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Treasure Island (1881)

Them that die'll be the lucky ones.
-Treasure Island

The last few pirate movies (Hook and Cutthroat Island among them) have bombed so disastrously at the box office that it's hard to tell whether it was simply because they weren't very good or whether kids have abandoned the genre. I certainly hope it's the former, I'd hate to think that kids today are missing out on all the great pirate tales that we used to thrill too. Foremost of these was, of course, Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson.

I may well be wrong here, but it seems to me that Stevenson pioneered one of the central techniques of children's literature ; placing a child at the center of what might otherwise be a typical adult adventure novel. This simple but ingenious idea gives kids a character to identify with and allows the author to write from the child's perspective.

In the case of Treasure Island, young Jim Hawkins narrates the story of how he and Squire Trelawney, Dr. Livesey, and the enigmatic Long John Silver ended up on board the Hispaniola, looking for the lost treasure of the notorious pirate Captain John Flint. Packed with betrayals, battles, mutinies, and even a parrot squawking "Pieces of eight! Pieces of eight!", the book is the source for many of the enduring and beloved clichés of the genre.

This is a classic that each generation should discover anew. Heck, if enough kids start reading it again, maybe Hollywood will even take another crack at a pirate movie, this time a decent one.

(Reviewed:06-Sep-01)

Grade: (A+) Orrin C. Judd

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The blaze of hagiography in which he died seems to have incited critics to special fury. F. R. Leavis, in The Great Tradition, dismissed Stevenson as a romantic writer guilty of fine writing, and the critical community in general has designated him a minor author not worthy of the serious admiration that we accord his friend Henry James. People comment with amazement that Borges and Nabokov liked his work. This year marks the centenary of Stevenson's death, and I am not alone in believing that it is time to reconsider his reputation.

    -ESSAY: The story of Dr Jekyll, Mr Hyde and Fanny, the angry wife who burned the first draft (John Ezard, 24 Oct 2000, the Guardian)
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    -ESSAY: Jekyll/Hyde (Joyce Carol Oates, Winter 1988, The Hudson Review)
    -ESSAY: Robert Louis Stevenson: 10 strange facts about Jekyll and Hyde author (Martin Chilton, 3 DECEMBER 2015, The Telegraph)
    -ARTICLE: The terrifying ‘psychopath’ who inspired ‘Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde’ (Todd Venezia, November 6, 2016, NY Post)
    -ESSAY: The beast within: Freudian fable, sexual morality tale, gay allegory - Robert Louis Stevenson's classic novella of duality has inspired as many interpretations as it has film adaptations (James Campbell, 12 Dec 2008, The Guardian)

"Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde" belongs to everyone who has ever referred to themselves in the third person, or cursed their own "split personality", or praised their "better nature". The poet Hugo Williams has compressed the essence into a single line - "God give me strength to lead a double life" - a plea to be in two places at once, not necessarily legitimately, without the inconvenience of a guilty conscience.

FILMS :
    -FILMOGRAPHY : Robert Louis Stevenson (Imdb.com)
    -INFO : Treasure Island (1934) (Imdb.com)
    -REVIEW : of The Suicide Club (Game of Death) (Peter Stack, SF Chronicle)

Recommended books by Robert Louis Stevenson :
    -Treasure Island (1881)
    -Kidnapped (1886)
    -Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1886)
    -The Master of Ballantrae (1889)

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Treasure Island (1881)

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