After the crash !

[Hamlet]

You are the only survivor from a crashed Learjet, yours as it happens, you're cultured and rich you see, in this fantasy at least...

...sitting up on the beach you now spy a crate, it's being washed over by the surf, and has the label "books" written conveniently on the side...

What are you hoping to find in there?

Given that you will not be rescued for a further 5 years...

[Eric]

Gosh, that was big print, Hamlet.

What I would be hoping to find, and what I would find are two very different things.

I would hope to find a lot of different novels, short-story collections, poetry anthologies, a few plays, a few books of lit crit, and a few handy books about building shelters on desert islands. In various languages. And dictionaries and grammars for the appropriate languages.

But what would I find in reality? That it was a shipment containing the same novel in four hundred copies, originally bound for some Waterstone's branch, and wrapped in plastic sheeting so thick that poor Robinson Crusoe me couldn't rip it open with my primitive tools even to read one of the identical four hundred.

[Hamlet]

Yes, it's an offensive font size indeed, no offense to the eyes or otherwise intended of course, but everything online seems to vie for attention these days, so perhaps subconsciously or otherwise I was hoping folks would remember this thread. As it's one that "could" run, or somebody might come back later even, remembering that ridiculous font, and amend their choices or tastes and other aspects as new options occur to them? We'll see!

No limit here on entries folks, or penalties for changes of mind! Just a friendly forum-bonding exercise for fun!

It's a tricky one, and of course I slipped and included a small Learjet in my question, very specific, rather than just leaving a ****blank*** , so the volumes would have to belong to a pilot, or one of a limited and small crew I guess...

But, all that aside, without being too literalistic, we can keep the offerings to the size of a crate, and there's quite a lot of leeway for us to project intentions and thoughts onto that crate.

It might comprise solely of collected works fro example, or hundreds of small paperabacks, and the fact I've suggested a time period ***may*** form part of the considerations around author-choice and the killling of time aspect.

Please assume here folks that you'll also find scattered about in the wreckage and twisted pieces of burning metal a small penknife, a few pre-packed foods and drink. I wouldn't leave you without some basic provisions, but after a few days it's time to build a shelter, go turtle-hunting, and fashion an improvised fishing rod out of sticks I'm afraid!

Answers such as the following are of course naughty, but encouraged nonetheless, as is anything else that smacks of the inventive:-

"All of Geoffrey Archer's novels, because I'd be able to store them up in the island's cave until I needed to ignite my daily fire, physically and in my breast, a few pages at a time over 5 years should be fine, a sort of "burn after reading" reading approach, if your following me, wait, whose following me?"

I hear footsteps!

Man Saturday, is that you?

[Hamlet]

I suspect that my ideal crate would be along these lines, but some of this is current rading, anyway, here goes:-

Drum roll:-

The Collected Works of Shakespeare. (Oxford or Riverside Eds).

Daniel Defoe, ( Collected Works)

Ray Bradbury, SF with a few short story collections tossed in. In complete contrast to the above I guess.

A dictionary, ideally the heavy double volumes of the Oxford Shorter English, please!

A few pens and some (dry) writing paper upon which I can invent or even impress, my own ISLAND stories...

nb- (why nb?) ~ my own Robinson Crusoe will hopefully flow out of my pen and so I'll have some control of this strange and BRAVE NEW WORLD by becoming an author, and therefore a god, and therefore (too many therefores now) I'll be both in it and outside of it at the same time... genius!

[Eric]

I don't think I would like to share a crate with you, Hamlet. Your crate acts as if nothing has ever happened in the world of literature beyond Shakespeare and Defoe, plus a lot of space adventure stories. Why on earth would you want to read a fictional account of a desert island, when what you desperately need is handbooks on how to survive there? Otherwise your dried-out corpse will soon be found by a passing ship. A book on desalination might also come in handy (rather than a Shakespeare concordance) as you might be a bit short of lakes, rivers and ponds.

I personally would like to think that although I was cut off from the rest of the world, I could still conjure it up in my imagination - not just Stratford-on-Avon and London. Having Shakespeare's 37 plays in two editions would surely mean that you get utterly sick of plays, not least because you have no Man Friday and Ms Saturday to act out the parts with you. You would sound very schizophrenic playing King Lear one minute and playing Gonorrhoea, Reagan, and nice Cordelia, one after the other, wearing various wigs plaited from grasses and reeds (if there are any, because the last of these imply freshwater areas).

[Hamlet]

I'm starting to go mad, but I'll try my best Eric:-

-well dear chap, the Riverside or Oxford editions was an either/or. i wouldn't have both in that pesky crate.

And the Shakespeare plays wouldn't really need acting, just reading and they are at least literature that would keep me intrigued. But perhaps my crate is smaller than your crate, I don't wish to compare sizes, so I was down to a smaller and very specific collection. Most reads or many reads don't necessarily invite a "reread"; a few works can take a lifetime to get to the bottom of, Shakespeare would easily take-up a mere 5 years of perusal. Granted, most time would be spent surviving. So it's not reading and reading and reading, but dipping in now and again, you see.

The pens and 'non-reading time' would allow for plenty of creativity.

Daniel Defoe wrote more than Robinson Crusoe, so he'd probably take up more time than you allow for, and the SF is perhaps a lighter read, Bradbury is not a favourite author, I've barely read any of his work, but his work is an interesting strand of SF which pulls in readers from other shores, he's more than "space stories" and hopefully a little deeper!

As to things happening since Shakespeare and Defoe in literature, hmm, of course, but then again -- that sounds very trendy and a little "new-thinking ", latest doesn't always = best/better/progressive.

We're limited to crate size and chance here don't forget. Most literature I read tends to be a one-off read, read it and leave it, never to return. Which is why I avoided the 25 or shall we say at most 50 books by so other authors which could have been in there.

That's the idea anyway, Eric, but it's a question with a lot of different interps/answers.

Survival guides as you say, or shelter-building. Or -- well, how to build a communications satellite out of damaged wreck circuitry that washed up ............... wait, too literal. This is A GAME!


And desalination, whoa, HOLD ON HORSE ... I think rainwater and boiling would be the only hope for us, a "desalination plant" sounds too technical, certainly for such a survivor and without materials and tools and much else.

UNECESSARY ASIDE TO FOLLOW, BEWARE:-

Bizarrely, I once met this guy in a UK boozer who'd been involved in building a desalination plant out in the tropics, and that was an interesting tale, especially the snippet about the tropical storm, they (being two engineers) were apparently sheltering and drinking beer in a car that was gradually filling up with water (the cans being kept cool under the water as it filled up around their legs) and as they both became --slowly -- more and more drunk they just watched this horrific and violent storm roll in, a sort of surrealistic nightmore you understand old chap. Anyway, dying or drowning rather was a possibility, not that they appeared to care!

END OF DIGRESSION

nb, regarding the above splurge (you thought that was over didn't you!) but you know old bean, it was not unlike a few scenes out of say... a Conrad novel?

Lucky Jim or Heart of Darkness perhaps? One fella remained over there actually, slowly drinking himself to death... or so I was told but this fella was by now quite drunk and his eyes were glowing with the fire of his story, or was it just the drink, oh dear .... quite sad really - all in all.

RETURNING TO THE POINT, SORT OF:-

nb- which Shakespeare plays features Stratford-upon-Avon EXACTLY Eric, or even London, exclusively!

I get the whole of the UK for my buck and a good slice of Italian vistas, a magical island thrown in to boot, and every human emotion ever experienced or conveyed for me in knock-out poetry.

I want to be reminded of being human of course, my fading humanity as I descend into tattered robes and as the island "transmutes" me into a less than noble savage, you know- sharp pointy sticks, the default beard, and the "requisite" loin cloth, and you know what that did to poor Tom Hanks, he only had a basketball and some rollerskates to keep him happy. Poor Tom, hey, wasn't that in KING LEAR?

But yes- good point about the connection to the world. Now let me think.... tap, tap, tap, on tree trunk (no tabletops around here you see!)

Ahh, yes - perhaps I would hope for a few novels in my crate about recessions, corporate greed, and a war [novel] or two?

Oh and a little suncream would be ideal.

Damn - the island madness is really kicking in now. My watch has stopped.

Short descending sentences only now, who said "only!" Who's there?

Anyway, with all this discussion the day is being wasted or if I'm attempting to be literary, washed away, the fierce sun is already high in the sky...

I'd better go and trawl the surfline for debris once again.

If a fork or a spoon turns up today, well hurrah, what larks! The simple pleasures become magnified Sir!

[Hamlet]

Resurrected by request out of its sleepy hollow.