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3.48 AVERAGE
3.48 AVERAGE
I think Robert Louis Stevenson's novel "Kidnapped" suffers in comparison to "Treasure Island," which is much superior. Overall, it's an OK adventure type story, but I really didn't like it.
The unfortunate David Balfour loses both his parents and is cheated by his uncle out of his fortune -- and kidnapped by sailors to boot. I really enjoyed the opening of the story and everything up to the shipwreck -- the running about the country parts got a bit too same old, same old by the end.
Overall, this was a mediocre read for me... I didn't hate it, but had a sort of "meh" reaction to it.
The unfortunate David Balfour loses both his parents and is cheated by his uncle out of his fortune -- and kidnapped by sailors to boot. I really enjoyed the opening of the story and everything up to the shipwreck -- the running about the country parts got a bit too same old, same old by the end.
Overall, this was a mediocre read for me... I didn't hate it, but had a sort of "meh" reaction to it.
I picked this up because I needed a lighter novel atm, but it’s actually masterful work. From the politics and adventure, to the insightfully drawn characters and friendships. I’ll definitely seek out Stevenson’s other novels
My heart's in the Highlands...
When young Davie Balfour is left orphaned on the death of his father, he is given a letter that his father left for him and told to take it to one Ebenezer Balfour, Esquire, of Shaws. Dutifully he obeys, only to find that miserly old Ebenezer is his uncle, who is not best pleased at having his nephew foisted upon him, for fear he may discover the family secret. So Ebenezer tricks David into going aboard the brig Covenanter, where he is promptly knocked senseless and carried off to be sold into slavery in the Carolinas. But with the help of a new-found friend, Alan Breck Stewart, David escapes and finds himself wandering the Highlands of Scotland – a dangerous place just a few years after the failed Jacobite rebellion, where clan is set against clan, and supporters of the Pretender are being hunted or victimised by those who support the King. And when David is accidentally caught up in a murder, he finds he too is being hunted. His only hope is to make it safely back to the Lowlands, while Alan Breck must try to escape back to France, where his chief is in exile.
Written in 1886, the story is set over a century earlier, in 1752. In reality, it's mainly an adventure story, but I always find old historical novels interesting because of the double hit – seeing how people of an earlier generation interpreted an even earlier historical period. Stevenson gives us a very unromanticised version of the clans as uncouth hard-drinking, hard fighting men scratching out a subsistence living from the barren wastelands of the Highlands - a good deal more accurate, I'd imagine, than some of the later more idealised versions of the Jacobite story.
However, without over-emphasising it, he does show some sympathy for the hardships the Highlanders were forced to suffer at the hands of a government determined to destroy the clan system to prevent further rebellion. He talks of the banning of the kilt and points up the difficulties this caused to those too poor to acquire other kinds of clothing; he describes the hiding of arms to get round the ban on Highlanders carrying weapons; he shows the severe privations caused to the poor by being expected to support their own chieftains in exile while also paying taxes to the government; and he hints at the depopulation of the landscape through forced mass emigration to the New World – the beginnings of the euphemistically named Highland Clearances. But his hero is a loyal supporter of King George and a true son of the Covenanters, complete with priggish antipathy towards anything that might be considered fun.
All of this is entertaining to anyone with an interest in Scottish history, but I feel Stevenson assumes a certain degree of familiarity with the aftermath of the Rebellion that most non-Scottish readers and probably even many modern Scottish readers may not have. And I suspect the result of that may mean that the story feels slow in places as he digresses a little from the action to set the book in its historical and social context. I felt the pacing was uneven overall. There are some great action scenes – the battle aboard the ship, the shipwreck, the flight from the murder scene – but there are also quite lengthy lulls, usually when poor David is taken ill, which happens with great regularity. Again, probably realistic given the circumstances, but not the stuff of which great heroic adventures are normally made. And I found his personality grating – the older David who is narrating the story frequently remarks himself on how self-obsessed and immature his younger self's behaviour was, and I could only agree. There is some Scots dialect in the dialogue but not enough and not broad enough, I think, to cause problems for non-Scottish readers.
The beginning of the book was the best part for me, when David was at sea, and it picked up again towards the end, when they had made it back to civilisation and set out to prove David's identity. But I found the central section dragged, when David and Alan are wandering interminably around the Highlands, and half the time is spent on David bemoaning the physical hardship he is undergoing or describing his ill-health. And the ending is so abrupt that I actually wondered if a final chapter might be missing from my Kindle edition, but apparently not. Definitely worth reading, but personally I enjoyed Treasure Island more.
