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Vineri sau limburile Pacificului
Acel naufragiat grav al copilăriei noastre, Robinson, care-şi anexa cu îndărătnicie un pămînt nelocuit şi primitor, căutînd sub imboldul unei conştiinţe modelate de o educaţie şi o morală anglo-saxonă puritană să supună tiparului ideal al lumii după care tînjea, nu mai constituie pentru oamenii secolului al XX-lea formula exemplară a unui comportament. Mutaţii şi prefaceri felurite au împins graniţele lumii terestre aproape pînă la limitele sale extreme. Pămîntul e învins. E rîndul altor lumi, extra sau inter-terestre, să fie domesticite în mileniile ce urmează.
181 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1967
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3005 people want to read
About the author
Michel Tournier
183 books270 followersMichel Tournier was a French writer.
His works are highly considered and have won important awards such as the Grand Prix du roman de l'Académie française in 1967 for Vendredi ou les limbes du Pacifique. and the Prix Goncourt for Le Roi des aulnes in 1970. His works dwell on the fantastic, his inspirations including traditional German culture, Catholicism, and the philosophies of Gaston Bachelard. He lived in Choisel and was a member of the Académie Goncourt. His autobiography has been translated and published as The Wind Spirit (Beacon Press, 1988).
His works are highly considered and have won important awards such as the Grand Prix du roman de l'Académie française in 1967 for Vendredi ou les limbes du Pacifique. and the Prix Goncourt for Le Roi des aulnes in 1970. His works dwell on the fantastic, his inspirations including traditional German culture, Catholicism, and the philosophies of Gaston Bachelard. He lived in Choisel and was a member of the Académie Goncourt. His autobiography has been translated and published as The Wind Spirit (Beacon Press, 1988).
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 211 reviews
July 19, 2025
I think that these days Robinson Crusoe is as an intrinsic part of the modern mythology as Odysseus or Flying Dutchman…
And Michel Tournier’s retelling of the myth is an ironic allegory of the conquering of the globe by civilization and progress and a philosophical parable on the nature of man.
Man believes in God… Man doesn’t understand God’s ways so he serves God trying to oblige God and deserve a better life. And deep down inside, every man dreams to play the role of God… Even to become God.
So now Robinson Crusoe is the god and Friday is a man serving his god – he doesn’t understand his god’s motives and purposes but he believes that one day he will manage to become a god too.
And Michel Tournier’s retelling of the myth is an ironic allegory of the conquering of the globe by civilization and progress and a philosophical parable on the nature of man.
Friday had learned to be a soldier when his master was the general, a choir boy when his master prayed, a mason when he was building, a porter when he went on a journey, and a beater when he hunted; and he had learned to chase the flies away with a palm frond when his master was taking a nap.
Man believes in God… Man doesn’t understand God’s ways so he serves God trying to oblige God and deserve a better life. And deep down inside, every man dreams to play the role of God… Even to become God.
So now Robinson Crusoe is the god and Friday is a man serving his god – he doesn’t understand his god’s motives and purposes but he believes that one day he will manage to become a god too.
November 30, 2024
[Edited 11/30/24]
A re-telling of Robinson Crusoe. The book won France’s Grand Prix du Roman de l'Académie Française when published in 1967.
SPOILERS FOLLOW although major ones are hidden.
Like Defoe’s Crusoe, this Crusoe is hard-working and religious. He keeps a journal. He writes a “constitution” for his island, dresses for dinner and he attends a church service every Sunday where he kneels and prays. He’s worried that he’s losing his ability for speech so he reads the Bible aloud for hours. He gives himself punishments for infractions and not working hard enough.
Crusoe recapitulates the story of civilization by progressing from his early days of hunting and gathering to planting crops and then developing the landscape with dams, irrigation and rice paddies.
He seems to have bouts of what we might call manic depression, a result of his isolation. At times he is wildly proud of his accomplishments in building a fort, a house, ponds, an irrigation system, etc. At other times he is depressed and despondent about his isolation and his chances of rescue or of even of just surviving with his sanity.
He worries often about going insane. He tells us that solitude is dehumanizing and that you need the confirmation of others to make your world real.
Another theme throughout is sexual. Crusoe thinks of the island as feminine and we get into some bizarre forms of sexual outlet.
Friday appears on the scene.
However Crusoe learns from Friday that there is more to life than ‘civilization.’
At the end of the story a ship arrives and we have a triple surprise. Don’t click this spoiler if you intend to read the book. (Now you are really tempted, I’ll bet!)
A good read; I enjoyed it. You don’t have to read (or re-read) Defoe’s Crusoe to follow the book. It was translated from the French.
The author, Michel Tournier (1924-2016) wrote a dozen or so novels and collections of short stories, including another Robinson Crusoe take-off titled Friday and Robinson. One of his novels, Erl-King, won France's Prix Goncourt and he was considered for the Nobel Prize.
Photo of Robinson Crusoe from dw.com
Crusoe's island - one of the Juan Fernandez chain of islands off the coast of Chile from wikipedia
Crusoe from wsj.com
The author from yahoo.com
A re-telling of Robinson Crusoe. The book won France’s Grand Prix du Roman de l'Académie Française when published in 1967.
SPOILERS FOLLOW although major ones are hidden.
Like Defoe’s Crusoe, this Crusoe is hard-working and religious. He keeps a journal. He writes a “constitution” for his island, dresses for dinner and he attends a church service every Sunday where he kneels and prays. He’s worried that he’s losing his ability for speech so he reads the Bible aloud for hours. He gives himself punishments for infractions and not working hard enough.
Crusoe recapitulates the story of civilization by progressing from his early days of hunting and gathering to planting crops and then developing the landscape with dams, irrigation and rice paddies.
He seems to have bouts of what we might call manic depression, a result of his isolation. At times he is wildly proud of his accomplishments in building a fort, a house, ponds, an irrigation system, etc. At other times he is depressed and despondent about his isolation and his chances of rescue or of even of just surviving with his sanity.
He worries often about going insane. He tells us that solitude is dehumanizing and that you need the confirmation of others to make your world real.
Another theme throughout is sexual. Crusoe thinks of the island as feminine and we get into some bizarre forms of sexual outlet.
Friday appears on the scene.
However Crusoe learns from Friday that there is more to life than ‘civilization.’
At the end of the story a ship arrives and we have a triple surprise. Don’t click this spoiler if you intend to read the book. (Now you are really tempted, I’ll bet!)
A good read; I enjoyed it. You don’t have to read (or re-read) Defoe’s Crusoe to follow the book. It was translated from the French.
The author, Michel Tournier (1924-2016) wrote a dozen or so novels and collections of short stories, including another Robinson Crusoe take-off titled Friday and Robinson. One of his novels, Erl-King, won France's Prix Goncourt and he was considered for the Nobel Prize.
Photo of Robinson Crusoe from dw.com
Crusoe's island - one of the Juan Fernandez chain of islands off the coast of Chile from wikipedia
Crusoe from wsj.com
The author from yahoo.com
December 6, 2024
It is a 1971 book that takes up the myth of Robinson Crusoe and Friday. Getting down to a genre book is not easy; we risk comparing it with the original by Daniel Defoe (early 18th century). However, Michel Tournier successfully adapts the story to address it to young readers from 10 years old.
Therefore, it is shorter than the original but less interesting for adults. Reading is fluid, but the author does not ignore a few botanical terms and tackles complex subjects such as differences between civilizations, loneliness, time, and the relationship between nature.
Therefore, it is a vibrant book, a handy manual for adepts of survival in uninhabited environments. It is humanistic and sometimes borrows from great poetry, which I liked.
Therefore, it is shorter than the original but less interesting for adults. Reading is fluid, but the author does not ignore a few botanical terms and tackles complex subjects such as differences between civilizations, loneliness, time, and the relationship between nature.
Therefore, it is a vibrant book, a handy manual for adepts of survival in uninhabited environments. It is humanistic and sometimes borrows from great poetry, which I liked.
