All the Secrets of the Universe and Some Really Important Stuff Too!
In the other gardens
And all up in the vale,
From the autumn bonfires
See the smoke trail!
Pleasant summer over,
And all the summer flowers,
The red fire blazes,
The grey smoke towers.
Sing a song of seasons!
Something bright in all!
Flowers in the summer,
Fires in the fall!
Robert Louis Stevenson
Even aside from his skills as a story-teller Robert Louis Stevenson is an interesting personality .and lived in interesting times. But I think I’ll save the biographical comments for one of the later chapters of this series. I’ll just say that if he had never written another line, Treasure Island would still be enough to ensure his place in the literary pantheon. I’ll say right at the beginning that I consider it the finest boy’s adventure story ever written. I guess I’ve given away my conclusion but that’s too bad.
The story is simple enough. Jim Hawkins is an English boy living in the 1700’s whose parents’ small seaside inn is visited by a mysterious old sailor whose bad character and eccentricities disturb the serenity of the place. And when his associates arrive to threaten him Jim and his mother are in fear of their lives. After a desperate struggle Jim is stunned to find that he has stumbled on a treasure map from the dread pirate Flint and with the help and backing of the local squire, John Trelawney and his friend Dr. Livesey Jim finds himself on a treasure hunt on the good ship Hispaniola.
But Trelawney unwisely picks his own crew and unknowingly allows a one-legged former pirate named Long John Silver to man the Hispaniola with himself and the rest of Captain Flint’s old crew. And the story chronicles the struggle between Jim, his friends and the intrepid Captain Smollett against this gang of cutthroats. But surprisingly, John Silver is by far the most interesting character and Stevenson somehow manages to make him an attractive villain. Without a doubt he is just as evil and murderous as the rest of the buccaneers but at the same time he is intelligent and even affable in his villainy.
Throughout the story Jim becomes the means by which the good characters manage to survive the long odds stacked against them. And it is these lucky breaks and courageous decisions that provide the pivot points to move the story along. Stevenson has managed to keep the plot taut and the story moves along nice and briskly. And all the characters, even the pirates are filled in very skillfully and moments of humor and pathos are well written. This book has been made into motion pictures several times and the 1934 version with Wallace Beery as Silver is extremely faithful to the book and quite enjoyable but I would recommend letting boys read or have read to them this book. It’s a fantastic story and will fire the imagination of any boy who hears it.
Very highly recommended matey! Certain it is!
I posted this as a daily quote back in 2018. But I like it, so I’m posting it again. It speaks to a resiliency in the human soul that I admire. I recently found out that Henley was the inspiration for the Long John Silver character in Treasure Island. Robert Louis Stevenson was another talented character from Victorian England. That they were friends is interesting. I’ll have to do some reading on both of them.
INVICTUS
Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.
In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.
Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find me, unafraid.
It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.
I have always thought Treasure Island is the quintessential adventure story for boys. The film versions are also good fun but reading the story I find can almost make me feel twelve years old again. Well maybe fourteen anyway. Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum.
