Just Off The Nightstand: The Swiss Family Robinson

Ever wonder what book you'd want to have with you if you were ever stranded on a deserted island? Well this is it! The Swiss Family Robinson! (by Johann David Wyss)

I cannot say it is the best book I've ever read, because it's not. It's even kind of boring, but it's also pretty interesting because the family, who is stranded on a deserted island, has so many amazing discoveries and because of their generally innovative lifestyle.

I don't think I've ever seen the Disney movie version, but I'm pretty sure it's different from the book. While we were at Disney World, we toured the "Treehouse" and it is completely unlike the treehouse in the book. And for good reason - they were in a tropical location and it was unreasonable to live in a tree during the wet season. In the book they actually lived in several different locations, but mostly in a hollowed out salt mine.

One thing I found curious was how detailed the descriptions were of how they cured meat and dismembered the whale and generally made everything useful. As a child of the 20th century, it's all news to me, but would an early 19th century reader have been so naive? I guess I don't know.

Most of the book details their day to day activities of planting crops and making things out of what they have available. That is probably what I found most unrealistic about it. By the end of the book, they have created a life for themselves that is very comfortable, even luxurious. Plus they discover things like truffles, cacao beans, and vanilla beans on the island, so they really eat gourmet...well some of the time! The variety of animals really seems unrealistic to me too - lions and elephants and buffalo, ostriches, kangaroos, crocodiles, and a whole number of animals I'd never heard of...including the seadog, which I couldn't even find a description of online because everything that turned up was baseball or pirates!

So in short, there is not a real defined story line - because basically they are just starting life from scratch and the culmination is that they stay there for a decade without anyone coming by and then in the end, half of the family decides to stay on the island.

Two quotes I really liked were:

The environs of our habitation were rich and agreeable; our plantations had perfectly succeeded; and between the grotto and the bay was a grove of trees and shrubs, planted in tasteful confusion, which gave the spot the aspect of an English garden.

I liked that the description "tasteful confusion" because it perfectly describes what I'd like to achieve in my yard - I don't want it to look like there's a real pattern, but I don't want it totally wild either.

and

...perhaps some young person will see, in the course of this narrative, the value of a varied education and the importance of becoming acquainted with the first principles.

The "value of a varied education" caught my eye because (according to a professor I had) there is a Russian idea of 'foxes' and 'hedgehogs' and learners tend to be one of the two. Foxes dart from here to there learn a little about a whole lot of things; hedgehogs have one pet subject and really dig into that. I guess I have always felt like a fox sort of learner and know that that means I really don't know all that much about any one thing, but it is varied and it does have value - or at least it would if I were stranded on a deserted island!