Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island is the second book I've read as part of my 2009 intention to take on the classic adventure and monster stories (The Island of Dr. Moreau was my first).
And what an adventure! I knew that a great deal of pirate lore could be traced to the Scotsman's 1883 novel, but I had no idea the reach of it: Treasure Island damn near invented the modern conception of pirates, even as it blended contemporary buccaneers into its fictional landscape.
From talking parrots to Long John Silver, peg legs to buried treasure and maps marked by X's, the black spot and "Yo ho!" and rum, "shiver me timbers" and the Jolly Roger--it all comes back to Treasure Island.
Originally written as a serial, this slim book features cliffhanger chapters and downright spooky scenes told (mostly) in the voice of young Jim Hawkins. It was curious to discover exactly how Hawkins--the son of an innkeeper--came to be aboard a ship seeking treasure, and to encounter Long John Silver's initial identity as a cook. Silver, incidentally, is referenced in J.M. Barrie's Peter Pan; he is said to be the only pirate that Captain Hook ever feared.
As one of the most frequently adapted and referenced works of literature, it was sometimes difficult to read the book without pulling in other associations. I actually kept imagining this old episode of Alvin and the Chipmunks, where Treasure Island is (more or less) told with Alvin as Jim Hawkins. The suspenseful scene in the apple barrel was diffused a bit, as I couldn't help picturing an animated chipmunk in cabin boy clothes curled up among the fruit.
Nonetheless, Treasure Island is an entertaining read. I admire how Stevenson narrates action scenes, in all their physicality, with patience and grace, and I'm intrigued by the section of the book that pulls out of the retrospective first-person narrator and moves to the first-person of another character.
With this novel of betrayals and mutinies, riches and murders, ingenuous trickery and bare-escapes, it's hard not to enjoy yourself. And to feel awed at all the millions of people--children especially--who have come before you to the book, and, like you, promised "just one more chapter" before going to bed.
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