. Swimming around it, he finds it impossible to climb aboard until he finds a rope hanging from a chain by which he pulls himself up.

07:57 Frank And through these next pages and chapters we start to see the ingenuity of Crusoe, a characteristic that will serve him well in his coming years.

08:05 Elizabeth He conceives the idea of building a raft out of broken lumber on which he loads provisions of bread, rice, goat meat, cheese, and other foods. He also finds clothes, arms, and fresh water.

08:18 Frank Elizabeth, you mentioned arms, guns. He finds lots of guns and casks of gunpowder.

08:23 Elizabeth Oh, I thought he just found people's arms. I'm just kidding.

08:28 Frank And casks of gunpowder.

08:30 Elizabeth Dry gunpowder. He sails his cargo-laden raft into a small cove, where he unloads it. He notices that the land has wildfowl but no other humans.

08:40 Phil Crusoe returns to the ship 12 times over the following 13 days. On one of the later trips, he finds 36 English pounds and he sadly meditates on how worthless the money is to him. After a strong wind that night, he awakens to find the ship's remains gone by next morning.

08:57 Frank And wary of pirates, Crusoe decides he must build a dwelling, or as he calls it, a fortress. But before we talk about that fortress, let's take a break here, and when we come back, we'll continue telling the story of Robinson Crusoe as he builds his fortress. We'll be right back. Welcome back. You're listening to Novel Conversations. Alright, when we left, Caruso had decided to build a fortress to store his goods.

09:26 Phil Phil? He chooses a spot with a view of the sea, protected from animals in the heat of the sun and near fresh water. He drives wooden stakes into the ground, using them as a frame for walls. Crusoe sleeps securely in the shelter that night. The next day he hauls all of his provisions and supplies inside and hangs a hammock on which to sleep. He also starts to build a cellar. This area that he is in backs up against a hillside, and there is a bit of an indentation, a bit of a cave in the hillside.

09:54 Frank And he's not carving into rock. He's carving into sandy soil, as it were, to create this cave area. Right.

10:01 Elizabeth During a thunderstorm, he suddenly worries about his gunpowder supply, which he then separates from the other supplies and stores in the cellar. He discovers wild goats on the island. He kills one and then sees that it had a kid, which he also kills.

10:16 Phil On about his twelfth day on the island, Caruso erects a large cross on which he inscribes the date of his arrival, September 30, 1659. He resolves to cut a notch on the cross to mark every passing day. He also begins a journal in which he records the good and evil aspects of his experience until he runs out of ink. He keeps watch for passing ships, but is always disappointed.

10:38 Frank Phil, you mentioned he builds a cross on the island, but devotes that cross to himself and his time on the island rather than to Christ. So, despite his invocations of God when faced with fears, as readers we still doubt his true faith, or the extent of his faith.

10:53 Elizabeth Yeah, especially because when he first was in a storm on the ship, didn't he swear to God, you know, all these things? And then, of course, as soon as he was safe, he forgot all about that.

11:06 Frank Absolutely. And that's what contributes to our doubt about his true beliefs, how strong his faith really is. And even with the erection of a cross, it's more about him and his time there than any kind of invocation of a Christ. But let's stay tuned.

11:21 Elizabeth Crusoe makes us privy to the journal that he keeps for a while, beginning with an entry dated September 30th, 1659, that inaugurates his account of life on the Island of Despair, as he calls it. He proceeds to narrate events that have already been narrated to us as readers. His discovery of the ship's remains, his salvaging of provisions, the storm that destroys the ship entirely, the construction of his house, and so on.

11:47 Phil He notes that he lost track of which day is Sunday and is thus unable to keep the Sabbath religiously. He records the building of various pieces of furniture and tools. Continuing his journal, Crusoe records his failed attempt to tame pigeons and his manufacture of candles from goat grease.

12:02 Elizabeth He tells of his semi-miraculous discovery of barley. Having tossed out a few husks of corn in a shady area, he is astonished to find healthy barley plants growing there later. He carefully saves the harvest to plant again, and thus is able eventually to supply himself with bread.

12:19 Phil And I wanted to point out here that there's a footnote in the book that says that he used the word corn to describe any of the grains that he is keeping. He doesn't actually have corn, he has barley and rice. And rice, right.

12:29 Frank I think it was the rice that he had brought over from the, that he had found on the ship.

12:34 Phil Right. And then he spilled some of it out and it fell on the ground and he forgot about that. And then when it sprouted later on, he attributed that to a miracle.

12:41 Frank As he will again. But Phil, not all goes well for Crusoe.

12:45 Phil Oh no. On April 16th, an earthquake nearly kills him as he is standing in the entrance to his cellar. After two aftershocks, he is relieved to feel at end, with no damage to his life or property.

12:55 Frank So now he has to worry about savages, pirates, and earthquakes?

12:59 Elizabeth Not just earthquakes. Immediately after the earthquake, a hurricane arrives. Crusoe takes shelter in his cave, cutting a drain for his house and waiting out the torrential rains. He is worried by the thought that another earthquake would send the overhanging precipice falling onto his dwelling and resolves to move.

13:17 Phil But he's distracted from this plan by the discovery of casks of gunpowder and other remains from the ship and one of its boats. Both were driven back to shore by the hurricane. Crusoe spends many days salvaging these remains for more useful items.

13:31 Frank And then on top of everything else, he gets sick.

13:34 Elizabeth For more than a week of rainy weather, Crusoe is seriously ill with a fever and severe headache. He is almost too weak to get up for water, though he is dying of thirst. He prays to God for mercy. In one of his feverish fits, he hallucinates a vision of a man descending from a black cloud on a great flame. The man brandishes a weapon at Crusoe and tells him that all his suffering has not yet brought him to repentance for prior actions.

14:01 Frank Crusoe's relationship to material possessions is a prominent topic in these chapters. Crusoe repeatedly suggests that his shipwreck is punishment for his greed, his pursuit of ever more material wealth, and especially his treatment of Zuri and attempts at slave trading.

14:16 Phil Crusoe emerges from the vision to take stock of the many times he has been delivered from death and cries over his ingratitude. He utters his first serious prayer to God, asking for an end to his distress. The next day, Crusoe finds he is beginning to recover, though he is still so weak he can hardly hold his gun. And there's really kind of a transition at this point between a very situational religiosity that he has in the first portion of the book. He really seems to be getting serious about it now.

14:44 Elizabeth He struggles with thoughts of self-pity followed by self-approach. Taking some tobacco and rum, his mind is altered, and he opens a Bible that he had happened to save from the ship, and he reads a verse about calling on the Lord in times of trouble, which affects him deeply. He falls into a profound sleep of more than 24 hours, which throws off his calendar calculations forever.

15:09 Phil In the days that follow, Crusoe almost completely recovers and kneels to God in gratitude. He begins a serious reading of the New Testament and regrets his earlier life. He comes to conceive of his isolation on the island as a kind of deliverance from his former guilty existence. Crusoe's religious awareness continues to grow in these chapters. Almost every major event is taken either as cause for repentance or as proof of God's mercy.

15:34 Elizabeth Having acquiesced in the idea that only providence controls his deliverance from the island, Crusoe resolves to explore the place thoroughly. He discovers sugarcane and grapes, and is especially delighted with the beauty of one valley. He secretly exalts in imagining himself the king and lord of the whole domain. Secretly exalts? Who's he going to tell? Good point.

15:57 Frank Good point.

16:00 Phil He begins to contemplate choosing that site as his new home, then spends the rest of July building a bower in the valley. He notes that his domicile now houses some cats. He commemorates the passing of one year on the island by fasting all day. Shortly after this occasion, he runs out of ink and discontinues his journal. And by the way, not all of those cats survived.

16:22 Elizabeth No, he killed some of them.

16:23 Phil He said they were becoming multiplying like vermin, so he had to get rid of them.

16:27 Frank But Elizabeth, the narrative continues.

16:29 Elizabeth After planting his grain in the dry season when it cannot sprout, Crusoe learns from his mistake and afterward keeps a table of the dry and rainy months to facilitate his farming.

16:40 Phil He also discovers that the wooden stakes he drove into the ground when building his bower or country house have sprouted and grown, and over the course of several years, they grow into a kind of sheltering hedge, providing cool shade and security. Crusoe also teaches himself to make wicker baskets, imitating the basket makers he remembers from his childhood. By this time, he lacks only tobacco pipes, glassware, and a kettle.

17:02 Elizabeth Finally, carrying out his earlier wish to survey the island thoroughly, Crusoe proceeds to the western end, where he finds he can make out land in the distance. He concludes it belongs to Spanish America. Crusoe is reluctant to explore it for fear of cannibals.

