Following a wild and raging storm, the Swiss family Robinson are stranded at sea. But the thundering waves have swept them off to a tropical island, where a new life awaits them. Their ship is laden with supplies and the island is packed with treasures, so they soon adapt and discover new dangers and delights every day...

Bound for Port Jackson, Australia, Father Robinson boards a ship with his wife and their four sons. Little does he know, their lives will never be the same again…
When a violent storm destroys their ship and separates them from the rest of the crew, the Robinson family is stranded on a tropical island in the East Indies. With most of their belongings lost at sea, the only thing they have left is each other.

Using everything they have at their disposal, the Swiss family builds a new life from scratch, taming the wilderness and turning their new home into a hidden paradise away from the rest of the world. But when the world comes to their doorstep, the Robinsons will have to make an impossible choice…
A masterful blend of adventure and family values, The Swiss Family Robinson is a powerful novel about the triumph of human will over nature's obstacles. ( )

It's a very long time since I read it, but from memory it was a rather boring.

By page 74 it was still just a laundry list of each day's discovery of new items from the island, or items recovered from the wrecked ship. No plot, no adventure. This may have passed my standards for a good read (probably not), but the thing that made me press the delete button on the Kindle with particular fury was the way in which Father Robinson was so damn knowledgable about every aspect of "savage" lifestyles and survival tactics. I mean, what middle-class clergyman from the Alps knows the exact proper way to halve a tropical gourd? Is it likely that this late-18th century minister from a mountain climate knows that a particular tree from a tropical climate can be used for making sewing thread, and also exactly how to make a navigable boat out of 8 barrels and a bunch of wrecked plywood? It strained the very limits of my suspended disbelief to the snapping point, and snap they did.

Delete from Kindle. ( )

Abridged to 190 pages

Review pending ( )

I often follow the course of audiobooks with my Kindle edition if I have one. In this case, I discovered at about a third of the way through the book that the two were no longer tracking. This wasn't just a case of different translations but they became two completely different plots! The audiobook, for example, had a chapter or two about a beached whale while in the Kindle text a British merchant ship was blown off course during a storm & met the Robinsons, carrying the father's notebook & family greetings back to Europe.

Blackstone Audio, who produced the audiobook edition I listened to, says: "Inspired by Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe, this classic story of invention and adventure has fired the imaginations of readers since it first appeared in 1812. Freely translated over the years, with major sections excised and new subplots added, the novel is published here in its original English translation." (my underlining)

Certainly, the plot in the audiobook conforms to that given in synopsis on Wikipedia. However, I felt that the Kindle edition's language and plot both seemed more in keeping with the style & tone of the early nineteenth century. In any case, I enjoyed them both even though I hadn't anticipated reading 2 books for this one entry! ( )

Good family adventure story. ( )

This book is abridged

I read the English translation based on the continuation by Isabelle de Montolieu.

Dull, moralizing, and silly. A Swiss family is ship wrecked on a desert island where they are fortunate enough to find almost everything they need to reproduce the necessities of European life. The island has an unlikely combination of natural resources and, for such a rich place, a rather surprising lack of dangers. Back in a time when flamingos and buffalo were exotic creatures, this book might have been interesting, but to a modern adult reader, it's painfully tedious. ( )

classic

too much killing of animals when I read it as a boy ( )

I really enjoyed this book. I found all the details about how they survived and built a life on this deserted island fascinating. My only complaint is that the middle section went on a little too long with unnecessary events and findings. However, before I got too distracted and discontented, Wyss picked up the story again and brought it to a very satisfying ending. ( )

Pretty much what you might expect. A mother, father and four sons shipwrecked on what they claim is an island although no one ever bothers to circumnavigate it so we'll never know for sure :) .
Its quite Vernian, in that it spends a lot of time giving mildly interesting and often incorrect information on plants and animals. Usually involving how best to kill them ;) .
I did like the unintentional irony. Sometimes the father would get worried at how callous the sons are getting while praising there killing powers the rest of them time. At one point someone asks why god would created something as vicious as a wild cat, he says while holding up the cat which he just killed :(. There are also some sights you can't unpicture, a small child clubbing penguins to death is the sort of thing that will stay with you.
Anyway there just isn't enough here to separate it from the hundreds of other shipwreck stories so i deducted a star... then i put the star back because of the humour.
There's some genuine warm family teasing here and the parents in particular can be quite sarcastic. However in the end i took the star off once more because of the geography.
Sorry but if you have a hippo, kangaroo and capybara in the same small piece of land something has gone horribly wrong, or your at the zoo :lol .

Maybe i should make a shelf for books only worth reading if your immortal :) . ( )

3.5 stars. Glad to have finally read this classic. ( )

Wikipedia - "Johann David Wyss (German: [ˈjoːhan ˈdaːfɪd ˈviːs]; May 28, 1743 – January 11, 1818) was a Swiss author, best remembered for his book The Swiss Family Robinson (Der schweizerische Robinson) (1812). He was born and died in Bern. It is said that he was inspired by Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe, but wanted to write a story from which his own children would learn, as the father in the story taught important lessons to his children. The Swiss Family Robinson was first published in German in 1812 and translated into English two years later. It has since become one of the most popular books of all time. The book was edited by his son, Johann Rudolf Wyss, a scholar who wrote the Swiss national anthem. Another son, Johann Emmanuel Wyss, illustrated the book." This copy is translated from the French translation by Madame Voiart, considered more lucid, spirited and expressive.

