尋找說故事的人：追隨史蒂文生的南太平洋之旅

by Gavin Bell, 白裕承 (translator)

Gavin Bell, for many years an admirer of Stevenson and his work, retraces Stevenson's passage through the more remote communities of French Polynesia, Hawaii, Kiribati and Samoa. On his tour through Polynesia and Micronesia he finds haunting echoes of a fading culture which enchanted Stevenson and in Hawaii finds a man who possesses one of the finest private Stevenson collections.

Genres: Travel, History, Biography, Nonfiction

418 pages, Paperback

First published December 13, 1995

About the author

Gavin Bell is a former foreign correspondent raised in Glasgow who has returned to live in his native city. He is now an award-winning travel writer.

Reviews

[Suzesmum · Rating 4 out of 5]

74📘POLYNESIA🏝Before I embarked on this journey I vaguely knew that Robert Louis Stevenson spent some time in the Pacific. I didn’t know, however, that he travelled extensively through Polynesia, from San Francisco to the Marquesas, to the Society Islands (Tahiti looks nice), to Hawaii to the Gilbert Islands (Kiribati) and finally Samoa where he died. Bell, a journalist and fellow Scotsman, set out in 1992-93 to re-trace RLS’s travels and along the way learn more about him. This was a great read and I learnt that the Marquesans are fully of midgies, that RSL visited Sydney several times, the account of the leper island was heartbreaking and the account of the last king of Kiribati, Tembinok’ was a truly unique guy. Loved this one!

[Waterman · Rating 3 out of 5]

Suffering a little from the fly in fly out style of travel writing, nevertheless I enjoyed reading this book. I'm not sure what I think of Robert Louis Stevenson after reading this homage to him. He certainly suffered poor health as well as some of the 'white master syndrome', his last years seemed fraught with ongoing spells of sickness so perhaps it is not unusual that he chose the south seas to escape into. Gavin Bell writes in a clear and forthright manner and is obviously fond of the people he meets. I'd would be interested to read some of his more recent books after this.

[Lysergius · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a rather well done "travel in the footsteps of my famous ancestor" type book.