Vendredi ou les Limbes du Pacifique

Vendredi ou les Limbes du Pacifique (1967, revised version 1972). First novel by Tournier. This is a version of what he calls the myth of Robinson Crusoe, Friday, and the desert island, although, despite the promise of the title, Vendredi does not make his appearance until over half-way through, and it is he, not Robinson, who leaves the island for ‘civilization’. This dense novel of ideas bears the marks of Lévi-Strauss, Freud, Lacan, and Sartre, but above all engages the reader in a dialectical reading of myth and history. Tournier, the failed philosopher, admirably succeeds here as a creator of fiction. He produced a version for children, Vendredi ou la Vie sauvage, in 1971.

[Ian Revie]