Book #6 Treasure Island
Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson
Jim Hawkins works at the inn where Billy Bones spends the last few months of his life. When he dies, Jim gets his treasure map, whereupon he embarks on a treasure hunt.
Well, of course I had to read this after finishing Black Sails. I hadn't read it in ages, but it is one of the few books I have read more than once (and already read more than once before this year). But I hadn't read it in English yet.
I had completely forgotten what happens and how it ends, and of course now I've seen Black Sails, there is a lot more to find interesting about this book.
Overall, the book is nothing special. It has lots of pirate romanticism, and is quite suspenseful, but it's a children's book, after all.
Also, it's really old. Of course it is set in a time of pirates, so that alone doesn't make it dated. The language is very old-fashioned as well, which I found jarring after watching Black Sails where they all spoke modern English.
I read this book to see how the Black Sails people built on canon. To be honest: they took a lot more liberties with the characters than I'd thought. Billy Bones was the closest to his book self (at the end), and I can see how he got from the show to the book.
* Silver... well. He was very second-season Silver: a manipulating bastard. I don't think what Black Sails did with him in seasons 3 and 4 really matches up with book!Silver. And if he does, it casts a very different light on what exactly happened in the show's finale. (I still somehow think that Silver could have manipulated everyone and killed Flint.)
* Pretty much the only thing I remembered from reading the book in my childhood is that Silver had a parrot named Flint. All the more reason for me to ship Silverflint. :)
* OMG the racism. The main characters heavily imply that Silver left his wife to go treasure hunting, because she's black. Of course living with a black woman is the worst thing ever.
* The other characters who appear in the show are Israel Hands, Ben Gunn, and Tom (I forgot his name).
- Israel Hands is a friend of Silver's in the book, so that fits. He is also pretty ruthless.
- Ben Gunn is the one they find on Treasure Island, and he is part of Flint's crew in the book, so that could work. Ben Gunn is pretty crazy in the book, and I thought they showed him as someone who is not the strongest character on the show. That matches quite well.
- Tom is a black sailor in the book, also recruited by Silver. He's only mentioned a few times and has no major role in the book at all. He's very minor on the show, too - he's the one Silver sends to go look for Thomas, and that person on the show was not black. I couldn't line him up with the book character at all.
* Book!Flint himself was always described as mean and a drunk and ruthless. Well, none of them knew him at all, apparently. And Silver would be the last person to blab about Flint's secret, and he's a lying sob, so it doesn't surprise me that the stories about Flint don't match up. They really did a great reinvention of Flint there - the surface perception fits (maybe except for the drinking), and that's what matters.
* What struck me as the biggest difference between book and show was how religious the book is, and how extremely non-religious the show is. That's probably the most obvious sign of how old the book is, after all.
It was a quick read, and fun. Not as much to learn about the characters as I'd hoped, sadly. But I was happy to read it again.
3 stars.
1 - 5 stars - Brothers In Arms [DW]
2 - 3 stars - Rose Point [DW]
3 - 2 stars - Back to Sodom and Gomorrah [DW]
4 - 4 stars - First Among Sequels [DW]
5 - 5 stars - Ready Player One [DW]
6 - 3 stars - Treasure Island [DW]
x-posted from dw (comments:
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