I just finished Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson. I guess I have a bit of pirate fever since I have been looking forward to the MMORPG “Pirates of the Burning Sea” with great anticipation. I found Treasure Island at good old Gutenberg Project, and downloaded the HTML version. It’s formatted nicely for easy reading in a browser, and the chapters are hyperlinked from the table of contents so you can pick up easily where you left off. I was worried about finding my way back to the last page I read, since the entire book is one long webpage and you can’t really save your spot, but it kind of forced me to finish a chapter so that I could just resume from there. It also made me appreciate when authors actually name their chapters, instead of just numbering them. Stevenson came up with some good chapter names, which actually made me want to read them immediately. Some examples are: “How the Ship was Abandoned” and “The Attack”. Maybe they don’t sound like much, but they really link with the previous chapter’s exploits well and keep the ball moving without giving away too much. Another cool thing about an HTML ebook is that you can bump up the font size, which makes it really easy to read from a distance. I guess I was about 2 feet from my laptop screen, which was very comfortable and not at all fatiguing to my eyes.

I had never read Treasure Island before, even though we had the book in our house when I was a kid. I kind of remember a couple illustrations, but I must have been about 6 or 7 at the time when I looked at it. Well, it’s a pretty darned good book. And amazing to think that it was first published in 1883. The pirate language is so rich in it. I guess it set the standard for pirate culture as we know it today. Reading the Wikipedia entry makes the story even more fascinating, since I found out that the book popularized the “X marks the spot” treasure map, peg legs, talking parrots, and lots of the cliched pirate lingo. At first, it’s a little hard to read because the language is so antiquated. It’s hard to tell if it is just the language of the author’s time, or his interpretation of sailors’ dialogue, or a combination of the two. But after a couple chapters it becomes easier and the language just adds to the ambience. The plot itself is surprisingly complex, especially the character of Long John Silver who filpflops back and forth with his allegiances. The story is mainly told by Jim Hawkins, a boy who happens upon the treasure map. Through his eyes you experience a bunch of different emotions and you really start to root for him. (at least I did) The ending was pretty good, although it seemed a little abrupt. Maybe I just wanted the adventure to go on a bit longer. At any rate, Stevenson really knows how to describe the setting. When I was reading the part where the pirates and Jim were looking for the treasure, I could easily imagine what the island looked like. In fact I still have a picture in my brain of that scene.

You know, I am pretty bad at finishing things like books and games. But I really tore through this one. I really recommend reading this classic if you haven’t already.