Treasure Island

A cracking yarn told in the person of an ordinary lad who gets mixed up with pirates and adventurers on a quest for Treasure on an isolated and distant island. When I first read this book at the age of 11 the 18th Century prose get the better of me; and even now, the slang of the ordinary seaman doesn't scan so well. But no matter, it's still an easily digested tale.

I never read this when I was young, but what fun it has been to discover its treasures a half century later. The best parts were pirate-speak (I wonder how authentic it is) and the Long John Silver character (who inescapably resembles Wallace Berry in my imagination). Much of the rest, alas, is pretty mediocre for adult readers.

This is an adventure to make you young again. And worth repeated reading. While the words do not change, time changes us, and therefore we view the action diferently. As time changes technology; vocabularity and civility advances, changes, and more patience and thinking (about old books) is needed. Read to adventure (like Hawkins ran to adventure and gold in the book)and the DATA of KNOWLEDGE of older times and a different way of life, will be your adventure, and GOLD of KNOWLEDGE.