Sailing, killing, digging and more sailing again (Treasure Island - Robert Louis Stevenson)

Member Name: Salz

Product:	Treasure Island - Robert Louis Stevenson
Date:	24/09/02 (324 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Exciting adventure story, Long John Silver (complete with parrot and crutch))

Disadvantages: Some might find it childish

What space was to children like me growing up in the late 20th century, the South Seas must have been to children living a hundred years before. Somewhere they couldn’t get to themselves but heard the stories of those who had been and dreamed of the day when they would see it first hand.

Perhaps the reason the Space program caught the imagination of our generation was the lust for discovery and novelty that had driven the explorations from Europe of the previous five centuries and now had covered the globe. We had seen everything that was to be seen down here. It was time to look up.

Just as my childhood was surrounded by Science Fiction and Fantasy (both wonderful and at times truly awful) the Victorian child’s imagination will have been fired by stories of travel to strange places and the accompanying wonders and dangers.

SYNOPSIS:

The book starts out with Jim Hawkins, the hero, working in his father’s inn. There the retired pirate, known to them as the Captain, has been living. This arrangement works fine until the pirate Black Dog appears. The shock of this causes the Captain to have a stroke. Soon after Blind Pew arrives and hands the Captain the black spot, the pirate’s death sentence. This shock finishes the Captain off.

Jim and his mother search the sea chest the Captain left. In there in addition to money they found a treasure map. Jim takes the map to the local Doctor, Dr. Livesey and together with Squire Trelawney they decide to organise an expedition to find the treasure.

They acquire a boat together with its Captain, Smollet. They also hire a crew with the help of the voluble ships cook, Long John Silver. Unfortunately the devious Silver has his own plans for the treasure and finds a place on the ship for many of his old shipmates.

To find out how the crew mutiny and Hawkins and friends fight back as well as the long search for the treasure you’ll have to read
the book. I won’t spoil it for you.

STYLE:
I find it very readable. I read this book often as a child and loved it. It has longer sentences than one would expect to find in a contemporary children’s novel but it is much less verbose than much Victorian literature (even that aimed at kids).

CONTENT:
I still think it is exciting. Being of its age there is no sex interest but would you really want it? Well you’ll have to look elsewhere. However the Victorians were not averse to a little violence and blood letting especially if the innocent suffer nobly and evil persons get their just desserts.

CONCLUSION:
A great book. Better for children, perhaps but any one with even a hint of youthfulness can enjoy it. Don’t read it as social commentary or a character novel you will be disappointed. It is an adventure story, meant to get the heart racing, the 19th century equivalent of a Hollywood blockbuster. Which may be why many good films have been made of it (including the Muppets Treasure Island, but that’s another review altogether! Still it’s good isn’t it.)

Read it and see if you can avoid ending up liking Long John Silver and wishing that he might turn out all right in the end.

Summary: