Wor(l)ds

Abstract

I’ve been reading “island” novels. I call them that way because, after spending pleasurable evenings with them in remote scenarios with fanciful characters testing their stamina, I realize the narratives amount to a solid literary tradition: narratives set, in part or in full, in deserted islands. The adjective is essential. Manhattan is an island and so are Cuba and Australia. The stories I’ve been reading take place in uninhabited islands, some of which exist while some don’t. Think of Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe, Utopia by Thomas More, Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift, Lord of the Flies by William Golding, The Invention of Morel by Adolfo Bioy Casares. The idea is clear-cut: to place a character in a distant, disconnected setting in order to appreciate the effects of civilization. Of course, there are other novels that without an island per se achieve a similar effect; The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling comes to mind. There are also the films—The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser by Werner Herzog and L’enfant sauvage by François Truffaut.