17:20 Phil He catches a parrot that he teaches to speak, and he takes a goat kid as a pet, keeping it in his bower, where it nearly starves until Crusoe remembers it. By this point, Crusoe has been on the island two years, and his moments of satisfaction alternate with despairing moods. He continues to read the Bible, and is consoled by the verse that tells him, God will never forsake him.

17:40 Elizabeth Crusoe spends months making a shelf for his abode. During the rainy months, he plants his crop of rice and grain, but is angered to discover that birds damage it. He shoots several of the birds and hangs them as scarecrows over the plants, and the birds never return. Crusoe finally harvests the grain and slowly learns the complex process of flour grinding and bread making.

18:03 Phil Determined to make earthenware pots, Crusoe attempts to shape vessels out of clay, failing miserably at first. Eventually he learns to shape, fire, and even glaze his pots. Thinking again of sailing to the mainland, Crusoe returns to the place where the ship's boat has been left upturned by the storm. He tries for weeks to put it right side up, but it's not strong enough.

18:23 Frank So resolving to make a canoe, Crusoe selects and cuts down an enormous cedar. He spends many months hacking off the branches, shaping the exterior, and hollowing out the insides. Of course, the result is a far larger canoe than he has ever seen before. And he now realizes the mistake of not previously considered its transport, since for him alone, it's immovable.

18:44 Phil The story says that it would hold 26 men. That's a big canoe.

18:48 Frank That's a big canoe. No wonder it took him four years to do it.

18:52 Phil Caruso considers building a canal to bring water to the canoe, but he calculates it would take too long and abandons the idea.

18:58 Frank Wasn't his calculation, I forget now, seven years or… I think that sounds about right.

19:03 Phil Yeah, something, yeah, anyway. By this point, four years have passed. He reflects that all his wants are satisfied since he already has everything that he can possibly use on his island. He feels gratitude imagining how much worse off he could be.

19:16 Elizabeth Next, Crusoe undertakes to make himself some new clothing out of animal skins, and he also constructs an umbrella.

19:23 Frank Of cats, right? I think it was.

19:26 Elizabeth Wait, really? No. Just a fur. Crusoe DeVille.

19:33 Frank Oh, yes. Very good.

19:36 Elizabeth Building a smaller canoe, he sets out on a tour around the island. He gets caught in a dangerous current that threatens to take him out to sea and away from the island forever. And when he is saved, he falls to the ground in gratitude.

19:50 Phil Growing alarmed by his low supply of gunpowder, it having been 11 years by this point, and wondering how he will feed himself if unable to shoot goats, Crusoe decides he must learn animal husbandry and tries to catch a small number of goats. He builds a pit in which he traps three young kids, and within a year and a half Crusoe has a flock of 12 goats. He learns to milk them, setting up a dairy that provides him with cheese and butter.

20:14 Frank At this point, he provides us with a brief inventory of his island holdings. He has two plantations on the island, the first his original home or castle, the second his country seat. He has a grape arbor, fields under cultivation, and enclosures for his cattle or the goats. The days pass and he reflects on his possessions and his successes. He makes his greatest discovery, and everything changes in an instant. But first, let's take a break, and when we come back, we'll detail Crusoe's greatest discovery. We'll be right back. Welcome back. I'm Frank Lavallo, and you're listening to Novel Conversations. Alright, when we left, I said we'd detail Crusoe's greatest discovery. Elizabeth?

21:02 Elizabeth Crusoe is astonished one day to discover the single print of a man's bare foot in the sand. Crusoe is terrified and retreats to his castle, where he entertains thoughts that the devil has visited the island. His conclusion that it is not the devil's but a real man's footprint is equally terrifying, and Crusoe meditates on the irony of being starved for human contact and then frightened of a man.

21:27 Frank And Crusoe's discovery of a mysterious single footprint in the sand is one of the most unforgettable and significant events in this novel. It condenses into one moment Crusoe's contradictory attitudes toward other humans. Elizabeth, as you said, he'd been craving human society, yet when it arrives, he's deeply afraid of it.

21:44 Phil Driven wild by fear, Crusoe fortifies his home and raises guns around it, keeping watch whenever possible. Concerned about his goats, he contrives to dig an underground cave in which to herd them every night and creates another smaller pasture far away to keep a second flock.

