Books

Robinson Crusoe

Daniel Defoe spins a tale of a castaway figuring out how to survive and thrive on his own. 

It’s a classic adventure story: shipwreck, capture, escape from slavery, another shipwreck, pve fight for survival, pvp fight for survival, homeward odyssey. 

The language will appear troublingly archaic at a glance, but if you speak it aloud or even just say the words in your head, it becomes manageable. 

I read this with my then 5yo and he loved it. He still requests barley soup from time to time and we talk about the book often. I would have enjoyed it even on my own. It’s surprisingly fun to track his survival efforts. 

The one demerit for me was the presence of a handful of longish religious reflections, but even those served to help develop his character. 

It’s a great book for reading aloud to kids, but I’d even timidly recommend it for adults. Just don’t go in expecting modern pacing, and you’ll have a good time.

Nausea

Sartre tells a sad and miserable story about a sad and miserable man. 

This book, in its way, is one of the most puritanical and life-denying books I’ve ever read. It’s like something written by a moody, depressive, precocious teenager. 

The protagonist is bored and boring, and instead of doing something, he doubles down on his misery, wallowing around in solipsistic thought loops that make him even more miserable. 

And the entire time, there’s this self satisfied smirking undertone as if the protagonist, the author, and any sufficiently sensitive reader will know that this is really the best—the only!—way to live. 

Existence is not hard to cope with and meaning is not hard to manufacture, even if it doesn’t smack you in the face when you walk out the door. 

A sad, stupid, boring book that is overdue to be forgotten. 

One star, skip it.

Silliest self-importance; presaging the dual sartorial & conceptual affectations of the modern professional philosopher