Treasure Island by Robert L. Stevenson

I must first apologise for not posting anything in a long time. I had to delete and transfer the blog to this new domain because of its association with my old email address. I have also had to dedicate a lot of time to doing coursework, but despite this I have still been reading excessively and once my coursework deadlines are over at the end of this month I will start frequently creating posts. Some of the books I have read and will post about soon are Jesse Norman MPs work on Edmund Burke, Lord of the Rings/many other Tolkien books, My Life by Sir Oswald Mosley, Frankenstein, introductory books to philosophy, and more. Anyway, in late summer I read Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island, and I thought this would be a great book to review to get back into the swing of blog writing.

Until very recently I never really touched on fiction as I didn’t see any value in it. I viewed it as an incredible waste of time as I didn’t feel any knowledge was gained upon completing the book. However, after viewing Peter Hitchens question time performance, a video which has come to be known as ‘furnish your minds’, I was successfully sold the idea that to truly be in touch with one’s nation one must understand its literature as well as history. I have a lot of catching up to do. I had read Dracula a year or two ago, but aside from that I had never really touched any other fiction of historic value; so when I seen a copy of Treasure Island in a charity shop for £1 I snapped it up. I thought it would be a perfect place to start, and that it would be a nice short read alongside The Life of Enoch Powell.

The opening chapters were brilliant. The atmosphere of the ‘Admiral Benbow’ Inn was immense, and I really grew to like the character of Billy Bones, only for him then to be stolen away by the Sea Cooks minions early on. The true genius of this book however, rests on the character of Long John Silver, who is ruthless, sly and charismatic. So charismatic that he wins the reader over at multiple times only to reveal his true intentions and leave you feeling embarrassed at getting drawn in. His shining example of this is in the chapter set in the stockade in which he musters all his wordsmith abilities to squash a mutiny and simultaneously keep safe their captive –the hero cabin boy Jim Hawkins- who Silvers crew would like very much to execute for his continued meddling in their designs. At first glance one believes that Silver may actually have pulled through as a hidden hero and is saving the life of Jim Hawkins out of kindness, but just as he’s managed to reel you in, you discover the true intentions of his motivations. Without giving too much away, his move can only be described as an insurance policy.

This was a great book to read while taking a break from reading the mammoth book of Enoch Powell and it has now found a place in my nostalgia bank, due to my frequently retiring to the garden shed with a bowl of pipe tobacco to indulge in it. I would certainly recommend anyone how has a love of his nation’s literature to get this one under the belt.