22:00 Frank Crusoe spends two years living in fear, waiting and watching and watching and waiting. And finally,

22:08 Elizabeth Coming down to a far part of the shore, Crusoe finds the beach spread with the carnage of humans. Once he realizes that he is in no current danger of being found by the cannibals, Crusoe's thoughts turn to killing them as perpetrators of wicked deeds and thereby saving their intended victims.

22:26 Phil Waiting every day on a hillside, fully armed, Crusoe eventually changes his mind, thinking that he has no divine authority to judge humans or to kill. He also realizes that killing them might entail a full-scale invasion by other savages.

22:41 Frank But Crusoe describes the measures he takes to avoid being spotted by the cannibals. He rarely burns fires, removes all traces of his activities when leaving a place, and even devises a way to cook underground.

22:53 Elizabeth Mounting to his lookout spot later, Crusoe spots nine cannibals on the beach lingering among the remains of their cannibal feast. He proceeds toward them with his gun, but when he arrives, they are already out to sea again. He inspects the human carnage with disgust and horror.

23:11 Phil Meanwhile, Crusoe is reading the Bible when he is surprised by a distant gunshot, followed closely by another. He senses the shots are coming from a ship. and builds a fire to notify the seamen of his presence. By daylight, he sees a wrecked ship and decides that the shots must have come from the wreck, whose men are now either gone or dead. Once again, he thanks Providence for his own survival.

23:34 Frank Afterwards, going down to the shore, he discovers a drowned boy. He paddles out to the ship in his canoe. He finds the ship is Spanish and contains wine, of course, clothing, and a great treasure in gold bars and doubloons, all of which he hauls back to the dwelling.

23:48 Elizabeth About a year and a half later, Crusoe spots five canoes on the island and 30 cannibals on the beach preparing two victims for slaughter. After the first is killed, the second breaks away and runs towards Crusoe's hiding place. He is pursued by two cannibals but is faster than they are.

24:06 Phil Crusoe attacks both pursuers and persuades the frightened victim to approach. Finding Crusoe friendly, the native vows devotion to his liberator. After burying the remains of the two pursuers, so as not to be tracked later, Crusoe and the native return to his camp, where the native sleeps.

24:21 Elizabeth Crusoe names him Friday to commemorate the day on which Crusoe saved his life. Friday again asserts his subservience to Crusoe. Crusoe teaches him simple English words and clothes him. Returning together to the slaughter scene, Crusoe has Friday clean up the bones and skulls and tries to convey to him the horror of cannibalism.

24:43 Phil Crusoe is delighted with his new companion and teaches him to eat goat meat instead of human flesh. He realizes he must expand his grain cultivation, which Friday helps him to do.

24:53 Elizabeth Crusoe begins to love Friday, and in the course of rudimentary conversations with him, learns that the cannibals periodically visit this island. Crusoe finds out that Friday is aware of mainland Spaniards who kill many men. The appearance of Friday is another major development in the novel. which has had only one character in it for a large part. The sweetness and docility of Friday, who is a cannibal, and the extraordinary ease with which Crusoe overcomes Friday's two pursuers, leads us to rethink Crusoe's earlier fear.

25:23 Phil Crusoe lived in terror of the cannibals for many years, scarcely daring to leave his cave and reduce to a caveman-like existence. Then, in only a few minutes, he stops two cannibals and makes another his lifelong servant.

25:35 Frank You know, the affectionate and loyal bond between Crusoe and Friday, it's a remarkable feature of this early English novel. Indeed, it's striking that this tender friendship is depicted in an age when Europeans were engaged in the large-scale devastation of non-white populations across the globe. But, in accordance with the Eurocentric attitude of the time, Defoe ensures that Friday is not really Crusoe's equal in this novel. He's clearly a servant and an inferior in rank, power, and respect.

26:03 Phil And if I can throw in about what you mentioned about the large-scale devastation, this entered into Crusoe's thinking earlier on when he was laying in wait for the cannibals to appear so he could slaughter them, which would make him no better than the Spaniards who were wreaking such havoc in the Americas, for no reason at all other than they perceived the people there to be less than they were.

26:24 Frank Agreed, and we will mention this again a little later, but this is, I believe, the point of Defoe, is to give us this explicit portrayal of cannibals and, if you will, savages, and then shows us that the Europeans are just as savage as the cannibals.