January 5, 2018
Madem bu gece arafta geziyoruz bu eşsiz kitabı da es geçmeyelim. Batı dünyasının " keşifler" çağının kurucu medeniyet mitlerinin başında gelen Robinson Crouse'yu hepimiz biliriz. Issız bir adaya düşen batılı medeniyeti sıfırdan kuracaktır, bir de hizmetçi Cuma buldu mu kendine değme keyfine. Ama neyse ki o keyfe turp sıkan, aşağı katlardan bir okuma ile beyaz adama nanik yapan yazarlarımız var.
Bu kitabı okuyalı 14 yıl oldu sanırım ve şu an bunları yazarken bir çok sahne gözümde canlanıyor. Spoiler vermek gibi olmasın ama robinson efendi dişi olarak imlediği adayı beceriyor ve adadan çocukları bile oluyor. Sonra Cuma çıkıyor ortaya ve gerisi büyük bir curcuna.
Dil ve biçim olarak çok yetkin ama maalesef türkiyeli okur tarafından ıskalanmış bu romanı iyi okura ve özellikle doğa- insan medeni-'ilkel diyalektiğine dair derdi olan aşağı katların siyah yurttaşlarına tavsiye ederim.
Bu kitabı okuyalı 14 yıl oldu sanırım ve şu an bunları yazarken bir çok sahne gözümde canlanıyor. Spoiler vermek gibi olmasın ama robinson efendi dişi olarak imlediği adayı beceriyor ve adadan çocukları bile oluyor. Sonra Cuma çıkıyor ortaya ve gerisi büyük bir curcuna.
Dil ve biçim olarak çok yetkin ama maalesef türkiyeli okur tarafından ıskalanmış bu romanı iyi okura ve özellikle doğa- insan medeni-'ilkel diyalektiğine dair derdi olan aşağı katların siyah yurttaşlarına tavsiye ederim.
May 9, 2009
I was unfairly suspicious of this book the way I'm unfairly suspicious of musicians who mostly sing other people's songs - chalk it up to my adolescent and more than just slightly Puritanical obsession with originality. But of course that's all bullshit. Friday gains a lot from being a story whose plot we already know; to put this graphically, we might say that its horizontal axis shrinks while its vertical one elongates. We've been to this island before, we know the drama of use that Defoe managed somehow to put together out of banana leaves and coconut shells; but what we don't (or didn't) know is what would happen if the entire drama took place within the playful and exorbitant mind of a contemporary French philosopher. What's that you say? You'd rather be stuck in a tank of pissed-off cobras than trapped in the mind of a French philosopher for two hundred pages? But before you dismiss this book out of hand as an exercise or circle of hell, know that Tournier, like his master Bachelard, puts the philo back in philosophy. The drama may be interior, but it is rich and, on almost every page, incredibly beautiful. Tournier has mystified many contemporary critics with the way he's managed to fill unwaveringly conventional narrative forms with intensely original experiences (sorry to echo the "old bottle, new wine" metaphor that at least three different reviewers used about this book. I am VERY susceptible to back matter); but reading a book like this, you come to realize how incredibly effective an investigational tool narrative can be. And, to top it all off, you get to return to that strange and mystically boring little island again, if only for a few hundred more pages.
December 24, 2025
Ако Робинзон Крузо бе френски философ на средна възраст, щеше да се побърка бързо на своя самотен остров...
Може би, през 1967 година да е била голяма работа, но днес тази книга ми се видя противно скучна и изпълнена с религиозни брътвежи.
Чистилището в заглавието предупреждава...
Една четвърт от романа прочетох, за повече нямам нито сили, нито желание.
Може би, през 1967 година да е била голяма работа, но днес тази книга ми се видя противно скучна и изпълнена с религиозни брътвежи.
Чистилището в заглавието предупреждава...
Една четвърт от романа прочетох, за повече нямам нито сили, нито желание.
June 5, 2016
Ένα φιλοσοφικό μυθιστόρημα. Από τη στιγμή που ο Ροβινσώνας μένει ναυαγός, στήνει την ζωή του από την αρχή, σε έναν άλλο κόσμο. Έρχεται αντιμέτωπος με την φύση, περνάει από μπροστά του η εξέλιξη της ζωής. Γίνεται τα πάντα για να ανταπεξέλθει. Κρατάει συνήθειες που είχε στον έξω κόσμο, που δεν έχουν κανένα νόημα στο νησί που βρίσκεται πλέον. Δημιουργεί κανόνες, ξεκινάει από το μηδέν, έχει αποδεχτεί πλήρως τη νέα του κατάσταση.
Με την εμφάνιση του Παρασκευά, αλλάζουν προσωρινά οι ισορροπίες, γρήγορα όμως αποδέχονται την συνύπαρξή τους, αναπτύσσοντας όλες τις μορφές κοινωνικοποίησης. Ένα βιβλίο γεμάτο σκέψεις, που ίσως μετά από ένα σημείο φεύγουν σε άλλο επίπεδο.
Με την εμφάνιση του Παρασκευά, αλλάζουν προσωρινά οι ισορροπίες, γρήγορα όμως αποδέχονται την συνύπαρξή τους, αναπτύσσοντας όλες τις μορφές κοινωνικοποίησης. Ένα βιβλίο γεμάτο σκέψεις, που ίσως μετά από ένα σημείο φεύγουν σε άλλο επίπεδο.
February 24, 2024
Of of of... Şaşkın, sarsılmış, büyülenmiş, kamaşmış bir durumdayım! Bu yorumum 'Cuma ya da Pasifik Arafı' isimli, bu roman hakkında ayrıntılı bir analiz yapmaktan çok uzakta seyredecek, en baştan söyleyeyim. Zira yapamam, bu eseri analiz etmek için şuan çok eksiğim. Didiklemek için çokça zaman, biraz cesaret, bir o kadar da 'haddimi bilmezlik' lazım.
Fakat şunu açıkça söyleyebilirim: 'Cuma ya da Pasifik Arafı' ile Michel Tournier yakın markajıma aldığım, favori yazarlarımdan oluşan meclise bütün ihtişamıyla girmiş bulunmakta. Bu mecliste Marcel Proust, Marquie de Sade, Henry Miller, Yukio Mişima, John Fowles, Roberto Bolano, Laszlo Krasnahorkai, Javier Cercas, Mo Yan, Jonathan Franzen gibi yazarlar var, siz düşünün gerisini. Vay, vay, vay... Sen ne yaptın Sayın Büyük Tournier?!
Daha önce Tournier'in 'Meteorlar' isimli olağanüstü yapıtını okumuştum ve ondan okuduğum ilk kitaptı. Çok sarsılmıştım fakat bir eser ile yazarın külliyatına bağlanmaktan geri dururum genelde hayal kırıklığı yaşamamak adına. 2 sene geçtikten sonra yeni bir Tournier okumanın sırası geldiğini düşünürek, ilk romanı olan 'Cuma ya da Pasifik Arafı'nı elime aldım. Aldım da, aldığım gibi kaldım. Evet artık eminim, Tournier'in dehası bir tesadüf olamaz. Artık külliyatına devam etmek için bu kadar ara vermeyeceğim zira bir hayal kırıklığı yaşamayacağıma eminim. Kitap ilerledikçe içine çekildiğim entelektüel zenginlikten, sonra burada nasıl bahsedeceğimi düşündüm durdum, son sayfaya geldiğimde ise yanılmadığımı anladım. Çünkü kitabın sonuna, Sayın Çok Büyük Gilles Deleuze tarafından kondurulmuş bir sonsöz bulunmakta. Deleuze gibi üstün bir aklın didiklediği 'Cuma ya da Pasifik Arafı' analizi, yetersizliğimi bana bir kere daha hissettirdi.
'Cuma ya da Pasifik Atlası' 2016 senesinde kaybettiğimiz Michel Tournier'in, 1967'de kaleme aldığı ilk yapıtı olma özelliğini taşırken; bir yeniden kurmaca örneği olarak da dikkat çekiyor: Daniel Defoe'nin 1719 tarihli, hepimizin bir şekilde aşina olduğu Robinson Crusoe'nin felsefileştirilmiş, modernleştirilmiş, postyapısalcı iğnelerle şişlenmiş bir versiyonu. Tıpkı Defoe'nin romanında olduğu gibi, 'Cuma ya da Pasifik Arafı'nda da ıssız bir adaya düşen bir Avrupalının yaşam mücadelesini okuyoruz. Fakat o kadar muazzam farklı bir bakış açısı var ki... Bundan uzun uzadıya bahsedebilmeyi isterdim fakat aklımı henüz tam toplayamıyorum. Çok fazla ayrıntı, çok fazla referans, çok nitelikli bir kurmaca çaba ve sonuç var ortada.
