(Reprinted from the Chicago Center for Literature and Photography [cclapcenter.com:]. I am the original author of this essay, as well as the owner of CCLaP; it is not being reprinted here illegally.)The CCLaP 100: In which I read for the first time a hundred so-called "classics," then write essays on whether or not they deserve the labelEssay #32: Treasure Island (1883), by Robert Louis StevensonThe story in a nutshell:Inspired by a doodle from his step-son and originally written as a rainy-day family diversion, the slim 1883 children's book Treasure Island (originally published serially in 1881 and '82) was not only the first novel of sickly genre author Robert Louis Stevenson's short career, but eventually one of his most famous. Essentially the tale of young adventurer Jim Hawkins, the story opens with him as a dutiful mama's boy off the southwest coast of England, helping to run a family inn that sees little action because of being located much more inland than most of the other local sailor-oriented hotels. Ah, but this is exactly what brings the drunken, scary Billy Bones there, where it becomes quickly apparent that he is on the run and in semi-hiding from a whole crew of mysterious, nefarious characters; and when they finally show up after Bones' alcoholism-related death, the family realizes that they are in fact pirates, on the hunt for a treasure map that Bones stole from a recent mutinous voyage that went horribly, horribly wrong. This then convinces a group of local Victorian gentlemen and family friends to go after the treasure themselves, eventually buying a boat and hiring a local crew to take them to this far-off tropical island; but little do they realize that the sailors they've hired are none other than the surviving pirates of the former mutiny, led by the charismatic yet psychopathic one-legged "ship's cook" Long John Silver, who plan on turning on the ship's owners once actually reaching the island and retrieving the treasure they were forced to leave behind during their last voyage. The rest of the book, then, is essentially an adventure tale, full of all kinds of legitimate surprises that I won't spoil here; let's just say that a lot of swashbuckling takes place, that many details regarding ship-sailing are faithfully recorded, and that the day is eventually saved by our fast-thinking teenage hero Jim, no surprise at all for a book designed specifically to amuse fellow teenage boys.The argument for it being a classic:Well, to begin with, it's arguably the most famous pirate tale ever written, and in fact established for the first time many of the stereotypes now known within the genre, including one-legged buccaneers, treasure maps with a big 'X' on them, shoulder-sitting parrots squawking "Pieces of eight! Pieces of eight!," and even the very idea of British pirates being associated with exotic tropical islands in the Caribbean, an association now so strong that it's almost impossible to separate the two; and of course it's also the novel that created the unforgettable Long John Silver, now a thoroughly ingrained part of our Western culture at large. Add to this that it's simply an incredibly thrilling tale (rumor has it that England's Prime Minister at the time stayed up until two in the morning to finish his first reading of it), that it still holds up surprisingly well even 126 years later, and that it's also of immense importance to fans of Stevenson, a prolific author whose genius is just now starting to be widely recognized, after being dismissed by the literary community for almost a century as a frivolous "kiddie writer;" and now add to all this that Treasure Island is a surprisingly sophisticated examination of the era's ethics and moral code as well, taking an unblinking look at the "Victorian Ideal" as manifested in different ways among the stuffy gentlemen "heroes" (unable to improvise in changing circumstances, much to their detriment), the anarchic pirate villains (who almost kill themselves off just on their own, through drunkenness, ignorance and jealousy), and the ruthless yet principled Silver who straddles both these extremes.The argument against:A weak one at best; like many of the genre prototypes of the late Victorian Age, one could argue that this is simply too flippant a tale to be considered a classic. But we already established a long time ago here at the CCLaP 100 that genre stories are indeed eligible for "classic" status in this series, making this argument inapplicable in our case.My verdict:Holy crap! What an incredible book! And what a refreshing change in this case to not have to add my usual caveat to statements like these regarding late Victorian genre experiments: "...you know, for a century-old children's story that's kind of outdated and that you need to take with a grain of salt." Because the fact is that Treasure Island to this day still reads as fresh and exciting as the day it came out, which is a real testament to the writing skills of Robert Louis Stevenson (who I was already a big fan of before this essay series even started, because of his superbly creepy and also surprisingly relevant Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde); what a shame that this illness-plagued author ended up dying at the age of 44 in the prime of his career, instead of surviving to pen the truly mindblowing mature works I'm convinced that he had been capable of. And it's exactly for the reasons that his fans bring up that this book remains such an amazing one, and how it is that it can still easily be read for pleasure instead of having to force one's way through for historical purposes; because it is indeed not only a thrilling adventure tale, not only written in a style that largely rejects the purplish finery of the Victorian Age in which it was created, but is also a deceptively complex look at the entire nature of "gentlemanness" that was so prevalent at the time, gently poking holes in the entire notion of what it means to be a Refined Citizen of the Empire, even while acknowledging that a complete disavowal of these gentlemanly standards is even worse. There's a very good reason that Long John Silver has endured so strongly in our collective imagination over the last century, when so many other fictional pirates have fallen by the wayside, because he turns out to be a surprisingly complicated character worth coming back to again and again, a vicious killer but with a consistent internal moral code worth perversely admiring; it's but one of many reasons that I confidently label this book a undeniable classic today, and highly recommend it to anyone on the search for the best of 19th-century literature.Is it a classic? Absolutely
