Today we are talking about Robert Lewis Stevenson, about the "Treasure Island". Of course, this is only one book from the boundless ocean of adventure literature. We can remember the beautiful Emilio Salgari, do you remember him? We can remember Rafael Sabatini, we can remember anyone, right up to Eugene Sue. These are absolutely wonderful books for boys, books, about adventures, about travels, about pirates, about everything that excites the boy's heart. But there is a special book, a separate one - "Treasure Island". This genre-forming thing, this book says something so important that it is very important to put it on the forefront.
It would seem that for the last, at least a century, it is necessary to write a new central book in this genre, but there is nothing like it. Stevenson did what brought him absolute immortality, it was this thing, not "Jekyll and Hyde". This is his business, as Alexander Feduta notes in his short but very deep, capacious article that he is interested in the principles of the psychology of the characters. And he takes seriously this psychology, in the children's book, in the book of a boy, in a book in which there is not a single woman in whom the theme of love is seriously developed, is absent as such. But this is not important, because the main thing is adventures, the main thing is the history of Jim Hawkins, the main thing is the story of the senior protagonist.
We hear an old, cracked voice. We hear the voice of a man who only closes his eyes and instantly sees and hears, and the sound of the waves, and a splash of water, and the rigging of rigging, and this knock of a wooden leg on the deck, and the hoarse scream of a parrot. What for? Because all this is alive in his memory, and all this constitutes the main page of his life. It happens that the main event is a journey that has already ended. What about the rest? The remaining decades of life are an understanding of this.
What would have happened if Jim had not found this card, and with him this journey would not have happened, swimming? The trajectory of life of all the characters is absolutely predictable. He will also work in a tavern, he will also talk with sailors, he will listen to sea bikes. Perhaps he would have become a sailor and somewhere floated, sailed, returned to the old, unnecessary, former sailor grinding the old men. This is a completely different, but predictable story.
What have we done? We got Jim, who remembers himself young, who tells this story "blazing". He is not able to "kindle" what is happening, he "lights up" the memory of this.
Of course, the story on behalf of the hero, the story of Robinson Crusoe, a story in which all points of view, all the narrator's accents, the course of his thought, which we can trace, as if looking into his head, is not the invention of Stevenson. But he did an amazing thing, he took a step to the side, we do not see the author in the book and, looking at the narrator, he feeds his story with his emotions.
Very interesting insight from Alexander Feduta. He correctly writes that the narrator narrates about the search for treasures, he is not given any motivation. Well, in fact, for the sake of the fact that people die there, for which they risk their lives, they go into deadly suspense, for what? For the sake of some amount, here is this pair of chests? What is it, this is not the greatest, and not God knows what an estate is, if it is divided into all participants, shareholders, a lifetime loan, well, the crew is richer, that's absolutely every day. This is for what, well, not for this, of course not! Simply, because it's an adventure with a capital letter! This is what the heart burns, that a person lives.
And here they go. "Hispaniola" is a perfect example of how events change a person. Because if you tell a story, not this story, some half-capture of a large company with the absorption of one firm by another, with its complex connections, at the end of the 20th century, what happens is the same story. We are against the backdrop of all these vicissitudes, against the backdrop of all these deceptions and intrigues, we see the psychology of the heroes. None of the characters are "flat," neither Livesay, nor Squire, nor pirates.
Flint was not afraid of anyone, but only one person was afraid - John Silver. What for? Because he is capable of much. This person, of course, does not stop for a moment before the murder, a man for whom there are no "good and evil" in our concepts, nevertheless he is also complex in nature, he has a lot in it. And this ambiguity of the characters makes the book magnificent works, and not just an adventure story.
And when we finish reading, we understand that this author, who took a step away from the narrator, was terribly envious of him, if we know the biography of Stevenson, I will not go into details, we will understand perfectly what business and what it is about.
Stevenson was a deeply sick man, morbid, a lifetime suffering from severe pain. He experienced this very hard, he endured it. And his work has just grown from this one here to lead to his own characters.
Read and enjoy - "Treasure Island".
PS. English is not my native language, so please forgive me for possible mistakes in the text. But I tried to convey their thoughts about the book, as far as I can allow knowledge of the language and with the help of online translator :) Thank you.
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