Many say that Robinson Crusoe has one of the best plots of any story ever written. A shipwrecked man is forced to survive by his wits alone on a deserted island with little chance of rescue. It is too bad that the wrong person was telling the story. Defoe manages to take this brilliant plot and wring every bit of life out of it.
Admittedly even the best novels of Defoe’s day have lulls in their readability. It would be difficult to find one of his contemporaries who had written a book that was compelling from cover to cover or that did not have self-righteous asides intended to enlighten the reader. However, many of these other classics have risen above the lulls and self-righteousness. Defoe wallows in them as if he truly doesn’t understand what makes a book interesting. If you have some grand point to make, you should make it within the context of the story. The story should not meerly exist to prove the point. When that happens you get Robinson Crusoe, a story that is lost in Defoe’s point.