11 definitions
Consumption (n.) is the only evil for Tournier's Robinson — since one always consumes alone and for oneself — while Defoe's held that evil begins with surplus production.
Friday (n.) is not a rediscovered Other but something wholly other — a mischievous child entirely at the surface, who blows up the island while smoking near the powder keg.
A Goat (n.) killed by Friday is made to fly as a kite and sing as an aeolian harp — the din of the earth carried up to the sky, the elements set free.
Meteorology (n.) lies between the slowness of geology and the speed of astronomy: the realm where meteors live at our pace — the wind blows as I breathe.
Nakedness (n.) is a luxury one may enjoy safely only when warmly surrounded by one's fellow men.
Other (n.) distract us powerfully — not only by interrupting, but because the bare chance that they might lights up a world of concerns at the edge of consciousness.
Other (n.) are the possible stubbornly passing itself off as the real.
Robinson Crusoe (n.) in Tournier is led not back to an origin but to an end: dehumanization, the libido joined to the free elements — a Uranian on Uranus.
Solitude (n.) without Others is the summary law of all or nothing: where I am not, total darkness reigns, and things slap us in the face or strike from behind.
A Subject (n.) is the object stripped of its qualities: my eye is the corpse of light and color, my nose what is left of smells once shown unreal, my hand refutes what it holds.
Superficial (n.) should mean "of wide extent," not "of little depth": a feeling like love is better measured by its surface than by its depth.