3 The Black Spot ABOUT noon I stopped at the captain's door with some cooling drinks and medicines. He was lying very much as we had left him, only a little higher, and he seemed both weak and excited. “Jim,” he said, “you're the only one here that's worth anything, and you know I've been always good to you. Never a month but I've given you a silver fourpenny for yourself. And now you see, mate, I'm pretty low, and deserted by all; and Jim, you'll bring me one noggin of rum, now, won't you, matey?” “The doctor--” I began. But he broke in cursing the doctor, in a feeble voice but heartily. “Doctors is all swabs,” he said; “and that doctor there, why, what do he know about seafaring men? I been in places hot as pitch, and mates dropping round with Yellow Jack, and the blessed land a-heaving like the sea with earthquakes--what to the doctor know of lands like that?--and I lived on rum, I tell you. It's been meat and drink, and man and wife, to me; and if I'm not to have my rum now I'm a poor old hulk on a lee shore, my blood'll be on you, Jim, and that doctor swab”; and he ran on again for a while with curses. “Look, Jim, how my fingers fidges,” he continued in the pleading tone. “I can't keep 'em still, not I. I haven't had a drop this blessed day. That doctor's a fool, I tell you. If I don't have a drain o' rum, Jim, I'll have the horrors; I seen some on 'em already. I seen old Flint in the corner there, behind you; as plain as print, I seen him; and if I get the horrors, I'm a man that has lived rough, and I'll raise Cain. Your doctor hisself said one glass wouldn't hurt me. I'll give you a golden guinea for a noggin, Jim.” He was growing more and more excited, and this alarmed me for my father, who was very low that day and needed quiet; besides, I was reassured by the doctor's words, now quoted to me, and rather offended by the offer of a bribe. “I want none of your money,” said I, “but what you owe my father. I'll get you one glass, and no more.” When I brought it to him, he seized it greedily and drank it out. “Aye, aye,” said he, “that's some better, sure enough. And now, matey, did that doctor say how long I was to lie here in this old berth?” “A week at least,” said I. “Thunder!” he cried. “A week! I can't do that; they'd have the black spot on me by then. The lubbers is going about to get the wind of me this blessed moment; lubbers as couldn't keep what they got, and want to nail what is another's. Is that seamanly behaviour, now, I want to know? But I'm a saving soul. I never wasted good money of mine, nor lost it neither; and I'll trick 'em again. I'm not afraid on 'em. I'll shake out another reef, matey, and daddle 'em again.” As he was thus speaking, he had risen from bed with great difficulty, holding to my shoulder with a grip that almost made me cry out, and moving his legs like so much dead weight. His words, spirited as they were in meaning, contrasted sadly with the weakness of the voice in which they were uttered. He paused when he had got into a sitting position on the edge. “That doctor's done me,” he murmured. “My ears is singing. Lay me back.” Before I could do much to help him he had fallen back again to his former place, where he lay for a while silent. “Jim,” he said at length, “you saw that seafaring man today?” “Black Dog?” I asked. “Ah! Black Dog,” says he. “HE'S a bad un; but there's worse that put him on. Now, if I can't get away nohow, and they tip me the black spot, mind you, it's my old sea-chest they're after; you get on a horse--you can, can't you? Well, then, you get on a horse, and go to--well, yes, I will!--to that eternal doctor swab, and tell him to pipe all hands--magistrates and sich--and he'll lay 'em aboard at the Admiral Benbow--all old Flint's crew, man and boy, all on 'em that's left. I was first mate, I was, old Flint's first mate, and I'm the on'y one as knows the place. He gave it me at Savannah, when he lay a-dying, like as if I was to now, you see. But you won't peach unless they get the black spot on me, or unless you see that Black Dog again or a seafaring man with one leg, Jim--him above all.” “But what is the black spot, captain?” I asked. “That's a summons, mate. I'll tell you if they get that. But you keep your weather-eye open, Jim, and I'll share with you equals, upon my honour.”
After finishing up my review of Galaxy’s Edge – Galactic Outlaws, it occurred to me that there was more to say about the category of Space Opera. Some might say that I was a little unfair to social justice fiction fans. After all there must be a significant audience of fans with blue hair and cats who really enjoy girl power super heroes and their adventures in space. So, to say that these are automatically bad just because I heartily dislike them might seem arbitrary and unfair. It might seem that way but it isn’t. And that’s because I am the final arbiter of good and bad in science fiction. I earned this coveted status by living long enough to see everything in the world. So, once again, all Star Wars movies after Return of the Jedi (and even some parts of them before that point) are irredeemably bad and should be cast into the outer darkness where there is much wailing and gnashing of teeth. And that lines us up for me to proclaim what does make a good space opera. What follows is:
“photog’s RULE FOR WHAT MAKES GOOD SPACE OPERA” (patent pending).
