Reading 1001 discussion

4 stars

I have never read many of the classics in literature and so in 2017 I am attempting to remedy that. Reading Stevenson's tale made me realize that I have missed out on much. This was an excellent listen. It is at once a picturesque travelogue of Scotland, an informative piece of historical fiction, a rollicking adventure story, a tale of friendship and a very silly comedy. Luckily my brain can multitask.

Young David Balfour just may be the unluckiest lad in all of literature. If something can go wrong for him ... it will. He travels from one mishap to another. I laughed out loud on numerous occasions.

There were moments when the Scottish brogue confused me and I found myself researching Jacobites and looking up language I didn't understand, but it did nothing to harm my enjoyment. I actually found this book highly entertaining. And Kieron Elliott gets much of the credit for that. I could not have read this in my head nearly as well. I am not blessed with the ability to speak or hear accents well. So, having Mr Elliott read it to me in the way it should be read was wonderful. He also put so much inflection into his voice, building tension when appropriate, quieting his voice at the right times and creating a vivid picture in my mind. Superbly done!

September 11, 2016 – Finished Reading
Rating: 3 stars
Review: I found it simplistic and believe its description as a boy's adventure novel fitting. It gives some good lessons for "coming of age" young people. I liked the Scottish dialogue, learning a bit of history and the description of the countryside to be an enjoyable part of the book.

Rating 2 stars.

I am glad I read this book but I wish I had read it when I was a teenager as I found it quite difficult to read. I am not really into adventure stories anymore. Like Kristel I enjoyed the descriptions of the countryside and I also liked the way that both Jacobites and Royalists were portrayed - neither was favoured over the other.

David Balfour, a young man whose parents have died, is sent to claim his ancestral home, and what he finds there sets him off on an adventure that lands him on a tour of Scotland, running for his life as he learns more about the conflict between the Whigs and the Highland Scots who wish to replace King George with the man they consider the rightful king. While this book is clearly geared towards a younger audience it still gets into some of the politics behind the conflict and shows how there are multiple perspectives, that the Scots are not just rebels and the English are not just tyrants. I especially liked the bit where Balfour is stuck, marooned on a small island within sight of the mainland, because he has not noticed he could walk across the channel that divided the island from the main coast during low tide.
I gave this book 4 stars. It's not exactly 'great' literature, but it was still fun and substantial, and I liked reading about Highland Scots without the sappy romance of the Outlander series.

I enjoyed reading this adventure story for young adults. David Balfour sets out to find his fortune after the death of his father and finds himself kidnapped and out at sea. The story is full of adventure, largely of two buddies running away from danger kind, but the real treat is how Stephenson treats our main character. David makes absurd mistakes of intention, judgement and action and yet he comes across as a rather sulky, stubborn and typical teenager even if the year of this adventure is 1751. Also, Stephenson places the action largely in the Scottish Highlands and I got a nice overview of the landscape and the clan dynamics of the years after Culloden.
All and all a little treat.
3 stars

I found this to be a fun adventure story, but I don't think it will be particularly memorable for me. I wasn't expecting the entire story to be set in Scotland (and right along the coast), but I definitely enjoyed the Scottish setting and dialogue. It did not hold a lot of suspense for me; I always felt things were going to work out well for David, no matter how many difficulties he went through along the way.

I thought I had read this as a child, but if I did I have no memory of having done so. I read a Penguin Classic version which had an introduction and notes by Donald McFarlan and R.L.Stevenson's own footnotes. which I thoroughly enjoyed referring to. Stevenson wrote with the idea of diverting teenage boys from their studies of Ovid to enjoy an adventurous tale, but he also intended a great deal more in setting his story in a time of great upheaval in Scottish history. It is set in the mid-eighteenth century, long before before Stevenson's time, and his two protagonists reflect the cultural clashes between the romantic Highlander loyal to his clan above all else, and the lowlander of the east and south, who is a rigid Presyterian. But Stevenson is more subtle than to have each character quite so archetypical. The young David Balfour is a prig, but he shows courage and fortitude and learns much about empathy from the Highlanders he meets, and the swashbuckling Highlander is far too fond of himself.
Stevenson prided himself on historical and topographical accuracy and this foundation intrigued me. You could follow the adventure on Google Maps, and the story had me wanting to research more of the history and the genealogy of my Scottish heritage. Which is exactly Stevenson's intention

Pre-2016 review:

***

A coming-of-age/adventure story where a lad gets fooled by his duplicitous uncle and is effectively kidnapped to be sold to the plantations in the Carolinas, before escaping his captors and returning home with the help of a Jacobite fugitive. On the background of the period following the Jacobite rising of 1745, the novel helps us discover some historical aspects of Scotland as well as the geography of the Highlands. Even though it's an adventure novel, it still feels quite slow-going, partly because of the heavy use of local dialects in the writing. It was ok.