The story is about a Swiss family of six (father, mother and four sons) who survive the shipwreck and end up in an island near New Guinea.
There they start their new life from scratch trying to survive the wilderness, build a house, domesticate animals and explore the local flora and fauna.
The story is a classic and inspired by Robinson Crusoe and it's about a European family colonizing an idyllic uninhabited island.
It's a fun and easy read that takes the reader on a rich visual journey (makes you imagine you're in a beautiful island) and it's written from "a poor shipwrecked European man" perspective, narrated from the father's perspective.
Although I enjoyed the book and can understand where the author is coming from, considering the current rise of animal rights and vegetarianism, Swiss family seemed quite murderous and cold in many instances (and therefore selfish and not very likable).
For example: "Come on, Father, strangle him and kill him!" I could hear Ernest scream from behind.
I however, shook my head and told him, "It isn't good to kill someone in the first place , and even if we have to, we should make sure that death is painless. There is no need to make this poor iguana suffer! And taking my knife out, I killed the beast with one cut."
Having read this book in my childhood, I thought it was OK to do that because they had to eat and they didn't have flour or oats to cook for breakfast, but I was actually surprised to find myself a bit taken aback by these killings of animals (or hunting).
Maybe that says that I have forgotten that human is an animal and that naturally we used to hunt before and therefore I have lost my sense with reality in a way. Or maybe I became influenced by the animal rights movements and vegetarianism that is so "default" in India (and becoming worldwide).
Overall it's an interesting classical read that can help one understand the mentality of the average European at that time. The book characters embodied the "ideal family" and "ideal personality traits" of rationality, hard work, persistence, religiousness, dutifulness, stubbornness and positive thinking.
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