1759 senesinde, Pasifik'te yol alan bir gemide konuk olan Robinson, geminin ani bir kaza yapmasıyla bir adada gözlerini açıyor. Tüm gemi mürettebatından tek sağ kalan kişi o, bir de geminin köpeği Tenn var elbette. Robinson -ismiyle aşikar-, yalnızlığın uçurumunda tek başına hayatta kalmanın muhasebesini yapıyor ve kendince bir düzen içerisinde nefes alır halde kalıyor. Fakat, Robinson'un yalnızlıkla verdiği mücadele son derece düşündürücü bir yolculuğun kapısını açıyor. Tournier romanında ikili bir akış kullanmayı tercih etmiş. Bir normal kronolojinde ilerleyen olaylar akışı varken, bir yandan da Robinson'un delirmemek adına tuttuğu bir 'seyir güncesi' var. Bu günceyi de yeri geldikçe ayrıca okutuyor bize. Güncede, Robinson'un ağzından kaleme alınmış bölümler; bizi adım adım ilerleyen bir uygarlık reddine, insanlık nefretine, maneviyattan yoksun kalmış dünyanın gerçekliğine, başka bir duygulanmanın ve aydınlığın ihtimaline götürüyor. Tournier bu bölümlerde, bir filozof enginliğinde heybesindekileri döküyor.
Robinson'un defterinden bir paragraf paylaşmak istiyorum sizlerle: "İçimde yıldan yıla harabeye dönen toplumsal yapıyla birlikte, kurumlar ve söylencelerden oluşan yapı iskeleti de yok oldu. O kurum ve söylenceler ki cinsel isteğin kelimenin her iki anlamında da vücut bulmasını, yani hem kendine belirli bir şekil vermesini hem de dişil bir vücudun üzerine çullanmasını sağlarlar. Oysa benim isteğimin artık türün devamı amacına doğru yönlendirilmiş olmadığını söylemek bile yetersiz kalır. Hatta kimse saldıracağını dahi şaşırmış durumda! Uzun bir süre boyunca belleğim, hayal gücüme, var olmasalar dahi arzulanabilir yaratıklar sunmak için hala yeterince zengin durumdaydı. Şimdi, artık bitti. Arzularım kansız kaldılar. Hepsi boş ve kurumuş birer kabuktan ibaret. İşte söylüyorum: Kadın, göğüs, kalça; bana olan isteğinden dolayı ayrık duran kalçalar. Hiç. Bu sözcüklerin sihrinin artık hiçbir etkisi yok. Sesler, flatus vocis. Acaba bu, isteğimin de açlıktan öldüğü anlamına mı geliyor? Tam tersine! Hala her gün içimde o hayat kaynağının fısıldadığını duyuyorum, ama tamamen serbest kalmış bir halde. Toplumun ona önceden hazırlanmış olduğu yatağa doğru yöneleceğine, her yönden taşarak, sanki el yordamıyla bir yol, birleşerek topluca tek bir hedefe doğru gürüldeyeceği doğru yolu bulmaya çalışarak yıldız biçiminde de akıyor."Sayfa 91
Deleuze'ın sonsöz'ü kitaba dair çok şey söylüyor, kitaptan sonra ona mutlaka göz atmanızı tavsiye ederim. Sadece hayranlığımı ve yaşadığım aptallaşmayı anlatabilmişimdir diye tahmin ediyorum. Mitolojiden, arketiplerden, dinlerden beslenen bir felsefik metin 'Cuma ya da Pasifik Arafı'. Biliyorum, kolay bir okuma değil, ama değecektir.
Fakat şunu açıkça söyleyebilirim: 'Cuma ya da Pasifik Arafı' ile Michel Tournier yakın markajıma aldığım, favori yazarlarımdan oluşan meclise bütün ihtişamıyla girmiş bulunmakta. Bu mecliste Marcel Proust, Marquie de Sade, Henry Miller, Yukio Mişima, John Fowles, Roberto Bolano, Laszlo Krasnahorkai, Javier Cercas, Mo Yan, Jonathan Franzen gibi yazarlar var, siz düşünün gerisini. Vay, vay, vay... Sen ne yaptın Sayın Büyük Tournier?!
Daha önce Tournier'in 'Meteorlar' isimli olağanüstü yapıtını okumuştum ve ondan okuduğum ilk kitaptı. Çok sarsılmıştım fakat bir eser ile yazarın külliyatına bağlanmaktan geri dururum genelde hayal kırıklığı yaşamamak adına. 2 sene geçtikten sonra yeni bir Tournier okumanın sırası geldiğini düşünürek, ilk romanı olan 'Cuma ya da Pasifik Arafı'nı elime aldım. Aldım da, aldığım gibi kaldım. Evet artık eminim, Tournier'in dehası bir tesadüf olamaz. Artık külliyatına devam etmek için bu kadar ara vermeyeceğim zira bir hayal kırıklığı yaşamayacağıma eminim. Kitap ilerledikçe içine çekildiğim entelektüel zenginlikten, sonra burada nasıl bahsedeceğimi düşündüm durdum, son sayfaya geldiğimde ise yanılmadığımı anladım. Çünkü kitabın sonuna, Sayın Çok Büyük Gilles Deleuze tarafından kondurulmuş bir sonsöz bulunmakta. Deleuze gibi üstün bir aklın didiklediği 'Cuma ya da Pasifik Arafı' analizi, yetersizliğimi bana bir kere daha hissettirdi.
'Cuma ya da Pasifik Atlası' 2016 senesinde kaybettiğimiz Michel Tournier'in, 1967'de kaleme aldığı ilk yapıtı olma özelliğini taşırken; bir yeniden kurmaca örneği olarak da dikkat çekiyor: Daniel Defoe'nin 1719 tarihli, hepimizin bir şekilde aşina olduğu Robinson Crusoe'nin felsefileştirilmiş, modernleştirilmiş, postyapısalcı iğnelerle şişlenmiş bir versiyonu. Tıpkı Defoe'nin romanında olduğu gibi, 'Cuma ya da Pasifik Arafı'nda da ıssız bir adaya düşen bir Avrupalının yaşam mücadelesini okuyoruz. Fakat o kadar muazzam farklı bir bakış açısı var ki... Bundan uzun uzadıya bahsedebilmeyi isterdim fakat aklımı henüz tam toplayamıyorum. Çok fazla ayrıntı, çok fazla referans, çok nitelikli bir kurmaca çaba ve sonuç var ortada.
1759 senesinde, Pasifik'te yol alan bir gemide konuk olan Robinson, geminin ani bir kaza yapmasıyla bir adada gözlerini açıyor. Tüm gemi mürettebatından tek sağ kalan kişi o, bir de geminin köpeği Tenn var elbette. Robinson -ismiyle aşikar-, yalnızlığın uçurumunda tek başına hayatta kalmanın muhasebesini yapıyor ve kendince bir düzen içerisinde nefes alır halde kalıyor. Fakat, Robinson'un yalnızlıkla verdiği mücadele son derece düşündürücü bir yolculuğun kapısını açıyor. Tournier romanında ikili bir akış kullanmayı tercih etmiş. Bir normal kronolojinde ilerleyen olaylar akışı varken, bir yandan da Robinson'un delirmemek adına tuttuğu bir 'seyir güncesi' var. Bu günceyi de yeri geldikçe ayrıca okutuyor bize. Güncede, Robinson'un ağzından kaleme alınmış bölümler; bizi adım adım ilerleyen bir uygarlık reddine, insanlık nefretine, maneviyattan yoksun kalmış dünyanın gerçekliğine, başka bir duygulanmanın ve aydınlığın ihtimaline götürüyor. Tournier bu bölümlerde, bir filozof enginliğinde heybesindekileri döküyor.
