There are a lot of Sea Stories out there, and this is one of the better-known, but it hardly outshines its genre. I found myself missing the humor and vivid characterization of Conrad, not to mention the insightful philosophical asides. I also found it somewhat lacking as an adventure story, as the plot was somewhat simplistic and contrived, following the empty avatar of a narrator through various vicarious thrills.

There's nothing wrong with an escapist yarn, but a good one keeps you riveted with twists and turns, alternating verisimilitude and the unlikely. It's not as if it's a problem of period, either, since The Three Musketeers is one of the most rollicking and engrossing adventure stories ever written.

One must take into consideration the fact that Treasure Island is one of those genre-defining works which has been rehashed and plundered by a thousand authors since, until it is ingrained in our culture as The representation of piratical life. Like Neuromancer, many of the tropes and plot points might seem unoriginal, but that's only because they have been copied so frequently that we are no longer capable of recognizing their origin.

Yet, this isn't the case for all genre-defining works. The Virginian still stands out when compared with any other Western and The Moonstone remains unique despite all the Mysteries that have dutifully followed it. The difference is the author's verve and style, because even if later authors can copy his ideas, copying his style will prove beyond their skill. An author who is good enough to recreate another author's style already has a unique voice of their own.

It's curious to compare this with Poe's sole outing in the novel, The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket, which has the voice and unpredictability Treasure Island lacks, but doesn't provide the same lilting tone or straightforward plot, leaving each as interesting artifacts in the genre, even if neither can claim to be a complete vision.

But then, it is often incomplete visions that provide the greatest inspiration, since they illuminate flaws and pitfalls, providing an outline for later authors and a caution of what should be avoided. Few people have come away from a book they couldn't possibly outdo feeling inspired to create, whereas reading a flawed but entertaining book can be the perfect jolt to a prospective author. But then, a book that inspires other authors to write could hardly help being the influential anchor from which the rest of a genre depends, so such flaws end up serving a purpose, if inadvertently.

What drew me to this book, more than anything, is my desire to understand the unique literary mind of Mervyn Peake, one of the most powerful authors in the English language. Peake often invoked this as a favorite book, and produced a powerful series of illustrations for it. In these illustratios, one begins to see what Peake took away from Stevenson, as an author.

While this is, to some degree, a story about simple characters, particularly the narrator, it is also a very dark tale, particularly for a children's classic. The death and deceit of the tale come out in Peake's drawings, as does the grotequerie.

This darkness is undeniably there, but truthfully, I barely noted it until I looked at Peake's vision. To some degree, Sea Stories always bear this kind of horror, a world of conflict, the unforgiving sea, headhunting cannibals, and death a cheap thing. Poe and Conrad each outdo Stevenson in unsettlement, but in different ways.

Poe's tends to be more purely visual, as is always his obsession in writing. It is the languid, lingering description that Poe gives to the leering face of a gull-bitten corpse that drives home the darkness of this life.

Conrad, on the other hand, gives us horror in the eyes of his characters. He doesn't shy away from the pure physicality of the unpleasant world, but where it lingers is in the mind's eye; visions which can never be erased, which will forever taint our everyday actions.

But Stevenson gives us neither. His adventure tale holds plenty of fear, but when young Jim murders a pirate, gruesome as it is, it rarely lingers either as vignette or psychological crack. Of course, he had a different notion of the maturity of a ten-year-old than we do today, where childhood lasts into the twenties, but we don't get the psychological progression we expect from a man coming to terms with death.

These moments and reflections are not entirely absent, but they tend to get lost in the fleeting, episodic style of the story. But I'm glad for Treasure Island, if only because it inspired Peake to expand upon this tale of a precocious boy drawn inexorably into a dark world of grotesque characters in his unfinished magnum opus, the Gormenghast series.

Not my cup of rum! Phasenweise ganz nett zu lesen, aber ich bekam die Stimme von Captain Blaubär nicht aus dem Ohr, der elendlanges Seemannsgarn spann. Piratengeschichten sind nicht mein Ding. Die Buchillustrationen in der Ausgabe waren künsterlich fürchterlich und hinsichtlich der Gewaltdarstellung mir zu grausam. Nichts, was ich meinen Kindern vorgelesen hätte. Und da künftige Enkel auch davon verschont bleiben sollen, wandert das Buch wieder in den öffentlichen Bücherschrank, wo es auch herkam.

“Fifteen men on the dead man’s chest—
Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum!
Drink and the devil had done for the rest—
Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum!”

With this shanty ringing in the air begins the best pirate adventure.
Follow young Jim Hawkins from his home in the Admiral Benbow Inn on the English coast, through the deep seas of the Atlantic, to Treasure Island. Late in the voyage he discovers that most of the ship's crew are pirates with the worst one of all (Long John Silver) appearing to be his close friend.

