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Favorite desert island (literary) story

Discussion in 'Polls Forum' started by Alcott, Oct 23, 2007.

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What is your favorite desert island (literary) story?

  1. Baby Island (Carol Ryrie Brink)

    0 vote(s)
    0.0%

  2. The Blue Lagoon (Henry De Vere Stacpoole)

    0 vote(s)
    0.0%

  3. The Coral Island (R.M. Ballantyne)

    0 vote(s)
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  4. Lord of the Flies (William Golding)

    1 vote(s)
    5.0%

  5. Mysterious Island (Jules Verne)

    1 vote(s)
    5.0%

  6. Robinson Crusoe (Daniel Defoe)

    6 vote(s)
    30.0%

  7. The Swiss Family Robinson (Johann Wyss)

    3 vote(s)
    15.0%

  8. The Tempest (William Shakespeare)

    1 vote(s)
    5.0%

  9. Treasure Island (Robert Louis Stevenson)

    3 vote(s)
    15.0%

  10. Other

    5 vote(s)
    25.0%
Top Posters
  1. Alcott

    Alcott Well-Known Member
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    What is your favorite literary story (novel or play) in which most of the action takes place on a desert island; that is, an island without—or presumed to be without-- permanent human natives, and the people who go there are going against their will, and/or they wish to escape dangers or isolation?
     
    #1 Alcott, Oct 23, 2007
  2. NaasPreacher (C4K)

    NaasPreacher (C4K) Well-Known Member

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    Robinson Crusoe - no doubt in my mind.

    Reading of his spiritual battles to be saved, his amazing salvation experience, and his ensuing struggle with the flesh and learning the lesson of contentment is astounding.

    His witness to Friday is amazing, then God changing Robinson's heart of hatred for the cannibals and to a desire the see them saved is a great picture of the grace of God working in a man's heart.

    Oh yeah, his illustration of natural and supernatural revelation of God is probably the best I have ever seen.
     
    #2 NaasPreacher (C4K), Oct 23, 2007
    Last edited by a moderator: Oct 23, 2007
  3. Alcott

    Alcott Well-Known Member
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    It's been a long time since I have actually read Robinson Crusoe straight through, and I remember all that except for his developing a real desire to see the cannibals saved. The main spiritual points I remember are his struggle to accept his situation and the memory of his father having warned him to strive for the "middle station" in life and to stay there, and that after he saves Friday and they beat off a band of cannibals which had Friday's father as a prisoner, and the Spaniards came ashore, that he gloated that 'his' island country had complete religious freedom. He was a Protestant, Friday was a Christian convert, Friday's father was a pagan, and the Spaniards were "papists." He did consider, when he contemplated trying to kill all the cannibals, "What right have I to be their executioner?" But when he gets the chance to help save an intended victim who has escaped-- who is later his slave, Friday-- the moral dilemma never enters his mind about killing 7 or 8 in order to save one.

    My favorite among the options is Treasure Island. I know it's generally thought of as a kids' book, but it's notable that its first publication was in Young Folks, a weekly periodical for children, and it got little interest. But a couple years later when it was printed in book form, it was an immediate best-seller, and old men were known to look all over their respective cities for a copy to buy. It's quite unlike Robinson Crusoe in that it deals with little spiritually, and its moral lessons are somewhat ambiguous. Sometimes I wonder if Stevenson was not really unlike Dickens in social commentary; but instead of attacking the 'crimes' of being born to the wrong family or falling in with the wrong companions, he keeps the reader's mind on the adventure tale such that they are slid over and the conclusion is the expected one, but there is room for afterthought that the heroes and villains are not really that distinguishable, at least in their goals-- which in TI were the same.
     
    #3 Alcott, Oct 23, 2007
  4. SaggyWoman

    SaggyWoman Active Member

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    I am kind of taken to Count of Monte Cristo, but I realize the take of the movie isn't an island, there is an island.
     
    #4 SaggyWoman, Oct 23, 2007
  5. Sopranette

    Sopranette New Member

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    I loved Swiss Family Robinson as a little girl. When the series came to TV, there was nothing that could pry me away from the screen. It really helped shape what I wanted to do and be as an adult, too.
    There was a series of books by British author Enid Blyton, about five boys and girls who had adventers together, and in one book, they ran of to an island together, where they made a shelter, grew a garden, and raised chickens. I must have read it a thousand times over.

    love,

    Sopranette
     
    #5 Sopranette, Oct 23, 2007
  6. webdog

    webdog Active Member
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    I voted other...Gilligan's Island :)
     
    #6 webdog, Oct 23, 2007
  7. abcgrad94

    abcgrad94 Active Member

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    I have to agree. Robinson Crusoe is my favorite, hands down. The Swiss Family Robinson is a close second.
     
    #7 abcgrad94, Oct 23, 2007
  8. Joe

    Joe New Member

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    Fantasy Island :)! Great place

    Da plane.......
    Da Plane!
     
    #8 Joe, Oct 23, 2007
    Last edited by a moderator: Oct 23, 2007
  9. Bible Believing Bill

    Bible Believing Bill <img src =/bbb.jpg>

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    The Count of Monte Cristo is probably my favorite novel.


    Bill
     
    #9 Bible Believing Bill, Oct 23, 2007
  10. Alcott

    Alcott Well-Known Member
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    That's the reason I inserted the word literary in parenthesis. This is about literature, not TV or movies, and especially not about mindless silliness.
     
    #10 Alcott, Oct 24, 2007
  11. Joe

    Joe New Member

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    oops :tonofbricks:
     
    #11 Joe, Oct 24, 2007
  12. webdog

    webdog Active Member
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    ...read it and weep...