Robinson'un defterinden bir paragraf paylaşmak istiyorum sizlerle: "İçimde yıldan yıla harabeye dönen toplumsal yapıyla birlikte, kurumlar ve söylencelerden oluşan yapı iskeleti de yok oldu. O kurum ve söylenceler ki cinsel isteğin kelimenin her iki anlamında da vücut bulmasını, yani hem kendine belirli bir şekil vermesini hem de dişil bir vücudun üzerine çullanmasını sağlarlar. Oysa benim isteğimin artık türün devamı amacına doğru yönlendirilmiş olmadığını söylemek bile yetersiz kalır. Hatta kimse saldıracağını dahi şaşırmış durumda! Uzun bir süre boyunca belleğim, hayal gücüme, var olmasalar dahi arzulanabilir yaratıklar sunmak için hala yeterince zengin durumdaydı. Şimdi, artık bitti. Arzularım kansız kaldılar. Hepsi boş ve kurumuş birer kabuktan ibaret. İşte söylüyorum: Kadın, göğüs, kalça; bana olan isteğinden dolayı ayrık duran kalçalar. Hiç. Bu sözcüklerin sihrinin artık hiçbir etkisi yok. Sesler, flatus vocis. Acaba bu, isteğimin de açlıktan öldüğü anlamına mı geliyor? Tam tersine! Hala her gün içimde o hayat kaynağının fısıldadığını duyuyorum, ama tamamen serbest kalmış bir halde. Toplumun ona önceden hazırlanmış olduğu yatağa doğru yöneleceğine, her yönden taşarak, sanki el yordamıyla bir yol, birleşerek topluca tek bir hedefe doğru gürüldeyeceği doğru yolu bulmaya çalışarak yıldız biçiminde de akıyor."Sayfa 91
Deleuze'ın sonsöz'ü kitaba dair çok şey söylüyor, kitaptan sonra ona mutlaka göz atmanızı tavsiye ederim. Sadece hayranlığımı ve yaşadığım aptallaşmayı anlatabilmişimdir diye tahmin ediyorum. Mitolojiden, arketiplerden, dinlerden beslenen bir felsefik metin 'Cuma ya da Pasifik Arafı'. Biliyorum, kolay bir okuma değil, ama değecektir.
September 18, 2023
An alternative take on Robinson Crusoe where the castaway doesn't so much have trouble surviving physically but more the impact on him psychologically. The island becomes another character to him and in this respect it reminds me of some of JG Ballard's disaster novels.
February 3, 2021
Παρασκευάς ή στις μονές του Ειρηνικού, Michel Tournier
Μετάφραση: Χρήστος Γ. Λάζος
Στη λογοτεχνία ο ήρωας του Νταφόε, Ροβινσώνας Κρούσσος, έχει αναφερθεί τόσο από τον Γουίλκι Κόλινς στη Φεγγαρόπετρα όσο και από τον Ρουσσώ στον Αιμίλιο. Ο Τουρνιέ θέλοντας να χρησιμοποιήσει έναν χαρακτήρα διαμορφωμένο και φέροντα τα χαρακτηριστικά του δυτικού πολιτισμού δανείστηκε το μύθο του Ροβινσώνα και τον προσάρμοσε στη δική του εκδοχή.
Θίγονται ευρύτερα θέματα όπως η αποικιοκρατία, η δουλεία, η εκπαίδευση στα δυτικά πρότυπα, η διαφορετική θεολογική θεώρηση, η συνύπαρξη κατακτητή κατακτημένου, οι κοινωνικές δομές, οι θεσμοί της εργασίας και ιδιοκτησίας, όπου είναι φανερή η επίδραση των κοινωνικών συμβολαίων του Ρουσσώ.
Σε επίπεδο ατόμου παρουσιάζεται η προσπάθεια ενός ανθρώπου να ανταπεξέλθει στις συνθήκες απόλυτης μοναξιάς, κατανόησης του εαυτού του και προσαρμογής. Η επαφή με τη φύση και η σχέση με αυτή παίρνει μυστικιστική χροιά.
Στη μυθιστορηματική αφήγηση του Τουρνιέ είναι διάχυτη η επιρροή του από τη σημειολογία του Φουκώ και την διδασκαλία του Λακάν σε όλα τα σημεία της.
Η αντίληψη του αντικειμένου και του κόσμου πραγματοποιείται μέσα από τον Άλλο, μια a-priori απόλυτη δομή που πραγματώνεται από μεταβαλλόμενα υπαρκτά υποκείμενα. Ο Τουρνιέ με τον Ροβινσώνα μας παρουσιάζει έναν κόσμο χωρίς τον Άλλο, την ανάδυση από το βάθος, την ανακάλυψη της επιφάνειας και των στοιχείων, του Άλλου από τον Άλλο. Ο πόθος καθορίζεται μέσα από τη δομή του Άλλου, μελετά τη διεστραμμένη δομή και τους μεταβαλλόμενους όρους λόγω απουσίας του Άλλου και ορίζει την έννοια της διαστροφής.
Πρόκειται για ένα κείμενο πολυεπίπεδο όπου η μυθιστορία εξυπηρετεί τη φιλοσοφική τοποθέτηση.
Μετάφραση: Χρήστος Γ. Λάζος
Στη λογοτεχνία ο ήρωας του Νταφόε, Ροβινσώνας Κρούσσος, έχει αναφερθεί τόσο από τον Γουίλκι Κόλινς στη Φεγγαρόπετρα όσο και από τον Ρουσσώ στον Αιμίλιο. Ο Τουρνιέ θέλοντας να χρησιμοποιήσει έναν χαρακτήρα διαμορφωμένο και φέροντα τα χαρακτηριστικά του δυτικού πολιτισμού δανείστηκε το μύθο του Ροβινσώνα και τον προσάρμοσε στη δική του εκδοχή.
Θίγονται ευρύτερα θέματα όπως η αποικιοκρατία, η δουλεία, η εκπαίδευση στα δυτικά πρότυπα, η διαφορετική θεολογική θεώρηση, η συνύπαρξη κατακτητή κατακτημένου, οι κοινωνικές δομές, οι θεσμοί της εργασίας και ιδιοκτησίας, όπου είναι φανερή η επίδραση των κοινωνικών συμβολαίων του Ρουσσώ.
Σε επίπεδο ατόμου παρουσιάζεται η προσπάθεια ενός ανθρώπου να ανταπεξέλθει στις συνθήκες απόλυτης μοναξιάς, κατανόησης του εαυτού του και προσαρμογής. Η επαφή με τη φύση και η σχέση με αυτή παίρνει μυστικιστική χροιά.
Στη μυθιστορηματική αφήγηση του Τουρνιέ είναι διάχυτη η επιρροή του από τη σημειολογία του Φουκώ και την διδασκαλία του Λακάν σε όλα τα σημεία της.
Η αντίληψη του αντικειμένου και του κόσμου πραγματοποιείται μέσα από τον Άλλο, μια a-priori απόλυτη δομή που πραγματώνεται από μεταβαλλόμενα υπαρκτά υποκείμενα. Ο Τουρνιέ με τον Ροβινσώνα μας παρουσιάζει έναν κόσμο χωρίς τον Άλλο, την ανάδυση από το βάθος, την ανακάλυψη της επιφάνειας και των στοιχείων, του Άλλου από τον Άλλο. Ο πόθος καθορίζεται μέσα από τη δομή του Άλλου, μελετά τη διεστραμμένη δομή και τους μεταβαλλόμενους όρους λόγω απουσίας του Άλλου και ορίζει την έννοια της διαστροφής.
Πρόκειται για ένα κείμενο πολυεπίπεδο όπου η μυθιστορία εξυπηρετεί τη φιλοσοφική τοποθέτηση.
November 2, 2014
Daniel Defoe'nun Robinson Crusoe'sunun postmodern versiyonu diyebiliriz. Defoe'nun cinsellik bağlamında ki geçiştirmelerini Michel Tournier içselleştirip J.Lacan ve teorisi üzerinden harmanlayıp bizlere orjinalinden çok daha değişik bir anlatı sunuyor.Okuması keyifli,çevirisi başarılı.