Treasure Island was a swash-buckling adventure where the stakes were high and the Gentlemen of Fortune weren't so gentle when seeking their fortune. I absolutely loved this book. Having never read it before, I picked it up because it looked to be a quick read, and I had books on route to my house and not much time before they got here, I thought I'd get another quick read off my list of classics. Immediately upon reading I wanted to get on a boat and search for buried treasure, but settled for playing in the sandbox in the backyard. Stevenson brings to life characters in a new and frightening way that held me captivated, in which Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde failed to do. He writes in such a way in this novel, that the characters come to life vividly and with great detail in my mind as I read, even though, when I later went back to re-read parts, the characters weren't defined nearly as minutely as I thought they were. I don't attribute this to my own imagination though. I think Stevenson's brilliance lies in the meticulous vagueness of his descriptions, allowing the reader to take the direction of their choosing with the character's appearance. A perfect example of this is in Ben Gunn. My husband and I were watching Treasure Island with Eddie Izzard, and he commented on the age of Gunn, saying he'd seen another movie where he was old, opposed to this one, in which he was younger in age. So then I thought back to the book and wondered, what age was he? So I looked it up, and really, it could be interpreted in so many ways: "...unlike any man I had ever seen, stooping almost double as it ran..." - As an animal or from old age? "...his voice sounded hoarse and awkward, like a rusty lock. I could now see he was a white man like myself, and that his features were even pleasing. His skin, wherever it was exposed, was burnt by the sun; even his lips were black; and his fair eyes looked quite startling in so dark a face. Of all the beggar men I had seen or fancied, he was the chief for raggedness." - Old? Young? "...I was a civil, pious, boy..." - Speaking of when he was young, makes me see him as older. "You're a good lad, Jim..." - He calls Hawkins a lad, which makes him seem older to me, but then, how old is old? For the time it was and the longevity of life span, especially for the pirates with so hazardous a life, they didn't live long. So maybe in his thirties? Besides the wonderful characters, the chapters were breathtaking, causing me to sit at the edge of my seat with each page turn. What a wonderfully suspenseful tale with such colorful inhabitants! Even the slang was picturesque, with nicknames like "Barbeque" for Silver, and "Long John's Earrings" for the ropes strung across the ships decks that allowed our favorite character to pass easily from port to starboard with his one leg. And even though the movie I saw gave a satisfying death to the despicable Trelawney, I'm rather glad that the book left him alive at the end. It wasn't what I expected and it was more true to life. The abhorrent man, who puts himself off as one of the good guys, never seems to be the one with a bad run of luck. And although Muppet Treasure Island was not exactly true to the original story, (the Captain a frog?), it was still surprisingly accurate in most aspects of the novel, which is something I've always enjoyed about the Muppets, especially in The Christmas Carol. Overall, it was a superb book and an intoxicating adventure. A natural classic, with a huge following, underlying themes, and above all, a great deal of the Magic Factor, it's a story that will live through the ages and continue to be adapted in many ways and various forms for years to come. Treasure Island is a beloved tale for both young and older readers alike. I highly recommend it. ClassicsDefined.com
What do You think about Treasure Island (2001)?
I dont know, I've read dissertations on Long John Silver, easily the deepest character on the ship. He puts the "Gentleman" into Gentleman of Fortune. Plus Hawkins is supposed to be, what, fourteen? Show me a fourteen year old that isn't stereotypical :D
—Anthony
I'd never actually read this book before. I think I'd only seen movie versions of the story - which meant that I heard Tim Curry's voice every time Long John Silver opened his mouth to speak.Despite this distraction (and yes, I loved the Muppet version of the story), I was able to get into the story for its own sake. I found the first person narration by Jim the best part of the book because of the perspective it gave the whole adventure - after all, Jim's in it for the glory, as a boy would be, and not the money that his adult companions obviously hope to make. Jim's view is vindicated in the end as well when all the bad or questionable guys in the book end up blowing their wad, while he and the good guys are 'richer' for the experience.I enjoyed Jim's narration so much that I was disappointed when the episode in the stockade shifted from his perspective instead of just being told retrospectively. Seeing the action from Jim's point of view also allowed the reader to anticipate Jim's own responses. For example, as an adult reader, the sailors (pirates) "inability" to capture Black Dog after chasing him out of Long John's pub confirms the reader's suspicions about Long John (they'd been aroused earlier, but without substantiation) but Jim, being a child, takes a little longer to realize it. This creates a kind of narrative tension that's thoroughly enjoyable and is obviously what Stevenson wanted to do in choosing to narrate from the boy's perspective.Fun book - almost as much fun as the muppets!
—Michele
I thought I had read Treasure Island several times when I was a kid, but I recently saw during a visit to my childhood home the edition I read, a very slim children's abridged version. So I obviously needed to read the real thing. Unfortunately, I didn't have a picture on every other page to look at this time. Bummer. But this book is not hard to love; it's the epitome of the adventure novel. Jim Hawkins is Tom Sawyer without the Quixotic madness and meanspirited trickery (although he can be a bit of a wuss, as he faints or swoons every chance he gets.)The fate of Long John Silver, though... I thought I knew what was going to happen to the monopedal pirate. I was positive he was going to sneak off the ship at the end with a rowboat full of treasure, but weighed down by his greed, his boat would sink and he'd have to swim back to the island where he'd remain marooned in his own purgatory. That's not what happened, but that IS what should have happened. That's one thing the Jim Henson company got right in their adaptation. Actually, they got a lot of things right.
—Christopher
