Reading Scotland: The Stuarts and Kidnapped

 Two more Scottish-based books under my belt. 

The Royal Stuarts: A History of the Family that Shaped Britain, by Allan Massie - a solid three-star survey of the Stuart/Stewart dynasty in Scotland and England. Although published n 2011, it had a somewhat dated feel to it. I learned a great deal, coming from knowing very little about those that preceded Mary Queen of Scots.

Survey books like this are challenging in that each section was short enough to be digestible and not overwhelming with detail, but then I found myself wanting more info about each monarch and what was happening at the time. For example, the infamous Gunpowder Plot early in the reign of James VI/I (the VI refers to his Scottish title, and the I to his English one) is given one line. I know there is a wealth of info on this event out there, but I do believe it warrants more than a mere mention. 

Also, I would have appreciated illustrations--the cover shows a passel of Stuarts but there was no info inside about who was who. I did like the family tree and referred to it often to keep straight the many people named James, Charles, Mary, or Anne.

I also reread the wonderful adventure story, Kidnapped, by Robert Louis Stevenson. Kidnapped is actually the first book in Stevenson's David Balfour series--the second is Catriona, which I have never read and probably should.

Even though this was either my second or third reading of this book, I hadn't read it in at least 40 years and so it truly made a lot more sense this time around. I vividly remembered the first part, where 16- year-old David Balfour, newly orphaned, hears that he has family and sets out to find them. He discovers he has a miserly old uncle who, when his attempt to murder David fails, arranges for a sea captain to kidnap him and take him to the American South and sell him into slavery.

On board the ship, David is befriended by Alan Breck Stewart, a Jacobite agent (time period is shortly after the failed 1745 rising) and together they fight off the wicked sea captain and his rogues, survive shipwreck, flee through the Highlands with the British army searching for them, nearly starve, and survive all manner of dangers as they make their way towards Edinburgh and the lawyer who will restore David to his rightful place as heir of the House of Shaws! Here is a map of David's journey.

Now that I have a better understanding of the politics of the time, as well as the religious conflicts, I actually enjoyed the story so much more than when I had read it without that context. 

There have been a number of film versions (1917, 1938, 1948, 1960, 1971, 1986, and 2005), none of which I've seen. I'm learning towards the 1960 Disney version, starring James McArthur as David and David Finch as Alan Breck, with a cameo by Peter O'Toole (apparently his first film role). I had a massive of crush on James McArther when I saw him in Swiss Family Robinson, so it would be fun to see him as David.

Scottish History Podcast

I've been enjoying The Scottish History Podcast. Owen Innes is a former tour guide turned podcaster. He is currently doing a series on the Scottish monarchs named James--I just listened to his latest on James IV. For me, Owen's info is at the right level--enough detail for me to get the idea of what is going on, but not so detailed that I get lost in the weeds.

The Black Arrow - Robert Louis Stevenson

I have wanted to read The Black Arrow, by Robert Louis Stevenson, since I was a little kid. One of my older brothers must have read the book, or a Classic Comics version, or somehow learned the story and told me the basic outline because I remember playing it in the big maple tree in our front yard. One of my brothers nailed boards to the trunk for stairs and I would spend a lot of my play time up in the tree, pretending I was living with a pack of outlaws in Merry England in the trees and wearing Lincoln Green.

Yes, The Black Arrow is basically a Robin Hood story, set during the War of the Roses, and the hero, Dick Shelton, actually meets Richard III, when he was still Duke of Gloucester, before his brother Edward was crowned Edward IV. The outlaws are led by Ellis Duckworth, a worthy who is robbed of his lands by the evil, grasping Sir Daniel Blakeley--a shoe-in for the Sheriff of Notingham if there ever was one. Maid Marion is Joan Sedley, who Dick first meets when she is disguised as a boy and calls herself Jack--she is brave, witty, lovely, and devoted to Dick. To complete the cast, there is a fat friar, outlaws called Lawless and Greensheave, and all are, of course, first rate archers who shoot, you guessed it, black arrows, which are their calling card.

Not only is The Black Arrow a Robin Hood story, but it's also a Hamlet story. Dick discovers that Sir Daniel, his guardian, is responsible for his father's murder. He feels he must avenge his father but first has to prove that Sir Daniel is guilty. He loses opportunity after opportunity for vengeance with his dithering. Dick also kills one of Sir Daniel's men whom he discovers hiding behind the arras (aka curtain, but RLS insists it is an arras), spying on Joan and Dick during one of their rare trysts.