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When young Davie Balfour is left orphaned on the death of his father, he is given a letter that his father left for him and told to take it to one Ebenezer Balfour, Esquire, of Shaws. Dutifully he obeys, only to find that miserly old Ebenezer is his uncle, who is not best pleased at having his nephew foisted upon him, for fear he may discover the family secret. So Ebenezer tricks David into going aboard the brig Covenanter, where he is promptly knocked senseless and carried off to be sold into slavery in the Carolinas. But with the help of a new-found friend, Alan Breck Stewart, David escapes and finds himself wandering the Highlands of Scotland – a dangerous place just a few years after the failed Jacobite rebellion, where clan is set against clan, and supporters of the Pretender are being hunted or victimised by those who support the King. And when David is accidentally caught up in a murder, he finds he too is being hunted. His only hope is to make it safely back to the Lowlands, while Alan Breck must try to escape back to France, where his chief is in exile.
Written in 1886, the story is set over a century earlier, in 1752. In reality, it's mainly an adventure story, but I always find old historical novels interesting because of the double hit – seeing how people of an earlier generation interpreted an even earlier historical period. Stevenson gives us a very unromanticised version of the clans as uncouth hard-drinking, hard fighting men scratching out a subsistence living from the barren wastelands of the Highlands - a good deal more accurate, I'd imagine, than some of the later more idealised versions of the Jacobite story.
However, without over-emphasising it, he does show some sympathy for the hardships the Highlanders were forced to suffer at the hands of a government determined to destroy the clan system to prevent further rebellion. He talks of the banning of the kilt and points up the difficulties this caused to those too poor to acquire other kinds of clothing; he describes the hiding of arms to get round the ban on Highlanders carrying weapons; he shows the severe privations caused to the poor by being expected to support their own chieftains in exile while also paying taxes to the government; and he hints at the depopulation of the landscape through forced mass emigration to the New World – the beginnings of the euphemistically named Highland Clearances. But his hero is a loyal supporter of King George and a true son of the Covenanters, complete with priggish antipathy towards anything that might be considered fun.
All of this is entertaining to anyone with an interest in Scottish history, but I feel Stevenson assumes a certain degree of familiarity with the aftermath of the Rebellion that most non-Scottish readers and probably even many modern Scottish readers may not have. And I suspect the result of that may mean that the story feels slow in places as he digresses a little from the action to set the book in its historical and social context. I felt the pacing was uneven overall. There are some great action scenes – the battle aboard the ship, the shipwreck, the flight from the murder scene – but there are also quite lengthy lulls, usually when poor David is taken ill, which happens with great regularity. Again, probably realistic given the circumstances, but not the stuff of which great heroic adventures are normally made. And I found his personality grating – the older David who is narrating the story frequently remarks himself on how self-obsessed and immature his younger self's behaviour was, and I could only agree. There is some Scots dialect in the dialogue but not enough and not broad enough, I think, to cause problems for non-Scottish readers.
The beginning of the book was the best part for me, when David was at sea, and it picked up again towards the end, when they had made it back to civilisation and set out to prove David's identity. But I found the central section dragged, when David and Alan are wandering interminably around the Highlands, and half the time is spent on David bemoaning the physical hardship he is undergoing or describing his ill-health. And the ending is so abrupt that I actually wondered if a final chapter might be missing from my Kindle edition, but apparently not. Definitely worth reading, but personally I enjoyed Treasure Island more.
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I was not as impressed by the book as I thought I would be. Maybe, this is because I read this book as an adult and not as a child and hence the plots seem predictable to me.
So before I start this review I'm going to point out that it was originally written in 1886 therefore the language obviously reflects this time period. However I will still comment on it because it made a huge impact on my reading of this book, I just wanted to let you guys know that I am aware of when this was written.
In this book we follow David, a young lad who gets kidnapped aboard a ship and has to find his way back alive to reclaim his possible fortune.
Immediately going into this book I knew I was going to have some issues, normally I can get through 100 pages a night before bed however I was getting through about 10 before I'd just give up. The writing is so different from anything else that I had read, I just couldn't get used to the language, it is old English anyway and added ontop of that there was a Scottish dialect and everything was written literally as it is said in that dialect. Therefore it became such a challenge to actually decipher the words that I found I couldn't get into the story because I was concentrating on the individual words so much. About 50 pages in I was seriously ready to give up, that's when I went back to Goodreads and read the reviews, someone had said to read the book aloud or as an audiobook.
