Vendredi ou la vie sauvage (French Edition) (Folio Junior Textes classiques)

In 1967, Michel Tournier rethought the mythic story of Robinson Crusoe and his life of solitude and later companionship with Friday in Vendredi ou Les Limbes Pacifique. Ten years later he rethought that relationship again in a novel for young people that is direct, adventurous, emotional, and

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thought provoking. Each return to the Crusoe/Friday story for Tournier is a new beginning. In Vendredi ou La Vie sauvage, Robinson Crusoe must first unlearn his ordered European conception of the world and then, with Friday’s help, take the first steps to living in harmony with nature. Friday has an almost poetic relationship with the land (e.g. when he “dresses” the cacti) and its flora and fauna (e.g. his relationship with the goat, Anda, and his struggle with and later honouring of the buck, Andoar, whose death effectively saves Friday’s life). Robinson slowly comes first to understand and later embrace Friday’s stance. Eventually Robinson sees that his own long struggle for survival and rescue or escape has instead been a process of putting down roots and gathering the nutrients of the wild life into his veins. His decision to remain on the island when the chance to leave presents itself after 28 years thus does not come as a shock; it seems entirely fitting.

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