This classic didn't quite hold up to the passage of time. The plot was lacking and everything that the family faced they were able to overcome with seemingly little to no effort. Thankfully the father (who was the narrator) was so well versed in everything from zoology to carpentry, hunting to botany, everything in between that everything was able to be spelled out for his children and so that they could successfully survive on the island they were stranded on. I'm not saying they couldn't have survived without this knowledge, I'm just saying that it all felt a bit forced and the vast spread of knowledge felt too convenient. In addition, it drove me crazy that the narrator never gave the wife/mother's name and that she was only referred to as "the mother" or "my wife". She seemed to play such a small role in keeping the house and cooking for her 4 male children and husband that she could have been taken out entirely and it would have made no difference to the story. All the children were given names and played a role at some point, so why couldn't she? I guess she did have "magic bag" that was full of seeds that they ended up planting, but that's about the only significant role I could see of her. Unfortunately this didn't hold up to the passage of time. :( ( )

OOF this book lasted forever. I read it mostly out of curiosity (based on others' nostalgia) and I don't think I would have had the patience for it even as a kid. I can see why some are fond of it, but it really didn't do much for me. ( )

Digital audiobook read by Frederick Davidson.

Originally published in 1812, this is a classic adventure tale of a mother, father and four sons who are shipwrecked on an unnamed (and apparently uncharted) tropical island in the South Seas.

I had never read the book, though I had seen the Disney movie back in the ‘60s. My adult self recognizes the glaringly implausible (and, frankly, impossible) scenarios – penguins AND bears AND ostriches! – but the adventure still captures the imagination. I also got a bit tired of the Father’s propensity to lecture; my stars, but the man is a walking encyclopedia and he feels compelled to impart his knowledge constantly. Since he is also the narrator, his superior attitude has plenty of opportunity to “shine.” Still, there is much practical information as well as natural history explained, and there are some very exciting scenes to capture the imagination of a young would-be explorer.

There are multiple editions of this classic and some have modernized the language to make it “more accessible to today’s students.” One edition I looked at had the narrator always referring to “the Mother,” never naming this strong woman but relegating her to only that role in life. The edition I wound up reading at least had the narrator referring to her as “my wife.” Again, no name but at least showing a personal relationship.

Davidson does an acceptable job of narrating the audiobook. His diction is clear, and he sets a decent pace, but his tone of voice makes the father/narrator sound even more superior than Wyss has written him (if that’s even possible). Also, this edition is one that has the narrator referring to the only woman in the party as “the Mother” without any name or even a hint at a personal connection, which just irritated me no end. ( )

A very curious reading from a historical perspective. What would life on an uninhabited island in the southern seas look like from a 19th century man's perspective? Apparently it would mostly consist of killing and/or taming any wild beast imaginable from all five continents. On that island the brave Robinson family encounters penguins, lions, walruses, kangaroos, ostriches, lions, elephants, bears, etc. I believe the learned Mr. Wyss felt an immense pressure to be just and not to overlook any creature he may have had a fortune to come across in his studies.

A little spoiler to add drama: some beasts were killed, while riding one of the aforementioned ostriches.

( )

Interesting history, but dust dry.

From dust jacket: Inspired by Daniel Dafoe’s Robinson Crusoe many eighteenth century writers adopted the theme of shipwreck and survival. So numerous were the imitations of the original that a special word “Robinsonnades” was created to describe them. The most famous of these was The Swiss Family Robinson, written by Joann David Wyss for his four sons. The Wyss family liked to read and discuss travel and adventure stories, and it was Robinson Crusoe that led them to imagine the life of a family shipwrecked, like Crusoe, on a distant island. Whilst The Swiss Family Robinson is based on the Wyss family, the setting shows an imaginative disregard for the facts of nature, for though the tropical island on which the family is shipwrecked is ‘in the neighbourhood of New Guinea’, it abounds with plants and animals from every climate in the world. Johann David Wyss did not attempt to have his story published, but his second son, Johann Rudolf, edited it and was responsible for its publication in two parts in 1812 and 1813. The book entitles Der Schweizerische Robinson, credited Johann Rudolf as the author, and he continues to be regarded as such, even though in the preface of the original edition, he explained he had only adapted his father’s work. The first English translation was published in 1814, under the title The Family Robinson Crusoe, or, Journal of a Father Shipwrecked, with His Wife and Children, on an Uninhabited Island. But by 1818, when the second English edition appeared, the title had changed to The Swiss Family Robinson, and although the title has remained the same ever since, the story itself has undergone numerous translations. ( )

About as exciting as reading the user manual for a vacuum cleaner. Either way, you're constantly thinking to yourself, 'Well, this sucks.' ( )

198/600
disgrace of a book
the only purchase i repented ( )

This mostly just annoyed me that I'd chosen to read it over its basis, Defoe's Robinson Crusoe. I blame Disney World.

"But in reality, the more there was to do the better. I never ceased contriving fresh improvements, being fully aware of the importance of constant employment as a means of strengthening and maintaining the health of mind and body. This, indeed, with a consciousness of continual progress toward a desirable end, is found to constitute the main element of happiness."

^The moral of Wyss's story, with which I agree, but am incapable of appreciating in such a fantastically providential manner. I think I've always been too old for this amount of good fortune. ( )

I read this aloud to my children and they enjoyed it once the action got going. I think they were a bit credulous at the way the survivors managed so well on the island, yet it was fun to read anyway. Besides, that was one of their favorite places at Disney Land, though I think it has been changed now to something more modern. Loved the discussion in the book of the things seaweed is good for and its various properties. ( )