26:40 Elizabeth Right. Nevertheless, when Crusoe describes his own singular satisfaction in The Fellow himself and says, I began really to love the creature, his emotional attachment seems sincere, even if we object to Crusoe's treatment of Friday as a creature rather than a human being. Crusoe attempts to educate Friday in religious matters and finds that his servant easily understands the notion of God, but Friday has more difficulty understanding the devil, not grasping why God does not rid the world of this evil being permanently. The age-old question, the problem of evil. And Crusoe has trouble answering this question.

27:21 Phil Friday reports that the cannibals have saved the men from the shipwreck discovered by Crusoe before Friday's liberation, and that those men are living safely among the natives now.

27:31 Elizabeth When Friday expresses a yearning to return to his country, Crusoe fears losing him. And when Crusoe considers trying to join the shipwreck survivors, Friday becomes upset and begs Crusoe not to leave him. Together, the two build a boat in which they plan to sail to Friday's land in November or December.

27:49 Phil But before Crusoe and Friday have a chance for their voyage to the cannibal's land, the cannibals return to Crusoe's island. 21 natives come in three canoes to carry out another cannibalistic attack on three prisoners. Hesitant on moral grounds to kill so many, Crusoe reasons that since Friday belongs to an enemy nation, the situation can be construed as a state of war in which killing is permissible.

28:13 Frank Approaching the shore, Crusoe observes that one of the prisoners is Spanish. and Crusoe and Friday fall upon the cannibals and quickly overcome them with their superior weapons, allowing only four to escape. Friday is overjoyed to find that another of the prisoners is his own father. Crusoe and Friday feed the day's prisoners and take them back to Crusoe's dwelling, where a tent is erected for them.

28:34 Elizabeth After conversing with Friday's father and the Spaniard, Crusoe revisits his earlier dream of returning to the mainland. Crusoe asks the Spaniard whether he can count on the support of the remaining men held on the cannibal's territory. The Spaniard says yes, but reminds Crusoe that food production would have to be expanded to accommodate so many extra men. With the help of his new workers, Crusoe increases his agricultural capacity. He gives each of the new men a gun.

29:02 Frank Crusoe's story, which has until now been mainly about his own individual survival, takes on a strong political and national dimension when Crusoe wonders whether he can trust the other 16 Spaniards, who are, historically, often enemies of the British. Ironically, as we will soon see, it turns out that he can trust these foreigners much more than he can trust his own countrymen, the eight English mutineers he soon encounters.

29:26 Phil One day, Friday comes running to Crusoe with news that a boat is approaching the island, and Crusoe, with his spyglass, discovers it to be English. Crusoe is suspicious. Near the shore, Crusoe and Friday discover that the boat contains 11 men, three of whom are bound as prisoners. Friday suspects that the captors are preparing for cannibalism. When the eight free men wander around the island, Crusoe approaches the prisoners, who mistake him for an angel.

29:50 Frank It turns out both the prisoners and the captors are Europeans. English, in fact.

29:56 Elizabeth One prisoner explains that he is the captain of the ship and that the sailors have mutinied. Crusoe proposes that in exchange for liberating him and the other two, he and Friday should be granted free passage to England. The captain agrees and Crusoe gives him a gun. I think the Europeans now arriving after the mutiny is Defoe's method of emphasizing the similarities between the native people and the Europeans. Both groups can be violent and murderous, yet both groups can also produce individuals like Crusoe and Friday who are kind and good.

30:30 Frank Elizabeth, I agree. Generalizing them into good and the bad or to civilized and the wild proves impossible. That's the foe's point.

30:37 Phil Crusoe realized that the other seamen may notice something wrong and send more men onshore to overpower Crusoe's men. They disabled the boat to prevent the additional men from escaping.

30:46 Elizabeth Sure enough, ten seamen come in from the ship to discover the boat destroyed, leaving three in the second boat as watchmen. The other seven come ashore. Crusoe then sends Friday and another to shout at the men from various directions, and Crusoe succeeds in confusing and tiring them so that they are finally separated.

31:07 Phil The men in the boat eventually come inland and are overwhelmed by Crusoe's stratagems. On behalf of Crusoe, the captain, finally addressing the remaining men, offers to spare everybody's life except that of the ringleader if they surrender now. All the mutineers surrender.

31:21 Elizabeth The captain makes up a story that the island is a royal colony and that the governor is preparing to execute the ringleader the next day.