June 27, 2017
This is a fast read, a retake on the famous Daniel Defoe, Robinson Crusoe. It gets a bit didactic at the end in making its points, but it's mostly well-written. The difference in this 1969 rendition is that contrast between Robinson and his man Friday. Tournier's point is to show us that the often lazy, always fun-seeking Friday is the superior man to the dour and rule-abiding European. Robinson, pre-discovery of Friday, even creates a water clock and writes laws for his island, a rather hilarious exercise given that he is the only citizen of his island. When the clock stops one day, Robinson finds he kind of likes the freedom he gains when freed from the tyranny of time, but he manages to wag the finger at himself until he's back in line.
June 3, 2018
This was a bit of a parody or re-interpretation of Robinson Crusoe and interesting but bleak, bleak, bleak like most of Tournier's writing.
October 22, 2025
A philosophical novel that explores the psychology of solitude and the role of society in an individual's self identity. Tournier uses Crusoe's journal entries as a method to explore the inner workings of Crusoe's mind and openly debate the merits of society's structures. Tournier's Crusoe is a memorable character with his British mannerisms and conflicted morals. It is a weird book at times, but Tournier is interested in exploring all aspects of an individual's underpinnings. One publication included this in the top 100 novels of the 20th century, and I can see the qualities of this novel that would make it so. I can also understand why the rating here on gr is a little lower. Certainly not for everyone. I really liked it though. Low four stars.
February 16, 2023
the man has sex with a cave then with a flower then with a tree then with sand then he hits a Black man he deems inferior to him because of the color of his skin and along the book he rambles about God and humanity and reads the Bible aloud to himself and calls that a religious office
also he writes a Constitution for himself idk I know this is supposed to be a metaphor of some kind for humanood and like the essence of existence but man I don't know who relates to this book but I would advise them to go get therapy idk
also he writes a Constitution for himself idk I know this is supposed to be a metaphor of some kind for humanood and like the essence of existence but man I don't know who relates to this book but I would advise them to go get therapy idk
July 25, 2022
Хубаво е стихотворението на Джон Дън, но има ситуации, в които човек се превръща в остров вътре в себе си затворен, поради една или друга причина. Понякога обаче това е единсвената възможност да се достигне щастието на първичното безвремие, присъщо на природата. Континетът може да се окаже скапан /дивашки по своя алчен и безскруполен начин/ и в крайна сметка отказът за завръщане към него да дойде от самия Робинзон, защото вече не принадлежи на този свят, подобно на Брукс от The Shawshank Redemption. Как да им обясни, че любовта и похотта могат да бъдат насочени към горещата майка земя и че божественото е скрито в магическата несловесност на натурата. Още по-малко, че колкото и знания да трупат в главите си, ако не знаят как да се държат с едно дете, то тогава другото няма значение.
April 1, 2023
Bir adaya düşseydiniz hayatta kalmak için ne yapardınız? Bana göre bu kitabın özeti tam olarak bu cümleyle özleşleştirilir. Bu kitap aynı zamanda adımlardan (süreçten) oluşuyor.
İlk adımda göreceğin; Robinson, hayatta kalma çabasındayken geride bıraktığı lüks yaşamı, statüyü ve ailesini unutma sürecini aktarır. İkinci adım ise yeniden yapılandırdığı karakterini, iş gücünü ve öğrenimlerini keşfetmesini görürüz. Üçüncü adımda ise yanlızlaşan ve bir nevi varını yoğunu kurduğu düzenle işletmeye çalışan Robinson'un Cuma ile talihsiz bir olayla karşılaşmasını ve onunla olan sürecini okuruz. Önce dost sonra patron işçi ilişkisi ile süre gelecek yılların ardından adaya yanaşan bir gemi ile aralarındaki tüm düzen altüst olacaktır.
Mücadele, yaşam, umut, insanlık, felsefe, din, cinsellik ve daha pek çok konuya değinen muazzam bir metindi. Altını çizip çokça düşündüren cümleler bulmanız olası. Okumanızı tavsiye ederken bu yıl okuduğum iyi eserler arasında benim adıma yerini aldı.
#cumayadapasifikarafı #vendrediouleslimbesdupacifique #micheltournier #ayrintiyayinlari
İlk adımda göreceğin; Robinson, hayatta kalma çabasındayken geride bıraktığı lüks yaşamı, statüyü ve ailesini unutma sürecini aktarır. İkinci adım ise yeniden yapılandırdığı karakterini, iş gücünü ve öğrenimlerini keşfetmesini görürüz. Üçüncü adımda ise yanlızlaşan ve bir nevi varını yoğunu kurduğu düzenle işletmeye çalışan Robinson'un Cuma ile talihsiz bir olayla karşılaşmasını ve onunla olan sürecini okuruz. Önce dost sonra patron işçi ilişkisi ile süre gelecek yılların ardından adaya yanaşan bir gemi ile aralarındaki tüm düzen altüst olacaktır.
Mücadele, yaşam, umut, insanlık, felsefe, din, cinsellik ve daha pek çok konuya değinen muazzam bir metindi. Altını çizip çokça düşündüren cümleler bulmanız olası. Okumanızı tavsiye ederken bu yıl okuduğum iyi eserler arasında benim adıma yerini aldı.
#cumayadapasifikarafı #vendrediouleslimbesdupacifique #micheltournier #ayrintiyayinlari
January 16, 2020
Michel Tournier’s novel “Friday, or, The Other Island” (as known in English) is a retelling of the famous novel by Daniel Dafoe, Robinson Crusoe. It is the classic tale of a man who is shipwrecked on a deserted island and must do whatever he can to survive. Though as Dafoe’s novel is an allegory of the “Western” ingenuity by conquering and submitting the deserted "New World”, showing us the brilliant triumphs of the white European settler, Tournier’s novel is a much more introspective novel, focusing more on Crusoe’s mind and psychology, especially his evolving relation with an indigenous inhabitant of the island who he dubs as Friday. For instance, Friday here is an actual human being. While is considered as subhuman by Crusoe at first and is put into slavery, we gradually how Friday does not only become an equal to Crusoe and independent from him, but in a fascinating twist by the end, we see how the “savage local” actually triumphs over the settler. Friday does not need Crusoe. Crusoe needs Friday.
You see, this is an allegorical tale not just about colonialism, but also in a human’s quest against nature. Human’s think they can subjugate the Earth and nature. Nevertheless, in the end, the Earth can easily survive without us. If human suddenly became extinct, then in a rather short while, nature will regain its dominion and it would be as if we never existed. We see that in the evolution of Crusoe’s relation with the Island. He goes through different stages, from the visitor, to the governor, to actually trying to become “one” with it. He might try to subjugate it, but whether he is successful or not, it is up to us to decide. And Friday? Crusoe might consider Friday at first to be an idiot, but Friday can easily survive on the island as if Crusoe was not there. The colonized will always remain, and eventually, when the colonizers are least aware, the colonized will seize their moments. I liked how Tournier lets us wonder: Who is using whom?
This is not an adventure novel per se, but an introspective and meditative one. It is not really a survival novel. Tournier’s novel lets us reflect on our place in nature and what place or evolution humans can achieve while, at the same time, offers interesting commentary on the relations between the colonizers and the colonized. You do not need to have read Dafoe’s novel to enjoy this one. Therefore, I do recommend it.
You see, this is an allegorical tale not just about colonialism, but also in a human’s quest against nature. Human’s think they can subjugate the Earth and nature. Nevertheless, in the end, the Earth can easily survive without us. If human suddenly became extinct, then in a rather short while, nature will regain its dominion and it would be as if we never existed. We see that in the evolution of Crusoe’s relation with the Island. He goes through different stages, from the visitor, to the governor, to actually trying to become “one” with it. He might try to subjugate it, but whether he is successful or not, it is up to us to decide. And Friday? Crusoe might consider Friday at first to be an idiot, but Friday can easily survive on the island as if Crusoe was not there. The colonized will always remain, and eventually, when the colonizers are least aware, the colonized will seize their moments. I liked how Tournier lets us wonder: Who is using whom?
