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Obras por Michel Politzer

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Críticas

Zó goed, dat ik werkelijk teleurgesteld was toen bleek dat het schetsboek fictie was...
 
Assinalado
yvlind1 | 1 outra crítica | May 9, 2020 |
My father was a carpenter when he was not a farmer, and a farmer when he was not a carpenter, and handy at both, proud of his work, and often ill rewarded for his efforts. All those genes passed right over me, except his perfectionism and his eye for work that was well done.

From childhood on, Robinson Crusoe was one of my favorite stories, for here was a man ill-prepared to build or to garden, but forced to perfect his skills at both. (I’m sure I first read a retelling or an abridgement, for Defoe’s seventeenth-century prose was hardly inviting to a young reader even in the 1940s.) I went on to Swiss Family Robinson, and I have been reading stories of survival and collecting editions and variations on the original Crusoe for many years. I hope the versions I saw as a child introduced me to the illustrations of Fritz Kredel, Lynd Ward or Roger Duvoisin, but I can’t remember for sure.

Some years ago, I found this book: My Journals and Sketchbooks by Robinson Crusoe. You can imagine how this awakened the child within me. Once again I found myself on a deserted island, sheltering myself in a tree-house or cave, clothing myself in goatskins, finding and harvesting, planting and cultivating food for a healthful diet.

Of course, to my adult eye, which can read the fine print, this is a picture book for children, illustrated by Michel Politzer, with words by Anie Politzer, originally published in France by Editions Joël Cuénot, translated into English by André Deutsch, and published by Harcourt Brace and Jovanovich in 1974.

Never mind the fine print. This is the recently discovered and carefully transcribed journal of the real Robinson Crusoe with sketches of his island and his craftsmanship. Here are the tools he rescued from the ship, the first camp he set up for himself, the flora and fauna he found around him, the trap he constructed to catch birds and wild goats with, the canoe in which he tried to leave the island. Marooned, he accepted his fate:

“Was I a prisoner on the island? Very well, so be it! I accept my fate. . . . I hid my canoe under a grove of coconut palms, and, only taking the essentials, I whistled up my dog and returned to my home, very happy to tread the soil of my kingdom, which seemed to me, in spite of its earthquakes, a hundred times safer than the abysses of the sea.”

From that point on his sketches show the crafts that he developed: basket weaving, pottery, blacksmithing, bread baking, herdsmanship and running a fishery. One large sketch (the publishers give it a double-page spread) shows his potter’s kiln, baker’s oven, and blacksmith’s forge. He sketches his fishery, his cabin in the trees, his aviary, and finally his castle and a detailed floor plan of his rooms in the cave: his bed hewn out of rock, his table and bench, his mortar and pestle, his larder and linen basket, and even his desktop with its quill and ink, drawing parchment, and (of course) his Bible. Detailed sketches show many of the tools and weapons he made for himself: his plough and flail and whetstone and winnowing basket; his crossbow and arrows; his scarecrow; a bridge to cross the river and a look-out point on a hilltop; and, for his entertainment, a zither, a harp, and panpipes. For pastime he even constructed a model ship within a salvaged bottle. There are drawings instructing one in the knots used by Robinson: the clove hitch, whipping knot, carrick bend, diamond knot, lashing knot, and bowline.

And, in his journal, is this dramatic penultimate page, scrawled across a page with an unfinished drawing of turtles: “Alas, I shall never finish this picture for as I was drawing the second turtle, I saw something so alarming that I ran home and locked myself in. I shall not move from here for a long time, for in the sand, two paces away from my bottle of ink, I saw the imprint of a naked foot! God help me! I am no longer alone on this island! / January 3rd, 1680”

Believe the words, if you will. You cannot disbelieve the pictures. Robinson Crusoe was alive and real. A carpenter and a farmer. A potter, baker, and blacksmith. And, thankfully for us, a writer and an artist.

Of course, adults who want a modernized version of the Crusoe story may prefer Michel Tournier’s Friday (Doubleday, 1969) or J. M. Coetzee’s Foe (Viking, 1987) or the film Crusoe (1989) with Aidan Quinn. Perhaps you will find a story that more likely might have happened.

But the child within us can hardly do better than Robinson Crusoe’s very own journals and sketches. He even has a sketch of the whole island, a bird’s-eye view, with the enclosure where he grazed his goats, the marsh were he collected salt, his charcoal furnaces, the turtle beach, and the valley in which his country-house was hidden. What a life!
… (mais)
 
Assinalado
bfrank | 1 outra crítica | Aug 3, 2007 |

Prémios

Estatísticas

Obras
5
Membros
47
Popularidade
#330,643
Avaliação
5.0
Críticas
2
ISBN
5
Línguas
2