Hubert Damisch

Robinsonnades I: The Allegory

We need to imagine Robinson Crusoe on his island (keeping in mind that we will have dealt with this character from our earliest years when, already trapped in the maze of language and culture, we were caught up in the solipsistic mood that leads children to wrap themselves inside their monologue to the point of playing at erecting a miniature universe, each according to his or her taste and sense of scale, where no one is allowed to enter or intervene, but to which the child is not loathe to call attention or to show off: this work of fiction which is at