Treasure Island

Shiver me timbers! It’s The Jolly Roger!

By thunder, if you don’t like this book, you might have to walk the plank!

The Green Light at the End of the Dock (How much I spent):
Softcover Text – $8.99 from Amazon (Penguin Classic)
Audiobook – Free through Libby

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3 items worthy of note in Robert Louis Stevenson's classic treasure "Treasure Island":

1) There are a ton of tropes! We understand that this is pretty much what Disney's Pirates of the Caribbean ripped off, making tons of money off of this adventurous classic, including but not limited to: rampant alcoholism; a code of honor; castaways (at sea or in land); shipwrecks (new and ancient); treason (group & individual) & double crosses; mutiny, hostages, captures and shocking escapes; strangers appearing from the mist & pirate flags; raresome slapstick comedy ("...[he] fell from his whole height face foremost to the floor." [16]) & good comedic timing (the parrot tells everybody The Secret, ruining plans); a compass made up entirely of human bones; & ghosts.

2)Jim Hawkins is your typical YA protagonist prototype. He's the go-between the two fighting groups, the one who bargains with the villain Long John Silver (mmm.... breaded fish and shrimp...yumm) and propels the narrative forward. He's the center; a dreamer; while he loses his humility he attains a coming-of-age wisdom that peaks at the point where he brandishes a pistol for the first time.

3)The plot resembles a Hollywood blockbuster. There is very little inaction, but when it occurs (such as the villain's cliched soliloquy or the factions grunting against their enemies) it does decelerate the pace of the story. Here is a very substantial urge to make everything explosive & loud. Thank you, Mr. Stevenson!

Really fast paced and thrilling! I would rather read a good, entertaining classic with convincing characters with an unpredictable plot than the average hyped books.

I love this book so much!

The writing is so easy and the plot twists are so well done. Yes, I am talking about a dark adventurous story of a boy who has the secret map of a treasure who has to go along with a bunch of cheeky adult men.

I love the writing more so because of the realistic characters (yes, I know the characters are based on times which is quite historical yet they do sound so alive and realistic like the adults us and so I like them for who they are despite their unlikeliest parts).

But damn I was up the entire day and night just to know what happens next each time until I reached the last line. That shows how thrilling the entire book is! The betrayals, the fights, the eerie moments the boy had to endure. It’s so worth it. The ending wraps up all the chaos and the games the characters played.

Yes, we have to survive the storm of a story here and close the book with a thud because it’s so damn satisfying how it ends!

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

This was a hoot to listen to as an audio book & very well narrated by Neil Hunt. This is the mother of every pirate story I've ever read or seen, I think. The language was incomprehensible at times, on purpose, as even Jim Hawkins wasn't sure he always got the right of it. If I ever hear "15 men on a dead man's chest" again, I'll scream.
;)

The characters were great, of course. Long John Silver is quite the rogue & Jim is the boy we all wish we were. Somehow our extraneous adventures never turned out half so well, unfortunately. Still, it was fun hoping.

I read this as a kid & it was great to go through it again after all these years. Definitely a classic.

Una de mis novelas preferidas porque está endiabladamente bien escrita, porque no puedes parar de leer, porque es pura aventura y por supuesto, por John Silver

Arr, me matey!
I've finally downed the children's classic, Treasure Island.
Sadly, these pirates weren't nearly as sexy as I was expecting. Where were all the sweaty pirate abs I've come to expect from the plethora of trashy romance novels I've gobbled down over the years?
Not here, that's for damn sure.



And mainly because of the overabundance of bodice rippers on my bookshelf, I felt like I maybe needed to expand my maritime horizons, and it seemed that going with a classic sailor story wouldn't be a bad way to accomplish that goal.



Unsurprisingly, this is a pretty boring book by today's standards. And if this was what they gave kids to read back in the day, I'm no longer shocked that people found long walks and/or journaling about said long walks a valid form of entertainment.



When I'm done churning this butter, should I whittle for a bit before we have a family sing-a-long around the fire?

Going to be totally honest, I don't understand the yearning for a simpler lifestyle, as this scenario sounds like my own personal version of Hell.