This is not an adventure novel per se, but an introspective and meditative one. It is not really a survival novel. Tournier’s novel lets us reflect on our place in nature and what place or evolution humans can achieve while, at the same time, offers interesting commentary on the relations between the colonizers and the colonized. You do not need to have read Dafoe’s novel to enjoy this one. Therefore, I do recommend it.
April 13, 2014
назва в англійському перекладі – friday, or, the other island – дуже добре схоплює суть книжки. весь роман так чи інакше – про іншість: спершу для робінзона, який осмислює життя серед інших і без них, потім – для читача, якому доводиться переживати робінзонові метаморфози і якось на них реагувати. турньє грається з читачем, показує все нові замилення зору (чи здатні ми взагалі розуміти іншого, поки він себе не перекладе нашою мовою? і чи можна вимагати від іншого розуміння, якщо ми не перекладаємо себе?), все нові точки відносності.
а ще англійці мають хороше слово для опису цього тексту: disturbing. роман весь час повертається до питання про те, скільки людського може втратити людина, та все ще лишатися людиною, – і це злущування людськості, з одного боку, дуже некомфортне, проте захопливе і по-своєму красиве з іншого.
начебто й проста книжка, але з дуже потужним післясмаком.
а ще англійці мають хороше слово для опису цього тексту: disturbing. роман весь час повертається до питання про те, скільки людського може втратити людина, та все ще лишатися людиною, – і це злущування людськості, з одного боку, дуже некомфортне, проте захопливе і по-своєму красиве з іншого.
начебто й проста книжка, але з дуже потужним післясмаком.
April 3, 2020
A Semblance of Company
‘I am completely in the desert. I have never seen people nor do I imagine that another man is even possible. At that very moment an analogous creature appears in my field of vision, which, while not being me, is nevertheless the same principle in an alien body. Someone identical but alien nevertheless. And suddenly I experience, at precisely the same moment, a wondrous fulfillment and a painful division. Yet one revelation stands out above all the rest: I have become boundless, unpredictable to myself, multiple in possibilities through this alien, fresh but identical power, which approaches me as if I were approaching myself from the outside.’
(Witold Gombrowicz, ‘Diary', 1953)
As a high school philosophy teacher still naïve enough to dream of writing a great novel of ideas, I am bound to be sympathetic towards a great novelist of ideas who dreamed of teaching philosophy. Michel Tournier’s first novel, ‘Friday’, written when he was aged forty-two, after his failure to pass the French philosophy teacher’s exam, is a testament to that post-Freudian notion that no matter what obstacles block us from achieving our dreams, they will find a way of actualising themselves in an encrypted form, even if the dreamer no longer recognises them as their own. ‘Friday’ is a re-telling of the Robinson Crusoe narrative told from the perspective of the interior; not simply the private drama of what would be Crusoe’s imagined subjectivity, but the unfolding of the virtual potential Defoe brought into being with the creation of the 'island situation' back in 1719. As such, Tournier’s ‘Friday’ functions as a kind of triumphant return of the repressed, or rather, as an exploration of the philosophical implications bound up in the possible world of Robinson Crusoe. Just as the island will ultimately allow Crusoe a life far more spiritually enriched than those available for the average enterprising European of Defoe’s day, so Tournier’s philosophical learning is given a more powerful expression in this novel form. Tournier, like his fictionalised Crusoe, will be compelled to relinquish his hold on the rational order of things and the central tension of the novel derives from the reader’s fear that it will all descend into complete madness.
Despite the richness of the philosophical ideas explored, the novel itself is tremendously tight and lucid. Ideas are developed through concrete image and action rather than vague allusion and elliptical pronouncement. Thankfully then, this is not another self-reflexive novel about the instability of language, so much as a thought experiment attempting to prise us free of what Foucault once termed 'regimes of truth'. Today, it’s impossible to read ‘Friday’ apart from that passé genre of intertextual re-writes, along the lines of Jean Rhys’s ‘Wide Sargasso Sea’ (Jane Eyre), Margaret Atwood’s ‘Hagseed’ (Tempest), or, more closely, J. M. Coetzee’s alternative to Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe, ‘Foe’. Yet while this genre often seems tailor-made for literature degrees, with their free-included metatextual commentary and obligatory liberal handwringing exercises over colonial guilt (as if this in itself wasn’t another form of condescension), Tournier’s early example of the genre seems unencumbered by these conventions. The figure of Friday is too mercurial to settle for any one stereotype or its opposite, and the novel's full title, not given in the English translation, is ‘Friday, or the Pacific Limbo’, foreshadows Crusoe's final decision on what counts as a truly primitive existence. Crusoe's properly geological cultural appropriation will be rewarded through the surprise late appearance of an unlikely refugee from the white world, who, the readers can surmise, will serve as Crusoe’s legacy.
Tournier was a childhood friend of Gilles Deleuze, and it is hard not to read this novel as a response to Deleuze’s first acknowledged publication, ‘Desert Islands’ (1953), an essay showing how ‘science makes mythology more concrete, and [how] mythology makes science more vivid’ and in the process, reworking Heidegger’s fourfold understanding of the Earth/Sky, Mortal/Divinities distinctions via the concept of ‘continental’ and ‘oceanic’ islands. Continental Islands are those which have drifted off the mainland and may stand in for our desire to break from current Western traditions, while oceanic islands spring up from a volcanic Earth of their own accord and represent the forces of natural creation. A desert island process might be said to combine these two movements of scission and verticality and Tournier’s island life will go through many metamorphoses in the process of its interactions with characters, ranging from a hyperbolic Protestant standing reserve for material resource, quite literally impregnated with Western values, to a surreal world of savage mythic divinities brought to bear through Friday’s Bartleby-like subtle refusals and secret corruptions. Even some of the most lyrical passages in the novel, where, for example, Crusoe climbs a tall tree to experience the sunlight directly on his face and flesh, seem to articulate an idea derived from Deleuze's essay: the possibility of a perfect objective understanding of a space made possible through the complete erasure of our profoundly false consciousness.
Perhaps Deleuze’s ideas are furthered through Crusoe’s tree-top reflection where a ‘leaf is the lung of the tree, which is itself a lung, and the wind is its breathing.’ (193) Here, we have a figure for a machinic nature where the individuated Heideggerian entelechies of Earth (tree), Mortal (Crusoe), Sky (wind) and Divinities (life-giving sun) each transform the other in an endless concatenating sequence. Wind as the symbol of an immaterial conditioning force reaches its highest expression in Friday’s savage construction of an Aeolian harp, formed from the stretched innards of a fierce goat (which in turn serves as a cipher for Crusoe). Its music, ‘was not a melody to pluck at the heart with its form and rhythm, but a single note, infinite in its harmonies, which took possession of the soul. A chord composed of countless elements in whose sustained power there was something fateful and implacable that held the listener spellbound.’ (198) As a memorable figure for the univocity of being, this is only matched by a famous passage in Deleuze’s ‘Difference and Repetition’, where there is ‘a single and same voice for the whole thousand-voiced multiple, a single and same Ocean for all the drops, a single clamour of Being for all the beings…’ Tournier’s ‘Friday’ and Deleuze’s ‘Difference and Repetition’ were both published in 1967, and it is charming to guess at who influenced who.
Deleuze and Tournier’s respective uses of the orchid-wasp image of parallel evolution, however, wherein species adapt to each other in a mutually transformative manner, find their source in Proust’s ‘Search’. In ‘Friday’, there is an admirable attempt to depict this non-human sexuality in a concrete manner through Crusoe’s use of the island, which comes across as either surreal or laughable depending on your temperament. Perhaps Tournier’s attempt to fuse the allegorical with the literal doesn't quite gell here, nor can it be said to in the final section of the novel where the interplay between third person limited and Crusoe’s first person journal becomes an uneasy alloy, as the latter ends up explaining the ramifications of the former in case the reader might have missed them. Yet there is no mention of such quibbles in Deleuze’s glowing review of the novel, ‘A Theory of the Other’ (1967). Instead, Deleuze will match Tournier’s fictional supplanting of his Desert Islands essay through a philosophical intensification of the novel's central components. In his autobiography, ‘The Wind Spirit’, Tournier describes his teenage philosophical engagements with a young Deleuze, where he would fire ‘off words like cotton or rubber balls, and [Deleuze] shot them back, hardened and heavy, like lead and steel cannon balls’: to read Tournier’s novel and then Deleuze’s response back to back, is to perceive something like this still in effect: both works are a model for what can be achieved through literary reflections of the highest order. Recommended reading for those of you who don’t want to leave the island.
