Reviews for The Swiss Family Robinson

The average rating for The Swiss Family Robinson based on 2 reviews is 2 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2011-03-27 00:00:00 Al Mcculler I have such fond memories of this from seeing the old movie version as a kid. I never got around to reading it then, so I thought I'd give it a go! The family togetherness and sense of adventure is all there. It's just lacking musical accompaniment and sound effects. It is an old 'un so the writing felt a bit stiff, or perhaps it's the translation's fault. It read more like James Fenimore Cooper than say a Jane Austen. I guess my real quibble is the lack of tension here. Yes, certainly there is danger inherent in being stranded, especially upon an island that could house unknown beasts. But I never had the impression they were ever in any real trouble. Good old dad seemed to have things under control the entire time. Also, I felt more than a passing need to suspend disbelief at some of the family's goings on. For castaways they sure were well supplied from that shipwreck! The seemingly infinite supply of dry gunpowder was a stroke of luck, that's for sure. The Swiss Family Robinson is a family adventure story and as such should probably be read as a family when the kids are young. I don't think it's meant for us old, knitpicky grumps.

Review # 2 was written on 2007-09-10 00:00:00 Per-ivar Ruud they kill or enslave everything in sight, whether they need it or not. they pray before they do anything. i'm pretty sure the matriarch of the family was never actually named, but merely called "the mother" or "my wife" any time she was relevant, which was not very often. near the end of the book, the family actually shoots a cachalot. they don't use it for anything, but instead axe the head open and take away buckets of spermaceti. a whole fucking sperm whale had to die just because they saw it, killed it, and as an afterthought figured they could use the head innards presumably for candle-making. fucking... book. it was overly moralizing and offensive in so many bits, yet i found myself bringing it up in conversation with people. frustrating, but i suppose quite memorable. i had the same problem with white fang and the call of the wild, actually. also, how lucky were they? at every regular meal, they were eating better than i am able to and knew every last thing about where they were stranded, except for exactly where they were. makes sense. speaking of where they were, where were they? i thought that maybe they were somewhere like new zealand when they started shooting penguins, but that didn't make sense and the closest i've come to figuring it out has been that they were probably in an archipelago off portugal, but i don't know. maybe they were in a different dimension where people talk about providence all the time and suck majorly. except for the gay one. he was all right.