Jonathan Miles

You think of desert island discs, you know, what 10 albums would you take on, you know, if you were alone on a desert island?

And, you know, the scenario is presented as a kind of

idyllic thing.

All right.

You're going to be by yourself, no distractions.

You can really concentrate on these 10 albums or whatever it is, the 10 books.

So it is a very strange place and it holds in our imaginations that has for hundreds and hundreds of years.

I mean, you mentioned, you know, Defoe and Robinson Crusoe, you know, I think part of

What made that story so gripping over the centuries is that factor and the questions that it draws out of people.

Would I be able to survive?

Would I go insane?

Would I love it?

Right?

I never really understood how that would work.

Because it occurred to me as I was writing that when you have one human being and 3,000 goats, national identity doesn't matter a whole lot.

In fact, it doesn't matter at all.

In fact, his path...

Apart from, you know, what we learned about his motivations for being there isn't that important.

It's the fact that he is simply this human being.

And I hesitate to use the word every man, but he is just a human being in a non-human environment.