31:29 Phil Having defeated the mutineers, Crusoe decides that it is time to seize the ship, and he tells the captain of his plans. The captain agrees. Crusoe and the captain intimidate the captive mutineers with a fictitious report that the island's governor intends to execute them all, but would pardon most of them if they helped seize the ship. To guarantee the men's promises, Crusoe keeps five hostages.

31:49 Elizabeth The plan works. The rebel captain on the ship is killed and the ship is reclaimed. When Crusoe glimpses the ship, he nearly faints from shock. In gratitude, the captain presents Crusoe with gifts of wine, food, and clothing. The mutineers are offered the chance to remain on the island in order to avoid certain execution for mutiny in England. They gratefully accept.

32:10 Phil And on December 19, 1686, Crusoe boards the ship with his money and a few possessions and sets sail for England after more than 28 years on the island.

32:21 Elizabeth Back in England, Crusoe discovers that the widow who has been guarding his money is alive but not prosperous. Crusoe's family is dead except for two sisters and the children of a brother. Crusoe decides to go to Lisbon to seek information about his plantations in Brazil.

32:37 Phil Arriving in Lisbon, Crusoe looks up his old friend and benefactor, the Portuguese captain, who first took him to Brazil. The Portuguese captain tells Crusoe that his Brazilian lands have been placed in trust and have been very profitable. The captain is indebted to Crusoe for a large sum that he partially repays on the spot.

32:54 Elizabeth Crusoe, moved by the captain's honesty, returns a portion of the money. Obtaining a notarized letter, Crusoe is able to transfer his Brazilian investments back into his own name. He finds himself in possession of a large fortune. Crusoe sends gifts of money to his widow friend and to his two sisters and the children of his brother.

33:12 Phil Crusoe resolves to return to England, but he is averse to traveling by sea. Yeah, of course.

33:18 Frank No wonder.

33:20 Phil removing his baggage from three different ships at the last moment. He later learns that two of those ships are either taken by pirates or foundered. Crusoe decides to proceed on land, assembling a traveling group of Europeans and their servants.

33:32 Elizabeth Crusoe and his group set out from Lisbon and reach the Spanish town of Pamplona in late autumn, and Crusoe finds the cold almost unbearable. The snow is excessive, forcing the group to stay several weeks in Pamplona. And he makes the point that Friday has never seen snow, probably doesn't even know that snow existed, so he's very frightened by it.

33:54 Frank I forgot about that moment, right?

33:56 Phil Wait till he sees the running of the bulls.

33:58 Frank On November 15th, they finally set out toward France, despite the inclement weather. They encounter three wolves and a bear in the woods. Proceeding onward, the group encounters a frightened horse without a rider. That can never be good. And then finds the remains of two men who have been devoured by wolves.

34:15 Phil Hundreds of wolves soon surround Crusoe's group. They shoot the wolves and frighten them with an explosion of gunpowder, finally driving them away. Arriving at last in Toulouse, France, Crusoe learns that his group's escape from the wolves was virtually miraculous.

34:29 Elizabeth Crusoe arrives safely at Dover, England on January 14th. He deposits his personal effects with his widow friend who cares for him well. Crusoe contemplates returning to Lisbon and going from there to Brazil, but he is once again dissuaded by religious concerns. Apparently before he had been pretending to be Catholic when he really didn't have any religious beliefs, and now he's Protestant and he doesn't want to pretend to be Catholic.

34:55 Frank Doesn't want to go to Catholic countries. Right. Exactly.

34:59 Phil He decides to stay in England, giving orders to sell his investments in Brazil. This sale earns Crusoe the large fortune of 33,000 pieces of eight. Since Crusoe is unattached to any family members and is used to a wandering life, he again thinks about leaving England.

35:15 Elizabeth Crusoe marries, but after the death of his wife, he decides to head for the East Indies as a private trader in 1694. On this voyage, he revisits his island. Crusoe finds that the Spaniards who have remained there have subjugated the mutineers, treating them kindly. Crusoe provides them with gifts of cattle, supplies, and even women. The colony has survived a cannibal invasion and is now prospering.

35:42 Frank And Phil, Elizabeth, with Crusoe back on his island with his colony, our novel ends. Let's take a final break here and then we'll head into our last segment where I'd like to ask the two of you to share a moment or a character or a quote that we haven't had a chance to talk about yet. And we'll be right back. Welcome back. You're listening to Novel Conversations. Elizabeth, Phil, before our break, we ended our story, and now I'd like to ask the two of you to share a moment or a character or perhaps a quote that we haven't had a chance to get to yet. Elizabeth, do you have something for us?