Alright!
Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson and why you should read it.
It's short! <--not as much of a time suck as Count of Monte Cristo
It's a classic! <-- therefore, you will sound classy
It's got pirates! <--remember: dirty rum-bloated pirates, not shirtless Fabio pirates
You can learn new drinking songs! <--Yo ho ho and a bottle of Zima, bitches



That all sounds great.
But what is Treasure Island about, Anne?
The gist is that our young hero, Jim Hawkins, has the shittiest luck ever.
His dad dies and leaves a tweenage Jim and his mother with a ramshackle inn to run, complete with a scary drunken sailor (Billy Bones) who's not too keen on paying his tab as a tenant.
He's what the kids these days call a scallywag.



Why does it matter that Bones is continually dodging rent?
Well, after Billy Bob meets his maker with the help of a few of his old sailing pals, Jim and his mother have to rifle through his things to get payment.
AND JIM FINDS A MAP. <--to a place called Treasure Island
*choir vocalizes*



Back in the day, if you found a map it was apparently adventure time. You and your neighbors would rent a ship, hire a sketchy crew, and set out for parts unknown full of high hopes that you'd be coming back with gold doubloons! The reality is that you'd be lucky to come back alive without scurvy or syphilis.
And dark thoughts like that are why I would have made a terrible pirate-adventurer...



The adults (of course) make some really bad decisions when it comes to securing an efficient crew. They have a competent captain, but instead of listening to him, they hire a fairly obvious villain as the cook and then proceed to take his advice over the captain's. This ensures they have quite a surly group of sailors to man the SS Mutiny.
Who is this cook?
Long John Silver. <--yes, exactly like the sub-par seafood restaurant!
When your cook's name is synonymous with chewy shrimp poppers and diarrhea, you might want to rethink your hiring process.



Luckily for all the grown-ups, Jim is a brave and hearty lad who manages to save the day! <--not really
Ok, so this was written back when it was a big deal to keep your word. Like, if you promised your kidnappers that you wouldn't try to run for it, then you couldn't try to run for it because that would make you a liar. Which, for some unfathomable reason, was worth more than your life.
SWEAR TO GOD, THESE OLD-TIMEY PEOPLE WERE RIDICULOUS.



Naturally, there comes a point in the story where Jim needed to hop a fence and get the hell out of there, but wouldn't - because INTEGRITY. And I suppose we're meant to think he's a better person for it, but all I could think was that maybe Stevenson based his story around a child with special needs.
Except, no. Because the doctor agreed with Jim, so apparently in the days of yore, the good guys couldn't just win, they had to win by a set of idiotic rules.
Which is nuts! What are you teaching our kids, Robert!?



Looking someone dead in the eyes whilst giving a firm handshake and lying through your teeth is a fucking lifeskill that every child needs to have perfected by adulthood in order to survive.



But whatever. This is a fantasy, so it all works out for our heroes.
They return home with their honor intact, a good bit of wealth, no STDs, and only a little bit of PTSD that kicks in whenever they hear a parrot squawk.



Read it. As far as classics go, you could do a lot worse than this one.

Michael Prichard - Narrator

“Fifteen men on the dead man's chest—Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum!”

3.5 stars

This book started many well-known sayings, nods and tributes towards pirates and the sea life - the love pirates have of rum, Long John Silver, treasure maps with the X marking the spot, the bird on the shoulder of the pirate, some of the songs...it all had to start somewhere, and apparently Treasure Island hit the spot.

It's filled with well-rounded, enjoyable characters - Jim as the main, a mere child, was easy to enjoy as he led most of the story through his viewpoint. Long John Silver was twisted but fascinating and, having not read the story before, I was surprised with some of the faces he showed. Yes, I've been living under a rock in that regard.

Stevenson is a good writer - his words make a smooth sailing experience, talented and pretty but keeping on point to hold up pacing.

Despite perks, the story itself is only average to me since I wanted a full fledged adventure and felt more could have been included. Skeleton Island had a personality we didn't get to fully explore, and most of what happened was predictable with little surprise. Sure, I didn't see some of the small twists, but overall the surprises weren't strong.

The book shines brightest at the beginning at the inn, but I thought it would keep going strong when they set sail. Instead sea travel is abbreviated and the rest of the book focuses mainly on the internal fighting of the men. While this was interesting, I'd like to see other things thrown in to shake things up. Keeping it a little basic makes it clear to me he was writing this more with young readers in mind.

Overall it was a book that started much and deserves its place as a classic treasure. The writing is well done, the characters rich, although the story is a little bare bones.