‘I am completely in the desert. I have never seen people nor do I imagine that another man is even possible. At that very moment an analogous creature appears in my field of vision, which, while not being me, is nevertheless the same principle in an alien body. Someone identical but alien nevertheless. And suddenly I experience, at precisely the same moment, a wondrous fulfillment and a painful division. Yet one revelation stands out above all the rest: I have become boundless, unpredictable to myself, multiple in possibilities through this alien, fresh but identical power, which approaches me as if I were approaching myself from the outside.’
(Witold Gombrowicz, ‘Diary', 1953)
As a high school philosophy teacher still naïve enough to dream of writing a great novel of ideas, I am bound to be sympathetic towards a great novelist of ideas who dreamed of teaching philosophy. Michel Tournier’s first novel, ‘Friday’, written when he was aged forty-two, after his failure to pass the French philosophy teacher’s exam, is a testament to that post-Freudian notion that no matter what obstacles block us from achieving our dreams, they will find a way of actualising themselves in an encrypted form, even if the dreamer no longer recognises them as their own. ‘Friday’ is a re-telling of the Robinson Crusoe narrative told from the perspective of the interior; not simply the private drama of what would be Crusoe’s imagined subjectivity, but the unfolding of the virtual potential Defoe brought into being with the creation of the 'island situation' back in 1719. As such, Tournier’s ‘Friday’ functions as a kind of triumphant return of the repressed, or rather, as an exploration of the philosophical implications bound up in the possible world of Robinson Crusoe. Just as the island will ultimately allow Crusoe a life far more spiritually enriched than those available for the average enterprising European of Defoe’s day, so Tournier’s philosophical learning is given a more powerful expression in this novel form. Tournier, like his fictionalised Crusoe, will be compelled to relinquish his hold on the rational order of things and the central tension of the novel derives from the reader’s fear that it will all descend into complete madness.
Despite the richness of the philosophical ideas explored, the novel itself is tremendously tight and lucid. Ideas are developed through concrete image and action rather than vague allusion and elliptical pronouncement. Thankfully then, this is not another self-reflexive novel about the instability of language, so much as a thought experiment attempting to prise us free of what Foucault once termed 'regimes of truth'. Today, it’s impossible to read ‘Friday’ apart from that passé genre of intertextual re-writes, along the lines of Jean Rhys’s ‘Wide Sargasso Sea’ (Jane Eyre), Margaret Atwood’s ‘Hagseed’ (Tempest), or, more closely, J. M. Coetzee’s alternative to Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe, ‘Foe’. Yet while this genre often seems tailor-made for literature degrees, with their free-included metatextual commentary and obligatory liberal handwringing exercises over colonial guilt (as if this in itself wasn’t another form of condescension), Tournier’s early example of the genre seems unencumbered by these conventions. The figure of Friday is too mercurial to settle for any one stereotype or its opposite, and the novel's full title, not given in the English translation, is ‘Friday, or the Pacific Limbo’, foreshadows Crusoe's final decision on what counts as a truly primitive existence. Crusoe's properly geological cultural appropriation will be rewarded through the surprise late appearance of an unlikely refugee from the white world, who, the readers can surmise, will serve as Crusoe’s legacy.
Tournier was a childhood friend of Gilles Deleuze, and it is hard not to read this novel as a response to Deleuze’s first acknowledged publication, ‘Desert Islands’ (1953), an essay showing how ‘science makes mythology more concrete, and [how] mythology makes science more vivid’ and in the process, reworking Heidegger’s fourfold understanding of the Earth/Sky, Mortal/Divinities distinctions via the concept of ‘continental’ and ‘oceanic’ islands. Continental Islands are those which have drifted off the mainland and may stand in for our desire to break from current Western traditions, while oceanic islands spring up from a volcanic Earth of their own accord and represent the forces of natural creation. A desert island process might be said to combine these two movements of scission and verticality and Tournier’s island life will go through many metamorphoses in the process of its interactions with characters, ranging from a hyperbolic Protestant standing reserve for material resource, quite literally impregnated with Western values, to a surreal world of savage mythic divinities brought to bear through Friday’s Bartleby-like subtle refusals and secret corruptions. Even some of the most lyrical passages in the novel, where, for example, Crusoe climbs a tall tree to experience the sunlight directly on his face and flesh, seem to articulate an idea derived from Deleuze's essay: the possibility of a perfect objective understanding of a space made possible through the complete erasure of our profoundly false consciousness.
Perhaps Deleuze’s ideas are furthered through Crusoe’s tree-top reflection where a ‘leaf is the lung of the tree, which is itself a lung, and the wind is its breathing.’ (193) Here, we have a figure for a machinic nature where the individuated Heideggerian entelechies of Earth (tree), Mortal (Crusoe), Sky (wind) and Divinities (life-giving sun) each transform the other in an endless concatenating sequence. Wind as the symbol of an immaterial conditioning force reaches its highest expression in Friday’s savage construction of an Aeolian harp, formed from the stretched innards of a fierce goat (which in turn serves as a cipher for Crusoe). Its music, ‘was not a melody to pluck at the heart with its form and rhythm, but a single note, infinite in its harmonies, which took possession of the soul. A chord composed of countless elements in whose sustained power there was something fateful and implacable that held the listener spellbound.’ (198) As a memorable figure for the univocity of being, this is only matched by a famous passage in Deleuze’s ‘Difference and Repetition’, where there is ‘a single and same voice for the whole thousand-voiced multiple, a single and same Ocean for all the drops, a single clamour of Being for all the beings…’ Tournier’s ‘Friday’ and Deleuze’s ‘Difference and Repetition’ were both published in 1967, and it is charming to guess at who influenced who.
Deleuze and Tournier’s respective uses of the orchid-wasp image of parallel evolution, however, wherein species adapt to each other in a mutually transformative manner, find their source in Proust’s ‘Search’. In ‘Friday’, there is an admirable attempt to depict this non-human sexuality in a concrete manner through Crusoe’s use of the island, which comes across as either surreal or laughable depending on your temperament. Perhaps Tournier’s attempt to fuse the allegorical with the literal doesn't quite gell here, nor can it be said to in the final section of the novel where the interplay between third person limited and Crusoe’s first person journal becomes an uneasy alloy, as the latter ends up explaining the ramifications of the former in case the reader might have missed them. Yet there is no mention of such quibbles in Deleuze’s glowing review of the novel, ‘A Theory of the Other’ (1967). Instead, Deleuze will match Tournier’s fictional supplanting of his Desert Islands essay through a philosophical intensification of the novel's central components. In his autobiography, ‘The Wind Spirit’, Tournier describes his teenage philosophical engagements with a young Deleuze, where he would fire ‘off words like cotton or rubber balls, and [Deleuze] shot them back, hardened and heavy, like lead and steel cannon balls’: to read Tournier’s novel and then Deleuze’s response back to back, is to perceive something like this still in effect: both works are a model for what can be achieved through literary reflections of the highest order. Recommended reading for those of you who don’t want to leave the island.
December 27, 2024
Tournier, Defou’nun Robinson Cruose’sunu beğenmemiş. O öyle yazılmaz böyle yazılır demiş oturmuş yeniden yazmış hissini yaşadım . Kitabı okurken çok zorlandım. Ne yazıkki bazı atıfları anlayacak birikimim yok. Ama 2024 ‘te en hafızama kazınan ve en iyi bulduğum kitap oldu.
March 7, 2015
Je suis tombé sur une boite de livre littéraire que j'ai lu lors de mon Cégep, comme ça devrait compter dans mes roman lu je vais les décrire brièvement. Je ne ferai pas de critique de pièces de théatre car je ne le considère pas comme un roman. Voici la courte critique de ce livre:
Quand j'ai su que sa serait une version philosophique de Robinson Crusoe, j'ai eu peur de lire ce livre que j'aurais cru assez mauvais ou réchauffé. Si vous saviez a quel point je m'étais trompé. Ce livre à été une révélation pour moi, à la fois choquant, passionnant et divertissant. On voit dans ce livre une version réaliste de ce que serait devenu un homme laisser seul pour vrai sur une île et comment il aurait pu s'en sortir logiquement.