Now I am not an audiobook fan, I get too distracted while reading them and so don't actually count it as reading, however for the sake of getting through this book I thought I would give it a go, therefore I read the book at the same time as the audiobook was playing. Suddenly I could understand the story a lot easier and was getting back to my normal pace of reading (or else it would have taken me the rest of the year to get through it).
You'd think that was the end of my troubles but no, I soon realised that the story itself was not that interesting. I'm not a massive fan of pirates, ships and adventure stories and thought that the title of "kidnapped" would have been an entirely different story. It wasn't. However I figured I had come this far I might as well try and finish it now.
The first half of the book isn't actually that bad, we see David make the best of a bad situation and adapt to life on the ship. I liked reading how he interacted with the crew and stood up for what he believed was right even though it must have been difficult for him. However the second half of the book really dragged, it was the same repeated scene over and over again with just a change of scenerary as the only difference. I think this could have been hugely reduced and made the book a lot shorter.
The ending of the book had such a build up, we know David is likely to obtain some money and we know his uncle is responsible for the kidnapping therefore you expect an argument or at least something massive. However for everything the uncle had put him through the outcome just didn't seem like enough justice. I wanted more and just didn't get it at all which was a massive let down to the whole book as I really thought it was going to build up to something big.
Overall I wouldn't recommend this book, I think if you like these kind of adventure stories then you will be more likely to enjoy it than me however I find the language very difficult to read. If you do read this then I would strongly recommend the audiobook which does make it a lot easier to read.
I find rating this book quite difficult, it wasn't a very fast or enjoyable read as the language is really difficult but you have to remember how old the book is - obviously the language will reflect that but for me it just did not make it an enjoyable read. Therefore I cannot rate this highly as I didn't enjoy the story and the language made it a difficult read
Read more on my blog at: https://bookgeek2015.wordpress.com/
In this book we follow David, a young lad who gets kidnapped aboard a ship and has to find his way back alive to reclaim his possible fortune.
Immediately going into this book I knew I was going to have some issues, normally I can get through 100 pages a night before bed however I was getting through about 10 before I'd just give up. The writing is so different from anything else that I had read, I just couldn't get used to the language, it is old English anyway and added ontop of that there was a Scottish dialect and everything was written literally as it is said in that dialect. Therefore it became such a challenge to actually decipher the words that I found I couldn't get into the story because I was concentrating on the individual words so much. About 50 pages in I was seriously ready to give up, that's when I went back to Goodreads and read the reviews, someone had said to read the book aloud or as an audiobook.
Now I am not an audiobook fan, I get too distracted while reading them and so don't actually count it as reading, however for the sake of getting through this book I thought I would give it a go, therefore I read the book at the same time as the audiobook was playing. Suddenly I could understand the story a lot easier and was getting back to my normal pace of reading (or else it would have taken me the rest of the year to get through it).
You'd think that was the end of my troubles but no, I soon realised that the story itself was not that interesting. I'm not a massive fan of pirates, ships and adventure stories and thought that the title of "kidnapped" would have been an entirely different story. It wasn't. However I figured I had come this far I might as well try and finish it now.
The first half of the book isn't actually that bad, we see David make the best of a bad situation and adapt to life on the ship. I liked reading how he interacted with the crew and stood up for what he believed was right even though it must have been difficult for him. However the second half of the book really dragged, it was the same repeated scene over and over again with just a change of scenerary as the only difference. I think this could have been hugely reduced and made the book a lot shorter.
The ending of the book had such a build up, we know David is likely to obtain some money and we know his uncle is responsible for the kidnapping therefore you expect an argument or at least something massive. However for everything the uncle had put him through the outcome just didn't seem like enough justice. I wanted more and just didn't get it at all which was a massive let down to the whole book as I really thought it was going to build up to something big.
Overall I wouldn't recommend this book, I think if you like these kind of adventure stories then you will be more likely to enjoy it than me however I find the language very difficult to read. If you do read this then I would strongly recommend the audiobook which does make it a lot easier to read.
I find rating this book quite difficult, it wasn't a very fast or enjoyable read as the language is really difficult but you have to remember how old the book is - obviously the language will reflect that but for me it just did not make it an enjoyable read. Therefore I cannot rate this highly as I didn't enjoy the story and the language made it a difficult read
Read more on my blog at: https://bookgeek2015.wordpress.com/
I quite frankly thought this book was boring. It would pick up in moments, but the bulk of the book had to do with the politics and travels of the characters in the Scottish highlands.... way back in the Jacobite days. And while that could have been interesting, it was written in a broken Scottish/English, and was very hard to figure out, and the plot just didn’t go anywhere. Very disappointed because I loved Stevenson’s Treasure Island and I was expecting something similar
It’s rare that I need to look up words when reading nowadays, but there’s so much archaic Scottish slang here that I frequently had to.
