One of the books I postponed reading for, well, about 19
years. The first 4 of those years were because I didn’t feel like reading
anything anyway, the following 15 because why reading a book when you already
know the story and you are afraid of getting Jethro Tull’s Mother Goose stuck in your head as you read it (“Four and twenty
labourers were labouring, And digging up their gold, I don't believe they knew
that I was Long John Silver”)?
Well, turns out that you should read this book despite the
fact that you already know how it will end because it’s possibly the greatest novel
ever written. It combines the sense of adventure of The Lost World or 20.000
Leagues under the Sea with a plot that is ever so slightly less improbable,
and Stevenson’s prose is unparalleled – meaning that for me the book ranks up
there with Around the World in 80 Days.
As far as bad guys that are actually (maybe possibly) not
so-bad (and may have fallen on hard times so might deserve our understanding)
Long John Silver is second to none, despite the fact that the narrator is a bit
of a know-it-all.
I am not that familiar with contemporary fiction for
young-adults, but I really don’t think there is anything that could come even
remotely close to this.
No comments:
Post a Comment