La relation que le personnage principal développe avec l'île, vendredi et la nature en général est extrêmement bien pensé. Peu de dialogue mais les description m'on fait avoir des idées difficile à oublier et certain passage m'on fait avoir des cauchemard (je suis sérieux). Certains passages sont à glacer le sang tellement le personnage devient fou de sa solitude et comment il vit cette folie.
Ce livre est un must à lire à mon avis, mon seul regret est que j'ai prêter ce livre et il n'est jamais revenu. Je vais le racheter car je veux le relire. Je donnerais 5 étoiles à ce livre si ce n'était encore une fois d'une fin loin de l'intensité du reste du livre et un manque de constance par bout qui crée des longueurs qui pourraient en décourager certain.
Je recommande ce livre grandement.
Quand j'ai su que sa serait une version philosophique de Robinson Crusoe, j'ai eu peur de lire ce livre que j'aurais cru assez mauvais ou réchauffé. Si vous saviez a quel point je m'étais trompé. Ce livre à été une révélation pour moi, à la fois choquant, passionnant et divertissant. On voit dans ce livre une version réaliste de ce que serait devenu un homme laisser seul pour vrai sur une île et comment il aurait pu s'en sortir logiquement.
La relation que le personnage principal développe avec l'île, vendredi et la nature en général est extrêmement bien pensé. Peu de dialogue mais les description m'on fait avoir des idées difficile à oublier et certain passage m'on fait avoir des cauchemard (je suis sérieux). Certains passages sont à glacer le sang tellement le personnage devient fou de sa solitude et comment il vit cette folie.
Ce livre est un must à lire à mon avis, mon seul regret est que j'ai prêter ce livre et il n'est jamais revenu. Je vais le racheter car je veux le relire. Je donnerais 5 étoiles à ce livre si ce n'était encore une fois d'une fin loin de l'intensité du reste du livre et un manque de constance par bout qui crée des longueurs qui pourraient en décourager certain.
Je recommande ce livre grandement.
June 28, 2024
şimdiye kadar henüz bir iki sayfa felsefi gönderme fark edebildim, bahsedilen birçok filozofun fikirlerine yapılan atıfları veya derinlemesine düşünceleri göremediğim için biraz canım sıkkın. kitabın ağır olduğunu ve yeterli kazanımım olmadığı sebebiyle anlamlandıramadığım için de üzülüyor ve üzerine araştırma ve okuma yaparak bunu anlamlı ve değerli bir okuma deneyimine dönüştüreceğimi umuyorum.
okuması zordu, çevirmesi eminim daha da zor olmalıdır. çevirmenin ve emeği geçen herkesin emeğine sağlık, harika bir eser kazandırılmış türkçeye. anlamak için bazen tekrar tekrar okumak, üzerine tekrar tekrar düşünmek ve araştırmak gereken çok yer vardı, hepsi birbiriyle ve başkalarıyla iç içe olmakla okuyanın zihninde birçok farklı düşünceye sinyal vermekte. deleuze'ün son sözünde tüm bunlara dair birçok açıklama ve yorum görmemiz de ayrıca güzel olmuş, sonsözü tam olarak kavrayabildiğimi sanmadığımdan yapacağım okumalar sonucu ileride dönüp tekrar bakmam gereken bir kısım olarak bekleyecek beni.
okuması zordu, çevirmesi eminim daha da zor olmalıdır. çevirmenin ve emeği geçen herkesin emeğine sağlık, harika bir eser kazandırılmış türkçeye. anlamak için bazen tekrar tekrar okumak, üzerine tekrar tekrar düşünmek ve araştırmak gereken çok yer vardı, hepsi birbiriyle ve başkalarıyla iç içe olmakla okuyanın zihninde birçok farklı düşünceye sinyal vermekte. deleuze'ün son sözünde tüm bunlara dair birçok açıklama ve yorum görmemiz de ayrıca güzel olmuş, sonsözü tam olarak kavrayabildiğimi sanmadığımdan yapacağım okumalar sonucu ileride dönüp tekrar bakmam gereken bir kısım olarak bekleyecek beni.
July 27, 2013
Phenomenal read! I have been longing for the entertaining meditation on the self in a rich, artful, even exotic way that Friday delivers. Tournier's retelling of Robinson Crusoe kept me up at night reading 50 or more pages late into the night. High recommendation for fans of retellings and philosophically profound literature. I read it in French while my husband read it in English, and agree it is a faithful translation. We were both riveted.
November 20, 2018
J'adore les oeuvres de Tournier.
Ici, c'est l'histoire de Robinson Crusoe réécrite à sa manière très philosophique et presque métaphysique, mais avec des passages d'une sensualité troublante.
Ici, c'est l'histoire de Robinson Crusoe réécrite à sa manière très philosophique et presque métaphysique, mais avec des passages d'une sensualité troublante.
April 29, 2021
3.5 stars.
October 14, 2024
Muazzam bir metindi
September 10, 2021
I found the basic premise of Daniel Defoe's "Robinson Crusoe" to be fundamentally false and thus not terribly interesting. I always assumed that any mature adult marooned on a deserted island would be pre-occupied solely by the desire to survive. The marooned person would never dream of trying to re-create the civilisation that he or she had been cut off from. Tournier's reflection on the theme bored me as much as did Defoe's.
Tournier's take is nonetheless clever. His Crusoe is indeed obsessed with his project to build his civilization. When the rescue ship finally arrives, he neither celebrates his salvation nor abandons his island. Rather stays behind watching the ship sail away with Friday.
I must say that I like more desert novel islands for children such as "Swiss Family Robinson" or "The Mysterious Island." In the children's novels, the goal of the author is to explain to the young reader the complexity of the civilized world that he or she lives in and how much humanity has put into it. I simply prefer this notion to that of the adult desert novels which describe the determination of the isolated human to preserve his or her world.
Tournier's take is nonetheless clever. His Crusoe is indeed obsessed with his project to build his civilization. When the rescue ship finally arrives, he neither celebrates his salvation nor abandons his island. Rather stays behind watching the ship sail away with Friday.
I must say that I like more desert novel islands for children such as "Swiss Family Robinson" or "The Mysterious Island." In the children's novels, the goal of the author is to explain to the young reader the complexity of the civilized world that he or she lives in and how much humanity has put into it. I simply prefer this notion to that of the adult desert novels which describe the determination of the isolated human to preserve his or her world.
April 26, 2020
„Astfel, timpul trecea repede și util, cu-atât mai repede cu cât era mai util folosit, și lăsa-n urma lui o grămadă de monumente și de gunoaie care se chemau istoria mea. (...)
„S-ar zice, prin urmare, că zilele mele s-au îndreptat în sus. Nu mai vin unele peste altele. Stau în picioare, verticale, și se-afirmă cu mândrie, în valoarea lor intrinsecă. Și cum nu se mai deosebesc prin etapele succesive ale unui plan pe cale de executare, seamănă-ntre ele-n asemenea măsură încât se suprapun exact în memoria mea și mi se pare că retrăiesc mereu aceeași zi.”
Trecut/prezent. Zile trăite/Zile identice. Reconstruirea destinului.
„S-ar zice, prin urmare, că zilele mele s-au îndreptat în sus. Nu mai vin unele peste altele. Stau în picioare, verticale, și se-afirmă cu mândrie, în valoarea lor intrinsecă. Și cum nu se mai deosebesc prin etapele succesive ale unui plan pe cale de executare, seamănă-ntre ele-n asemenea măsură încât se suprapun exact în memoria mea și mi se pare că retrăiesc mereu aceeași zi.”
Trecut/prezent. Zile trăite/Zile identice. Reconstruirea destinului.
April 16, 2024
L'auteur nous emporte dans son monde bien particulier parsemé de non j'en ai aucune idée j'ai lu le livre en 5eme
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