The story is definitely an adventure, complete with lots of fighting (swords, arrows, daggers), stolen ships and pirates, castles, chases, disguises, and derring-do.

The biggest problem is the language. RLS decided to employ the language of Shakespeare, in both dialogue and narrative, making it more difficult to read than it needed to be. While I can get what he was trying to do, with the Robin Hood/Hamlet/War of the Roses mashup, but it would have been less tedious had the characters spoken like Victorians instead of Shakespearean actors.

The portrait of Richard, Duke of Gloucester, is also straight out of Shakespeare's Richard III, showing him as an ambitious, ruthless, cold young man who will let nothing stand in his way. Grrrr.

I didn't read the version with the NC Wyeth illustrations, but I wish I had because they are so marvelous.

This is the final book in my Back to the Classics 2018 challenge, fulfilling the category, title with a color in it. I think this is the earliest in the year that I have ever finished this challenge. A good year for classics for me!

Treasure Island: Long John Silver

I just reread Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson for the first time in decades, and it was an absolute treat.  There's a reason this is the definitive pirate story--RLS provided a prototype for a genre, and provided a lingo and a style and a swagger that is incomparable.  And, it's a good story, with a wonderful boy hero, who is smart, loyal, brave, and tender-hearted.  I just love Jim Hawkins!

Having finally read RLS's The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyl and Mr. Hyde a few years ago, it was easy to compare the character of Long John Silver, the leader of pirates who charms his way onto the Hispaniola, the ship that conveys the treasure seekers to Treasure Island.  Silver definitely is adept at wearing a mask under which he conceals his true nature, one which doesn't hesitate to lie, cheat, steal, or murder to further his own ends.

Unlike the premise behind the Jekyll and Hyde story, it's not that Silver has two personalities that struggle with each other for dominance, but rather Silver is able to completely hide his true pirate self when needing to ingratiate himself with non-pirates.  This is not an uncommon trait, but Silver is so much better at it than is usual.  Shows incredible self-control and self-awareness, actually.

Treasure Island was published in 1883, two years before Jekyll and Hyde, so perhaps the two faces of Long John Silver were in the forefront of RLS's mind when he started working Jekyl and Hyde.

I also really enjoyed the character of Dr. Livesey.  He's outspoken, sarcastic, but takes his oath to heal seriously, even at personal peril.  He is a match for the pirates and a good mentor to Jim.

This is my adventure classic for the Back to the Classics Challenge.

The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde

I've long been a fan of Robert Louis Stevenson's novels and poems, and have long wanted to read his horror story The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, published in 1886.  I picked up an audio version at the library, and was surprised it was only 2 discs and 2.5 hours long.  So much shorter than I expected that I doubled-checked that it was, in fact, an unabridged version.

While it was a short book, a novella really, I found it plenty long actually.  The first part dragged a bit.  It is a framed story, in which Dr Jekyll's lawyer and friend tells of his suspicions regarding his friend's protege, a Mr. Hyde, who is Dr Jekyll's sole beneficiary in his will and who strikes everyone who encounters him as evil incarnate.

I found the dancing around in this first half of the book to be tedious--I was eager to get to who Jekyll and Hyde were and found the lawyer's musings to be a trifle dull and a bit coy.  However, once I got to the part where the lawyer read the letter Jekyll left to be read should something happen to him, the story got much more interesting.

While listening to Jekyll's story of his descent into hell, I couldn't help but think of both Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray and Mary Shelley's Frankenstein.  The former was published 4 years after Jekyll and Hyde in 1890, and the latter was published near the beginning of the 19th century, in 1818.

Jekyll/Hyde explores the idea of a person having two natures--one good and one evil (or the ego and the id, in Freudian terms).  Jekyll, the doctor, experiments with drugs that enable the evil nature within him to come to the forefront of his personality, and when this happens his body undergoes a physical transformation as well.  What this means is that when Jekyll takes the drug, he becomes Mr Hyde is personality as well as physical appearance.  This means Jekyll can enjoy doing evil things because no ones knows that Jekyll has become Hyde.  By taking the drug, he can put on a mask and let loose the dogs of war with no consequences to his reputation.  His conscience, however, still functions, and as Hyde's devilry increases, Jekyll feels remorse and responsibility.

