Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson

Publisher – Various

Price – Various

Now Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson is a book that as a child growing up in the 1970s and 80s feels like its part of my DNA. There were countless films, tv versions and yet while I can remember a copy I got as a child I think all I ever read was a heavily abridged version. Yet Long John Silver, Treasure Island and the plot a shadow that pretty much defines how kids thought of pirates. Not sure if that is the same this side of Captain Jack Sparrow but even the Muppets have used this tale and so finally reading it properly, I found this a very unusual reading experience. It is not the book I thought it would be; I’m not sure it wholly stands up in 2022 and yet you can’t half see that it has had an impact on the adventure thriller that I think we still can be seen today.

A brief plot summary. Young Jim Hawkins runs an Inn with his parents; their Inn though though suffers from its tenant a retired seaman named Billy Bones who gets drunk too often; tells stories that Jim shouldn’t hear; loses his temper all the time and he constantly fears the appearance of a one-legged man. When a strange blind man arrives and leaves Bones with a mark named the Black Spot then Jim sees their tenant drop dead and fearing the Inn is to be ransacked, he and his mother search Bones’ room and take any money owed and a little package hidden in his trunk. Eventually it turns out Jim has found a treasure map for the infamous pirate Captain Flint whose hoard of loot was never found. Under the steer of a local Squire and Doctor Jim accompanies the men on a treasure hunt; but the ship’s cook a gregarious man known as Long John Silver has one leg. Betrayals and adventures will abound.

Something that jumps out which I had not realised previously Treasure Island is really a Victorian adventure fiction but set in the previous 18th century. This gives the book an interesting timelessness as it doesn’t sound like something from the time of Dickens as he adopts most of the time Jim’s voice who is writing up his adventures shortly after they happened. Jim comes across a more working-class hero literate; super knowledgeable about ships – so many sailing terms to learn – and has a earthy feel to taking things as they come and always do the right thing. Does he feel like a teenager – not really but this is written at a time when that wasn’t a concept, indeed I don’t think any more young kids would enjoy this as a reading experience but I think teenagers with a lot of patience probably could.

What really works is the opening. We have the mystery of Billy Bones; the reveal he is a pirate and then a dark night when the pirates return for some form of revenge on Bones. It’s punchy and cinematic which may explain why this story gets dramatised so often. Like so many thrillers to come we get the decent hero plunged unexpectedly into a dark adventure and its always enticing to see how they get out of it. Pirates are the renegades( the novel clearly saying are a bad group sweaty, drunk, lying and violent and yet they actually bring the story to life because they don’t have much honour. They are devious; can corrupt and they are very greedy. The main reveal of the book is that Jim and his team have trusted Long John Silver too much and eventually of the twenty odd crew they find over three quarters are or have turned pirates. Again, from terrorists taking over a skyscraper, thieves taking on a train, plane, ship etc we can see the bones of the high concept heist thriller. How can our heroes get out of this ends up being even more important than the treasure. We get set pieces of fights, betrayals and a memorable battle on the ship between young Jim and the devious and violent Israel Hands. These scenes work well and often tend to be the ones the adaptations will always use. Stevenson fills the book with tent poles to keep the story moving…just a shame about the tent itself.

What I think doesn’t work is the pacing. We get a meandering pace once we reach the island and a simple coracle ride to the ship that takes a lot of pages and delivers little. It’s a meandering to modern eyes rather than a tight paced thriller. The chapters read more like episodic issues and all a little padded. Once we get to the Island for me a lot of tension falls out of the novel for quite a while which didn’t really grab me a lot of the time. Perhaps for my modern eyes it needed a few more explosions, stunts, and reversals of fortune to tighten things up. Even one character’s supposedly sad death failed to work as the character didn’t really make an impact prior. Although one key character I think makes a big difference and made the book memorable.

Yep Long John Silver keeps the story moving. By warning us at the start to beware a one legged man we guess he is going to be bad but he is a very charismatic character. The reader is in from the start that you can’t trust him yet he does indeed come across as funny and kindly to Jim and then he have a scene where we hear him admit that he is very happy to turn against the officers once the treasure is found. There is a very violent scene as well when he kills a man using his crutch to break their back! These days we tend to think of him as anti-hero but this Silver is really more a villain who gets to turn sides when his own team lose faith in him. But he is the villain we love to see what he will do next for his own goals – again many future screen villains owe him a lot. He is more the gang boss turning evidence when caught than a decent man with a heart of gold – actually he’d be more likely to steal the gold. But without Silver the book would be boring as pretty much all the other characters are flat be they good and evil and even Jim hasn’t much depth he is loyal, true and pretty much able to do anything despite only working previously in an Inn as a teenager; these days a little more of an edge would be needed to make him work.

So did I enjoy this? On balance I found it interesting to see a proto-thriller but I did find my attention wander. Its dated – hardly any female characters and none of those get named plus the racist attitudes of the 19th century also raise their ugly head. It’s a short read that feels bloated but when Stevenson has a scene of action or suspense they really work – I’d had just loved a few more of them! If you’re interested to see where our version of pirates tend to come from then yo ho ho me hearties but otherwise I wonder as the century continues whether this book will be quietly buried under the sands of the past and only its imagery and villain lives on.