    A big part of Gilligan's Island were the fantasy sequences, often in the form of dreams. In addition to being great fun, and often good parodies of various themes, they were the only way the Castaways could leave the island (until Rescue from Gilligan's Island, of course.)
    • A parody of Gunsmoke In The Sound of Quacking. Gilligan plays "Marshall Gilligan", protecting a duck from hungry castaways. These scenes, it turns out, were filmed on the real "Gunsmoke" sets - that show was still in production. (Ironically enough, it was the cancelling and hasty renewal of "Gunsmoke" that scuttled the fourth season of Gilligan's Island.)
    • In another "western" fantasy, Mr. Howell dreams he is a (smelly) prospector ("I haven't had a bath in 40 years." "I know.') whose gold-mine claim lands him in trouble in The Sweepstakes. (The fantasy sequences of this episode were also filmed on the "Gunsmoke" set.)
    • Russell Johnson plays "Inspector Sherlock", with Alan Hale "Colonel Watney", who stumble on Bob Denver's Vampire in Up at Bat.
    • Gilligan dreams he is "El Presidente" of a small south american country, who is actually a puppet of Pancho Hernando Gonzalez Enrico Rodriguez in The Little Dictator.
    • Gilligan dreams he is "Prince Gilligan" in My Fair Gilligan.
    • Gilligan dreams he is Jack in a "Jack in the Beanstalk" sequence, in which Bob Denver's young son Patrick plays Gilligan being confronted by the gigantic Skipper-Giant in "V" for Vitamins. (Dawn Wells wears a very fetching costume.)
    • Believing radiation will prematurely age them, Gilligan dreams all the Castaways have aged 50 years in Meet the Meteor.
    • In a Bondian parody, Gilligan becomes "Good Guy 014" ("twice as smart as 007"), up against the SMERSH-ish "EVIL" (complete with the Blofeldly-bald Mr. Howell) in The Invasion.
    • Convinced he has become a monster, Gilligan dreams he is a Dr. Jeckyl-Mr. Hyde character, who changes into the evil 'half' at the mere mention of food in And Then there were None. Dawn Wells plays the Eliza-Doolittlish 'Cockney Flowergirl' dead-on, and Tina Louise the fatal 'Lady in Red' with panache.
    • Lovey Howell dreams she is Cinderella to Mr. Howell's Prince Charming (Ginger and Mary Anne are her gap-toothed, bespecticaled 'beautiful older sisters', Gilligan the fill-in fairy godfather, and the Skipper her mother!) in Lovey's Secret Admirer.
    • After finding petroglyphs that seem to show a way off the island, Gilligan dreams back three million years to relive the story of the first inhabitants (who look amazingly like the current ones) and their dangerous trek to "other side of hill" in The Secret of Gilligan's Island.
    • Mary Anne dreams she is in a soap opera, attented to by Gilligan as Maurice Chevallier, the Skipper as Marshal Dillon, and the Professor as Cary Grant in (get episode).
    • Each of the men dreams of women (all of them the women on the island) in St. Gilligan and the Dragon, when the women go on strike and move away from the men.
    http://paul.rutgers.edu/~cwm/Gilligans-Island.html
     
    #12 webdog, Oct 24, 2007
  13. Friend of God

    Friend of God Active Member
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    The Tempest...hands down. I love Shakespeare.

    Annsni isn't going to be happy though. You didn't mention Long Island.
     
    #13 Friend of God, Oct 24, 2007
  14. Alcott

    Alcott Well-Known Member
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    I haven't read Long Island, but is its essence an island devoid of people from which some unfortunate castaways or maroons are threatened with death and/or hope to escape?

    As for The Count of Monte Cristo, the desert island part of the story isn't the real substance, is it? I don't even recall if most of the action takes place there (does it?).

    You Gilligan's Island and Fantasy island guys can go try to blow out a volcano with a home-made bomb.
     
    #14 Alcott, Oct 24, 2007
  15. Alcott

    Alcott Well-Known Member
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    I'm a Shakespeare fan, too, but his plays that I like least are probably those that delve far into fantasy, like The Tempest and A Midsummer Night's Dream. I can take the rare appearance of ghosts, witches, or portents, as in so many plays, but where the whole story is based on spirits or fairies, they rate with the Oz stories; except, of course, for some great quotes and wordplay. The Tempest is, however, a good symbolic story, I'll admit, about Shakespeare himself coming to the end of his quarter-century (roughly) of a life in theater that seems a fantasy.
     
    #15 Alcott, Oct 25, 2007
    Last edited by a moderator: Oct 25, 2007
  16. Tentmaker

    Tentmaker <img src=/tentmaker.gif>
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    Robinson Crusoe, interestingly I'm reading it now, the full version.
     
    #16 Tentmaker, Oct 25, 2007
  17. Chessic

    Chessic New Member

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    Recently read "Uncharted" by Angela Hunt. Interesting and bold attempt at a difficult Christian concept.
     
    #17 Chessic, Oct 25, 2007
  18. webdog

    webdog Active Member
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    ...whatever that means. You're a bitter person, huh? Try showing some love for a change, and lighten up a little... :rolleyes:
     
    #18 webdog, Oct 25, 2007
    Last edited by a moderator: Oct 25, 2007
  19. Friend of God

    Friend of God Active Member
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    Actually I was speaking of Long Island, New York with my tongue firmly in my cheek, hence the reference to Annsni [she lives there].

    Actually though your analysis does sound a bit like Long Island, NY. :laugh:
     
    #19 Friend of God, Oct 25, 2007
  20. Alcott

    Alcott Well-Known Member
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    I thought that remark was 'lightened up.' 'Blowing out a volcano with a homemade bomb' refers to a Gilligan's Island episode in which they did just that.
     
    #20 Alcott, Oct 25, 2007
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