In a similar manner, Dorian Gray's beauty hides his true evil nature, which the portrait accurately reflects.  Jekyll becomes Hyde when he lets his evil nature reign; Dorian's body masks his evil nature, which no one can see unless they view his portrait.  

With regards to Frankenstein, both Dr Frankenstein and Dr Jekyll are talented scientists whose major character flaw is unbridled ambition, and their pursuit of glory leads to their downfall.  Not only that, but their downfalls are very similar.  The monster gets out of hand, assumes control of the situation, and will not be bridled.

I think it's so interesting the Frankenstein and Jekyll/Hyde and Dorian Gray bookend the 19th century--Mary Shelley really did anticipate many of the themes that increasing industrialization and scientific reliance that writers and other artists explored 80 years later.

Travels with a Donkey in the Cévennes

Last year I started reading John Steinbeck again and discovered that his travel book, Travels with Charley, was inspired by Robert Louis Stevenson's Travels With a Donkey in the Cevennes, the discovery of which meant that I needed to Stevenson's travelogue before tackling Steinbeck's...and that's how it ended up on my Classics Challenge list for this year.

I just finished in time for November's Autumn monthly Classics Challege blog prompt, posted yesterday.  Katherine asked participants to select a piece of music that reflects the book.  

Since Stevenson's trip in the Cevennes, a mountain range in south-central France, occurred in 1878, and his account of it was published in 1879, my first impulse was towards something that evoked French peasant music and that sounded vaguely Victorian.

Something like the theme song from the BBC series based on Peter Mayle's A Year in Provence:

This definitely evokes the villages, the landscapes, and the people that Stevenson encounters during the twelve days that he hikes along with Modestine, the pretty little donkey who carries his supplies and initally gives him such trials until he learns to handle her...and until she is no longer in heat, a little fact that Stevenson didn't grasp but that subsequent readers recognized.

In honor of Modestine and the affection with which Stevenson ultimately has for his beast of burden when he sells her after the trip, I have to go with the third movement ("On the Trail") from Ferdie Grofe's Grand Canyon Suite.





Here's a bit from another YouTube video that explains what Grofe was doing in this movement:

* On the Trail is the best-known of the movements of the Grand Canyon Suite, the aural report of the day riding on the back of a pack donkey (imitating its clip-clop), beginning and ending with a great "hee-haw". A violin cadenza is used to wonderful effect. The principal theme of this movement, which is presented by the horns, and later, trombones, serves as the central motif of the suite.

Note that you need to fast-foward to about 1:34 to get the familiar clip-clip music.

 

While Stevenson walked alongside Modestine, or behind her beating her with a stick, or in front, pulling her, instead of riding her, I'm sure the clip-clops of her hooves were part of the universe of sensations this trip provided.

Travels With a Donkey was not the best travel book I've read, nor is it the best Stevenson book I've read, but it does mark the beginning of his earnest work to become an established and popular writer. It's an early work and reflects the personal struggles that he was facing at the time.  It is fitting that during a physical journey he writes about his movement away from the faith of his father, toward his writing career, away from Scotland and England, and toward America, where the woman he loves has gone to sort out how she and Stevenson can be together.

The travelogue begins self-consciously, with Stevenson feeling his way and trying to figure out what to write about, but by the end the prose settles down and the descriptions of the landscape, his experiences of camping alone under the stars, and his belief in the healing power of love make this book definitely worth reading.  Here's a lovely passage near the end, and this alone makes me want to go on and read the other travelogue he wrote just after Travels With a Donkey, Amatuer Emigrants, about his trip to America.

Our two shadows--mine deformed with the knapsack, hers comically bestridden by the pack--now lay before us clearly outlined on the road, and now, as we turned a corner, went off into the ghostly distance, and sailed along the mountain like clouds. From time to time a warm wind rustled down the valley, and set all the chestnuts dangling their bunches of foliage and fruit; the ear was filled with whispering music, and the shadows danced in tune. And next moment the breeze had gone by, and in all the valley nothing moved except our travelling feet. On the opposite slope, the monstrous ribs and gullies of the mountain were faintly designed in the moonshine; and high overhead, in some lone house, there burned one lighted window, one square spark of red in the huge field of sad nocturnal colouring.