It needs to appeal to the sense of wonder of the twelve-year-old boy in you. Now mind you, it doesn’t have to only do that. It can also be a brilliant philosophical treatise on the dualistic nature of the universe or a psychological study of the impact of technology on the human race, or even a deathless love story written across the stars of the galaxy. But if it fails to inspire the twelve-year-old boy in you it’s not space opera. It may be science fiction or anything else but it isn’t space opera. And this isn’t even an exclusive precinct of science fiction. Any adventure story has to satisfy that same basic requirement. Take the literature of the late nineteenth century or early twentieth century. A quintessential example that comes to mind is Treasure Island. Here is a story that was tailor made for the sense of wonder of a twelve-year-old boy. It has all the earmarks of the tale of wonder. The boy who loses his father, the quest for riches, exotic locales, colorful and dangerous opponents, the revelation of secret knowledge, the coming of age experience of the world and the people in it. An adventure story is a story for a boy that kindles his interest in the world around him. It leads him to think there is more to life than school and chores. It inspires him to strike out on his own and find his place in the world.
Now I can just hear the modern women and girly men screeching, “Girls want adventure too!” To which I reply “Stop screeching, you’re hurting my ears.” But also, I would say that what girls want is neither here nor there. Boys need the adventure story because it fits their brains. Girls have been told that they want adventure stories so they want them in order not to get left out in the modern #metoo world that they live in. And in fact, I don’t really care if there are adventure stories for girls. More power to them, I guess. What I do mind is that for the sake of inclusiveness they are ruining all the adventure stories that are coming out of Hollywood. And that is why I look for good old (and new) space opera and other adventure stories for my grandsons (and for me).
Robert Heinlein used this poem as the inspiration of a science fiction story and included the poem in the text.
Requiem
Under the wide and starry sky
Dig the grave and let me lie:
Glad did I live and gladly die,
And I laid me down with a will.
This be the verse you ‘grave for me:
Here he lies where he long’d to be;
Home is the sailor, home from sea,
And the hunter home from the hill.
(written 1880)
Robert Louis Stevenson. 1850–1894
Robert Louis Stevenson is the author of a number of interesting stories including the “Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde,” “Kidnapped” and “Treasure Island.” I’ve always thought Treasure Island is one of the best boy’s stories ever written. I give a copy to each of my grandsons when he reaches the age where he can read it. It is one of the best.
Treasure Island has been made into a movie several times by Hollywood but for my money the best by a mile is the 1934 version with Victor Fleming directing. It stars Jackie Cooper as the boy hero Jim Hawkins and Wallace Beery as the pirate chief Long John Silver. Cooper was a kid actor in the Little Rascals series and also known for melodramatic roles in some big movies. Beery was a big star of the time who appeared in both comic and dramatic roles. The idea of using American actors in this British story seems ridiculous. Cooper doesn’t even pretend to use a British accent. He speaks in an obviously 20th century American accent. Beery uses a very stagey 18th century English accent. This is also the case with the rest of the cast. There is one actual brit Nigel Bruce (of Sherlock Holmes’ Doctor Watson fame) in the cast but he doesn’t come off any more authentic than any of the other actors. On the face of it, it seems impossible that anything good would emerge. But it does. It’s the best.
The story entertains at every turn. Boys from six to a hundred and six love this movie because it has everything they want. Treasure, pirates, sailing ships (the Hispaniola), desert islands, battles with flintlocks and cutlasses, and all manner of exciting adventure. The movie version takes some liberties with the book (mostly to put Long John Silver in a slightly better light) but the adaption is faithful to the spirit of the story and it remains solidly entertaining.
One of my favorite scenes is Jim Hawkins confronting the pirate, Israel Hands, while Jim is stealing the Hispaniola from the pirates to forestall the use of the ship’s cannons against his friends in the besieged blockhouse. In that scene Jim needs to be brave and resourceful and no adult is there to help him against a deadly adversary. In other scenes, the comedy inherent in his conversations with the ruthless but personable Long John Silver are memorable.
I guess what makes it timeless is the young protagonist proving himself a heroic and resourceful figure in the company of men, both good men and truly evil men. Basically it’s the same formula in the greek myths and every other hero coming of age story.
If you have a son or a grandson or a nephew or other boy who enjoys adventure (as most boys do) buy him the book and after he’s read it give him the movie to watch. And make some popcorn and watch it with him. You’ll enjoy it and so will he. Certain he will matey. Certain he will.