The Swiss Family Robinson

The Swiss Family Robinson

Hardcover - USA - 1868 edition.

Author Johann David Wyss Published 1918-??-?? Type Fiction Genre Adventure Themes Adventure, Family, Survival, Wilderness Age Group Teen

The Swiss Family Robinson is an adventure survival novel written by Johann David Wyss and published in 1812 initially in German, then translated to a number of other languages

In the book, a family of six is traveling by ship from Switzerland to Australia to start a new colony when a terrible storm causes the crew to abandon ship. The family is left behind, and, after the ship wrecks on the rocks somewhere in the East Indies, they work together to stay alive.

Wyss partially modeled his book after Robinson Crusoe, which is why the family is described as being "Robinson," despite this not being their family name. The parallels to Robinson Crusoe definitely show in the work.

Personal

Own?	No.
Read?	Audiobook read by Jim Weiss.
Finished	2024-07-29.

As a child, I was a big fan of the 1960 Disney adaption. I loved the idea of people building their own home in a jungle teeming with exotic animals and then taming the local wildlife, and creating traps to ward off pirates. As I got older, and learned more about how difficult wilderness survival really is, I realized how ridiculous the plot of the movie actually was, but still enjoyed the film, despite its Disneyfication. When I got access to the audiobook while in my 40s, I was still interested to read it even knowing that it couldn't possibly meet my expectations. And boy did it ever not meet my expectations!

Review

Overall:

Good

• The book describes a lot of flora and fauna of the East Indies, which would have been pretty interesting for readers of the time who probably wouldn't have many other ways to learn about it. The author describes what everything looks like, how the animals behave, and how the plants and animals might be eaten and their carcasses used to manufacture goods. A lot of the stuff he writes about are products that would be rare and exotic in Europe like natural rubber, carmine dye, tortoiseshell, and the like.
• The book describes a wide variety of tool-craft and engineering from a low level so that even someone lacking a preexisting knowledge could understand.

Bad

• While the constant barrage of encounters with new plants and animals is educational, how easily they're able to identify everything hurts immersion. The family hasn't seen any actual specimens of even illustrations of the wildlife, but only some of them have read vague descriptions in books, yet the father and son are still able to identify dozens of species and sometimes even give their taxonomic names!
• The place they wind up has an impossible variety of animals including lions, tigers, ostriches, kangaroos, platypuses, jackals, boa constrictors, monkeys, peccaries, tapirs, and many more. Aside from zoos, there isn't a single place on earth with such diversity.
• The father's understanding of stale air in a cave is quite dangerous. He thinks he should fill the cavern with smoke to "cleanse" the air, which would really only make is worse.
• The description of the boa constrictor is blown out of proportion. The author makes it out like the snake is a horrendous evil dragon. A similar problem occurs with the bears.

Ugly

• The book really illustrates why humans have caused so many ecological catastrophes. The family is all too eager to kill everything they see without forethought or remorse, and they're always very proud of themselves for being the first to kill something new. Even if they aren't hungry, can't identify the animal, or even know if they will have a use for it. I found this complete disregard for ecology quite off-putting. At one point, angry that monkeys keep breaking into their cottage, they cover the surfaces with glue, wait for the monkeys to get stuck, then release their dogs to tear them to shreds, while also clubbing the others to death. Later in the book, they poison a troop of apes and hear them wailing in pain as they all die horrible deaths. In another section, they decided to introduce rabbits to a small island, which will certainly out compete every other herbivore, just so they can easily kill them when they're hungry.
• Despite being washed up along a jungle coast in the East Indies, the family never deals with any environmental hardships. Nobody gets malaria or dysentery, nobody is mauled by animals, there aren't even any mosquitoes or poisonous plants. Nobody even gets tired or injured while performing all the back-breaking labor they would have to do; everyone lives a unbelievably charmed life.
• Because the small family has the contents of an entire ship at their disposal, they are never lacking for anything. They have an effectively endless supply of food and fresh water, tools and materials, guns, shot, and powder, protective strong dogs, even a full set of livestock and fruit trees. But, even if they washed ashore without anything, I still don't think they'd have much difficulty thriving because the place they landed is so unbelievably fertile, it's practically overflowing with fresh fruit and game animals. It reads more like rich people taking a "camping" trip at an RV resort than survival in the jungle, and, because of this, I found it rather dull.
• For every new task the family undertakes, they are almost always successful. All of the tools, buildings, and projects they work on are built perfectly on their first try without difficulty or injury, they're even able to tame a variety of feral animals without difficulty including a monkey, flamingo, penguin, buffalo, eagle, and even a jackal! When they venture to carve a cave out of solid rock, they stumble upon a huge salt cavern. When they are low on soap they find soap minerals.
• The mother is an important character who helps keeps the family alive, but she's only given about as much dialogue as their seven-year-old boy.
• The book reads more like a manual for survival in the East Indies rather than an actual narrative. After the shipwreck, nothing particularly exciting happens to the family, they just discover new flora and fauna and concoct ways to tame the wilderness. The audiobook is over 13-hours long, but, even before the halfway point I was tired of it, and, by the end, I was utterly sick of it.
• Because they never face any real difficulties, the family has plenty of time to spend on Christian piety which the author harps on about ad nauseam.
• The family is always on the lookout for "savages," never once thinking that the indigenous people are probably a lot better suited to live here than they are.

Media

Covers

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  Hardcover - USA - 1868.

Representation

Strong female character?	Fail	There are only two women in the book, and neither is strong.
Bechdel test?	Fail	The only two women never talk to each other.
Strong person of color character?	Fail	Everyone is white, and they frequently speak racistly about "savages."
Queer character?	Fail	There are no queer characters.

Quotes

— This section contains spoilers! —

• Fritz then placed his monkey by one of the goats, and the little animal immediately sucked the milk with evident relish, chattering and grinning all the while.
• Then, while Fritz amused himself with his monkey, I took up my glass and tried to make out how our dear ones on shore were employing themselves.

Adaptions

The popularity of the book has not only allowed it to be translated to a number of languages, but adapted many times. It has been adapted to film about a dozen times, the most popular being the 1960 Disney version, and the plot used as the basis for about a dozen other movies and TV shows. It has been adapted to stage, to an audio drama, a video game, and even multiple comic books. There have even been a few unofficial sequels written by notable authors.

Titles

The various translations in other languages have appended a variety of subtitles.

Language	Native	Transliteration	Translation
English	The Swiss Family Robinson
German	Der Schweizerische Robinson	Der Schweizerische Robinson	The Swiss Family Robinson

Links