Day: July 23, 2020

23/07/2020

It was another stormy day. I finished reading ‘Robinson Crusoe’ by this little deserted island. It is very interesting to read this book as a novel of wilderness survival, although it is full of fables and incorrectness, such as hunting beasts just for fun; instead of learning the local language, he insisted teaching ‘Friday’ to speak English; being very self-righteous to sell his belief to ‘barbaric and uncivilized people’; long-winded religious discussions, but it is nothing more than being grateful to God just after every survival from disasters; condemning the cannibals but he himself was killing other people with weapons… The ending is also quite disappointing, his investment in the colony allowed him to become a rich man after returning to civilisation, so he was back to upper-middle class which he once despised. After all, it is a novel of the Enlightenment period with many limitations. From a modern point of view, Robinson’s story is actually the epitome of the Europe colonization to overseas, and it also reflects the destiny of human beings to develop agriculture and privatisation due to their natural hoarding habit. For the works of the same period, I would like to read Swift’s “Gulliver’s Travels” next, to see how he boldly and honestly satirizes the gloom of human nature. It is said that he did not like Defoe at all, even calling him “the man in pillory” instead of his name.

Tonight, we continue to eat winter food in the tropics. J made pumpkin cheese hot pie, with lard and butter in the crust, which is very delicious. The leftover pastry dough was used creativity to make pumpkin crispbread. After St. Helena biscuits, Curlew Island crispbread was born.