SOURCE: Cravens, Gwyneth. “Past Present.” Nation 254, no. 4 (3 February 1992): 136-38.

In the following essay, Cravens compares themes found in Lin's The Importance of Living with themes found in the works of Émile Chartier, who wrote under the name of Alain.

After a long bout of chemotherapy, a friend of mine read Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe. What struck him was that although Crusoe had suffered a shipwreck and been cast ashore upon an unknown island, he discovered that he had everything there that he required for survival; all he needed to do was to live simply and to make intelligent use of what he had been given. Crusoe's gratitude spilled over into the life of my friend and changed it.

I began to think of other pieces of literature—didactic, perhaps, but not annoyingly so—that shed a beneficial light upon the reader. The first one that came to mind...