Posted: March 11, 2022
Treasure Island
This story was meant to be an adventure for boys. I am an old man now but I have no problem summoning the boy who still lives inside me. And, having done so, I have enjoyed this story immensely.
I really like the Benbow Inn, in general I'm a big fan of inns. The Benbow being fog-enshrouded and remote soon catches my fancy.
This story is about pirates and is about the magic and adventure surrounding them. Robert Louis Stevenson starts us off with the introduction of Billy Bones and his ways then slowly ratchets things up with the inclusion of more and more pirates until we are in the pirate adventure that we all signed up for by opening a copy of "Treasure Island".
When they finally got to the island I enjoyed it immensely. My favorite views where from the high plateau when Silver and his company were on there treasure hunt. I also thrilled to the wild sea as Jim had his ocean adventure. The mysterious and unexplored Skeleton Island just off the mainland was also intriguing.
I was a bit surprised about one thing: Treasure Island is not a tropical island. I was expecting it to be somewhere in the Caribbean since that is mainly the location of the Golden Age of Piracy but the way it is described by Stevenson, Treasure Island seems to be a temperate isle. For example, it grew chilly in the morning. Chilly enough to warrant a fire. And pine trees grew on this island. I should know that this isn't the tropics, I live in the tropics. It never becomes so cold that a fire is needed and pine trees grow only in vast numbers in the mountains.
The ghost of Captain Flint haunts this tale. Long since dead, he is nonetheless a major part of the story. Incidentally, there is a Netflix series called "Black Flags" that is meant to be a prequel to "Treasure Island". Check that out if you want to see Captain Flint "in the flesh".
The story is designed so that we go into the adventure as Jim Hawkins but the central figure here is really Long John Silver. Silver is the bridge between the pirates and the so-called civilized folk, showing in himself characteristics of both. I have a feeling that "Treasure Island" was never meant to be read so deeply, but Long John Silver hints at the fact that good and evil are not so disparate from each other. He embodies, in himself, the more realistic situation that none of us are wholly good or wholly evil. We are a mix. We are complex. We are Long John Silver.
I enjoyed the adventure this tale has given me and I'll always look fondly at my time in Treasure Island.