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The Treasure Map
The paper had been sealed in several places with a thimble by way of seal; the very thimble, perhaps, that I had found in the captain’s pocket. The doctor opened the seals with great care, and there fell out the map of an island, with latitude and longitude, soundings, names of hills and bays and inlets, and every particular that would be needed to bring a ship to a safe anchorage upon its shores. It was about nine miles long and five across, shaped, you might say, like a fat dragon standing up, and had two fine land-locked harbours, and a hill in the centre part marked “The Spy-glass.” There were several additions of a later date, but above all, three crosses of red ink—two on the north part of the island, one in the southwest—and beside this last, in the same red ink, and in a small, neat hand, very different from the captain’s tottery characters, these words: “Bulk of treasure here.”

Promises kept?
“Ah,” said Silver, “it were fortunate for me that I had Hawkins here. You would have let old John be cut to bits, and never given it a thought, doctor.”

“Not a thought,” replied Dr. Livesey cheerily.

A likeable rogue
Long John Silver is bad, but has a heart of gold. He had killed many men in order to keep his promises and his chance of getting his share of pirate gold.

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Enjoy!

3.75

Un libro da leggere con gli occhi dei ragazzi, quei ragazzi che riescono ancora a sognare e a credere nel bene, pieni di voglia di fare e desiderosi d’avventura. È un libro di intrattenimento e di svago, un ottimo mezzo per staccare la spina e intraprendere un viaggio per mare.

Stevenson ha la rara capacità di riuscire a trasmettere la salinità del mare con due parole di descrizione, riesce al inquadrare un personaggio dandone una rappresentazione veloce, uno schizzo, che trasmette tutta la mentalità e l’aspetto fisico del figuro.
Narrare attraverso gli occhi di Jim permette all’autore di far immedesimare il proprio pubblico, quello dei ragazzi e dei “giovani dentro”, quello dei fautori di immaginari voli pindarici, con il ragazzo che lascia tutto per un’avventura. I personaggi che incontra sono iconici: c’è il vecchio barbuto che fugge dagli altri nascondendo un tesoro, c’è il capitano senza gamba, il pappagallo parlante, il “povero” spiaggiato. Insomma, un po’ di tutto. Lo stesso Stevenson ammette di aver preso spunto, magari inconsciamente, dalle letture da lui fatte. Ma quello che ci trasmette è, non una scopiazzatura, quanto una storia che trasuda voglia di avventura e gioventù.

Mi è piaciuta anche la nota alla fine del libro, in cui l’autore dà alcuni consigli a chi volesse intraprendere quel viaggio che è scrivere un romanzo. In questo spazio, infatti, Stevenson ci racconta il motivo per cui ha deciso di scrivere L’isola del tesoro. E ci rivela anche i suoi trucchi: partire da una mappa, per esempio. Ecco, questo dovrebbe dimostrare la genialità e la fantasia di questo autore, capace di scrivere un romanzo iconico partendo da una semplice mappa, per di più inventata.

Mi dicono che al mondo ci sono persone non attratte dalle mappe; mi riesce difficile crederlo.
Anche a me, Robert, anche a me.


Condivido ciò che dice Calvino e che riporta Domenico Scarpa nell’introduzione: l’autore italiano trova più bella di tutte la prima parte, quando l’avventura si prepara ma non è ancora incominciata. Non posso che essere d’accordo: ho amato la frenesia della preparazione della nave, della meraviglia di Jim davanti a tutto.

Benché avessi vissuto tutta la vita sulla costa, mi parve di non essermi mai avvicinato al mare prima di allora. Era nuovo anche l’odore del catrame e della salsedine. Vidi le più meravigliose polene che mai avessero solcato gli oceani; vidi molti vecchi marinai con gli anelli alle orecchie, i baffi arricciati, i codini incatramati e quella loro tipica andatura goffa e spavalda; non avrei provato beatitudine più grande se avessi veduto altrettanti re o arcivescovi.

Veramente ben fatta.

E poi le descrizioni dei luoghi, dell’isola in particolare. Indimenticabili.

... nonostante il sole splendesse luminoso e cocente, gli uccelli marini pescassero e stridessero intorno a noi, e si poteva quindi pensare che chiunque sarebbe stato contento di scendere a terra dopo tanto tempo in mare, io mi sentii mancare, e fin dalla prima occhiata odiai la sola idea dell’isola del tesoro.

Oppure

Non ho mai visto il mare calmo intorno all’isola del tesoro. Il sole poteva splendere alto, l’aria essere priva di alito di vento, la superficie liscia e azzurra, ma i cavalloni continuavano a rovesciarsi lungo l’intera costa esterna, rombando e rombando giorno e notte; e non credo vi sia un solo punto nell’isola dove non giunga il loro fragore.


L’isola del tesoro non è un romanzo da analizzare, è un romanzo da vivere e godersi, magari proprio vicino al mare, per sentire con tutti i sensi la storia che si sta leggendo.

Una bella lettura, che avrei apprezzato ancora di più se fossi stata una tredicenne: a quella età bevevo libri di avventura. Consigliato!

Ps: ho adorato gli scambi tra i “pirati”, il loro modo di creare insulti giusti per il loro campo, come “marinaio di acqua dolce”.

Libro letto per la Most-Read-Books Challenge