This is a very curious historic text (and quite an upsetting one too) about a sailor named Leondert Hussenlosch. In 1724 Hussenlosch was marooned on a Ascension Isle (an uninhabited island) as punishment for the crime of “sodomy” which, for those not in the know, was historically used to refer to sex between two men. He was left with certain supplies, including a diary, and this book is that diary… or, at least, a translation of it, and some people question the extent to which the translation can be trusted (for reasons I will get into).
A lot of the diary is exactly what you would expect – a man chronicling his desperate attempts to stay alive with very limited access to food or water. As it goes on and his situation becomes more desperate, he resorts to drinking urine and turtle blood. It’s really bleak and he talks a lot about how he feels like he is barely alive. I came into this thinking “Oh, interesting, the diary of someone surviving on a desert island” but as I read through, I was more like “Oh gosh, this more man, what a harrowing thing to read.” It’s horrible to really think about how these are somebody’s lived experiences.
I think what makes it especially unpleasant to read is the context in which it is presented. The introduction makes it very clear that we are supposed to see this as the story of a man getting his just desserts. The hatred of queer people at this point in history is absolutely disgusting. Through a modern lens, this is an account of a man being oppressed by the horrible values of the time he had the misfortune of being born into.
Also, aside the fact that the translator is obviously coming at this from a very unsympathetic point of view, part of the reason that this is believed to have been an inaccurate translation is that it has some rather overt religions messaging – this mostly comes right in the middle and does sort of come out of nowhere. It may be that Hussenlosch genuinely had this religious epiphany, but I don’t think so. It’s also notable that there was another translation a few years later that was different – and of course, that could just mean that it was inaccurate and this one wasn’t, but as the original was lost and this one seems odd, we’ll never know for sure.
Nobody really knows what happened to Hussenlosch because his diary just stops and no diary was ever found. I like to think he found some way to escape that island and live happily, but it seems unlikely. What happened to him is a terrible tragedy – one just like millions of others that have befallen the LGBTQ+ community. It’s an interesting piece of history (and literary history too, since it was possibly an inspiration for Robinson Crusoe) and reflects the deeply disturbing lack of empathy that people are capable of displaying.
