This book by Daniel Defoe was interesting if a little hard to get into becuase of the language. It’s also very obvious that it was written by a white, Christian male a very long time ago.

One thing that I took issue with is Defoe’s depiction of wolves near the end of the story. He talks about how they’re traveling through the the mountains and this wolf attacks the guide. Defoe’s explanation is that the wolves were hungry and were going after the horses Crusoe and his “band” were riding. Wolves don’t like humans; in fact, they go out of their way to avoid them so it doesn’t seem accurate to say that they would attack horses being ridden by humans.

Then Defoe exaggerates when he says a pack of one hundred came racing at his group. No such thing. He also mentions finding dead horses eaten by wolves. That’s believable but he also mentions men eaten by wolves. Right.

I understand that the book was written hundreds of years ago but hey, I’m a fan of wolves.

Complete August 13, 2005