36:21 Elizabeth Yes, the moment when Crusoe's friend, the sea captain, lets him know that their plan worked, that he had recaptured the ship and that they could leave the island, it's quite beautiful the way it's described. He's been on this island for 28 years. So I wanted to read an excerpt from that. Please. This is right after the captain returns the news to him. Crusoe had almost fainted and the captain was holding him up. All this while the poor man was in as great an ecstasy as I, only not under any surprise as I was, and he said a thousand kind tender things to me, to compose me and bring me to myself. But such was the flood of joy in my breast that it put all my spirits into confusion. At last it broke out into tears, and a little while after I recovered my speech. Then I took my turn and embraced him as my deliverer, and we rejoiced together. I told him I looked upon him as a man sent from heaven to deliver me, and that the whole transaction seemed to be a chain of wonders. that such things as these were the testimonies we had of a secret hand of providence governing the world and an evidence that the eyes of an infinite power could search into the remotest corner of the world and send help to the miserable whenever he pleased.

37:44 Frank That's a great line. Thanks for bringing that to us or reminding us of it. Phil, do you have something to share?

37:49 Phil It's not quite nearly as deep as that, but I thought it was kind of a cute description of how Robinson Crusoe dressed himself, having made clothing out of all the animal skins he'd collected over time. And I just thought it was kind of fun the way it's described and basically the way he carries himself and how he doesn't care how he looks. Who's he gonna run into? I had a great, high, shapeless cap made of a goat's skin with a flap hanging down behind, as well as to keep the sun from me, as to shoot the rain off from running into my neck, nothing being so hurtful in these climates as the rain upon the flesh under the clothes. I had a short jacket of goat skin, the skirts coming down to about the middle of my thighs, and a pair of open-kneed breeches of the same. The breeches were made of the skin of an old he-goat, whose hair hung down such a length on either side that, like pantaloons, it reached to the middle of my legs. Stockings and shoes, I had none, but I had made me a pair of somethings, I scarce know what to call them, like buskins to flap over my legs, and lace on either side like spatterdashes, but of a most barbarous shape, as indeed were all the rest of my clothes." And it goes on and it talks about how clumsily made, but highly effective everything he was wearing turned out to be.

38:59 Frank I think my wife would accuse me of living in a world where I don't think anyone sees what I'm wearing. But we'll leave that for another day in time. What I'd like to talk about is how I believe Robinson Crusoe really stands as a metaphor for colonialism. It's often read in modern times as an allegory of the evils of colonialism. And I think there's much in the last chapters to defend this view. Friday's subjugation to Crusoe reflects colonial race relations, especially in Crusoe's unquestioning belief that he's helping Friday by making him a servant. Moreover, colonial terminology appears. When dealing with the hostile mutineers, Crusoe and the captain intimidate them by referring to a fictional governor of the island, who will punish them severely. This fiction of a governor foreshadows, I think, the very real governor who will no doubt be installed on the island eventually, since Crusoe has apparently claimed the territory for England. The prosperity of the island after Crusoe leaves is emphasized in the last chapter. It's no longer a wasteland, as when he first arrived, but a thriving community with women and children. This notion of triumphantly bringing the blessings of civilization to a desolate and undeveloped locale was a common theme of European colonial thought. And indeed, Crusoe explicitly refers to this community as, my new colony in the island. which makes us wonder whether he really considered it his own or whether it's officially a colony or merely figuratively so. In any way, Crusoe has turned his story of one man's survival into a political tale replete with its own ideas about imperialism. All right, guys, I think with those final thoughts, we'll end our conversation today about the novel Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe. I want to thank both of you for coming in and having this conversation with me. I really hope you guys enjoyed it as much as I did. Thank you, guys. I'm Frank Lavallo, and you've been listening to Novel Conversations.

Thanks for listening to Novel Conversations. If you're enjoying the show, please give us a five-star review wherever you listen to podcasts. You can find us on Instagram at Novel Conversations. Follow us to stay up to date on upcoming episodes and in anything else we've got in the works. I want to give special thanks to our readers today, Elizabeth Flood and Phil Setnik. Our sound designer and producer is Noah Foutz, and Gray Sienna Longfellow is our audio engineer. Our executive producers are Brigid Coyne and Joan Andrews. I'm Frank Lavallo. Thank you for listening. I hope you soon find yourself in a novel conversation all your own.