| PRODUCT DETAILS | | Castaway | | |
Castaway
This is an account of how the author answered an advertisement for a "wife" to spend a year on a tropical island with a writer, and subsequently found herself alone on a remote desert island with a "husband" she hardly knew.
Manufacturer: Dell
Price: $3.95
 Castaway
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| User Reviews |  | "Survivors" -- a bummer
rating: 2
Well . . . looks like I am a lone dissenting voice on this island survival true-diary. Let me insert a preliminary disclaimer that I am not some kind of charter member of the "He-Man Woman Haters Club". However, a frank review ---
The big picture here; a writer-adventurer (Robert) advertises for a "wife" to live with him on an isolated deserted island for a year. This experience has been recorded in this book by the volunteer "wife", Lucy Irvine.
The tale is told one-sidely by the author, and Robert comes off as a lazy, unwashed, alcoholic. Reading between the lines, the author comes off as a snippy uncontentable b----.
The experience made me almost as miserable to read about as it apparently was for the participants. A record of exposure to the elements, food/water deprivation, vermin, infection, and two people living together in a small hut that don't like each other. I would have enjoyed more description of survival problem-solving, and the wonder of living in remote unspoiled isolation . . . instead I got continual mutinous murmuring focused on how much the author despised her co-habitant (shouldn't have signed up, huh?). They end up merely doing time, waiting for the piteous project to come to an end.
Ironically, the only refreshing glimmer of hope in their miserable situation comes after natives on a neighboring island discover that Robert is something of a talented and resourceful mechanic. He trades his skills for the material comforts that the natives can offer (thus, participation in a mini industrial civilization becomes their salvation). Next time, stay home . . . or utilize an island resort.
I appreciate the candor here, but I read for education and entertainment, not pain. I don't know or care if Robert ever wrote his book. Irvine comes off as a "head-gamer" that I don't like very much. Other reviewers seem to have enjoyed this. I found few surprises and much to dislike. Choose your own poison I suppose.
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Interesting insights into relationships
rating: 4
You can read the background to this book (Male advertises for "wife" to share tropical island etc) in other reviews. This book is quite remarkable in its ability to holds one's attention so well, exploring two rather unusual relationships, the strongest being with the island, the secondary being with the "husband". On the surface such a situation is more or less content-less (I'll concede perhaps a male perspective), so the ability of the book to hold you bears testament to a remarkable writing skill. I limit it to 4 stars because one is not touched in the same way as by another of her works, "Runaway", which explores the events which occurred to her when she was younger. I found "Runaway" to be more poignant. I read "Castaway" before "Runaway"; if you read them in the reverse (i.e. chronological) order, you might find Castaway slightly lacking.
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A good read & psychological study
rating: 4
I picked up a mass market paperback copy of Castaway years ago at a local drugstore. My dirty, dog-eared copy is favorite bedside fodder when I can't sleep and want a familiar, engrossing story to soothe me to sleep. Ms. Irvine writes beautifully, poetically, and over many readings, the book has not lost its appeal to me. Worth searching out a copy for your own.
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One of my All Time Faves!
rating: 5
Wow...this book is just engrossing from the get-go. I've read it about four times and I still want to read it again. Lucy answered an ad for a "wife" and spent a year on a tropical island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. Her story reads like the "Survivor" series should have. It's not only her daily accounts of life and surviving, it's a facinating look at relationships and human nature. You'll root for her long after the book is done!
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"Real" Survivor
rating: 5
A fastinating book on trying to be a modern Robinson Carusoe, or TV Survivor. Since this is Lucy's book, Robert comes off looking like a total jerk. So its amazing she didn't kill him early on. Also it was Robert's idea, do the island, get the girl and write the book. From reading the book, it's Lucy who plants the garden, learns to fish, talks to the natives, and keeps Robert alive so with Lucy actually writing the book I hope she made a fortune.The other cool thing was how hard it was to find an unoccupied island to do the test on that you could also survive on. Turns out if you have water and decent soil, people already live there! This shouldn't have been a surprise, but it was to me. I should have figured that in the last 1000 years people of the South Pacific would have looked at all the islands, and stayed on the ones that supported life. So much for the Swiss Family Robinson dream life. It's actually much closer to the Tom Hanks Movie "Castaway" life. Anyway its a good arm chair adventure read.
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Castaway
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