Of the three Robert Louis Stevenson novels I have read so far (Treasure Island, Dr. Jeckyl and Mr. Hyde, and Kidnapped), Kidnapped was the most difficult. The difficulty stemmed from two causes, the language and the history of 18th-century Scotland.
I have been reading these adventure stories out loud to my wife, and Kidnapped is more thoroughly drenched in dialect than any of the other novels. My Scottish accent is not much more than a bad Shrek impersonation, but my wife endured it admirably. What impressed me however, was that the very cadence and movement of the sentences demanded that the accent be used for the whole book, not just the dialogue. Given that Stevenson hails from Edinburgh, this is not particularly shocking, but since I did not feel this impetus in either of his other two novels, I felt that he purposefully employed this rhythm to capture the language of David Balfour as a narrator. While the language was challenging to read out loud, it was greatly enjoyable since Stevenson is a wonderful writer.
The second difficulty, the history, required that I read up on the various revolutions in Scotland in the first half of the eighteenth century and the parliamentary acts that were enacted in their wakes. This was fantastic educationally, but it did mean that we were frequently stopping to research things, which interfered with the rhythm of the narrative.
Stevenson’s true gift is for understanding the human nature and the complicated cluster of emotions that come together and get in the way with communication and clear actions. The best example of this in Kidnapped is the sequence near the end of David’s and Alan’s travels, when David is angry with Alan and angry with himself for being so childish, which only forces him to act still more childishly. It is a beautifully constructed passage in which Stevenson thoroughly dissects the various emotions at play.
Related to this understanding is Stevenson’s other gift, which I have commented on in my posts about his other novels: he is a fantastic creator of complex characters. Alan Breck is reminiscent of Long John Silver in his richness. There is always a perfectly moral foil for these more complex characters (Hawkins for Silver and Balfour for Breck), and I suspect that these morally upright characters not only fit Stevenson’s own desire for moral rectitude but allowed him to revel in the moral messiness that is the more common human experience, and clearly the thing that most interests Stevenson.
While the language and history are challenging and while the adventure itself is not as gripping as in Treasure Island, it is still very rewarding and enjoyable, as are the characters and the completeness of the world.
I have been reading these adventure stories out loud to my wife, and Kidnapped is more thoroughly drenched in dialect than any of the other novels. My Scottish accent is not much more than a bad Shrek impersonation, but my wife endured it admirably. What impressed me however, was that the very cadence and movement of the sentences demanded that the accent be used for the whole book, not just the dialogue. Given that Stevenson hails from Edinburgh, this is not particularly shocking, but since I did not feel this impetus in either of his other two novels, I felt that he purposefully employed this rhythm to capture the language of David Balfour as a narrator. While the language was challenging to read out loud, it was greatly enjoyable since Stevenson is a wonderful writer.
The second difficulty, the history, required that I read up on the various revolutions in Scotland in the first half of the eighteenth century and the parliamentary acts that were enacted in their wakes. This was fantastic educationally, but it did mean that we were frequently stopping to research things, which interfered with the rhythm of the narrative.
Stevenson’s true gift is for understanding the human nature and the complicated cluster of emotions that come together and get in the way with communication and clear actions. The best example of this in Kidnapped is the sequence near the end of David’s and Alan’s travels, when David is angry with Alan and angry with himself for being so childish, which only forces him to act still more childishly. It is a beautifully constructed passage in which Stevenson thoroughly dissects the various emotions at play.
Related to this understanding is Stevenson’s other gift, which I have commented on in my posts about his other novels: he is a fantastic creator of complex characters. Alan Breck is reminiscent of Long John Silver in his richness. There is always a perfectly moral foil for these more complex characters (Hawkins for Silver and Balfour for Breck), and I suspect that these morally upright characters not only fit Stevenson’s own desire for moral rectitude but allowed him to revel in the moral messiness that is the more common human experience, and clearly the thing that most interests Stevenson.
While the language and history are challenging and while the adventure itself is not as gripping as in Treasure Island, it is still very rewarding and enjoyable, as are the characters and the completeness of the world.
It says in the introduction to my edition that David Balfour, the young man who is kidnapped at the behest of his Uncle, is the character that Stevenson put most of his own personality into. He is certainly a mature 18 year old and there are some fantastic, witty exchanges with Alan Breck, his older fellow escapee. Stevenson writes beautifully about the countryside and with great admiration for the fortitude and courage of the Highlanders during what were times of great deprivation. The story is essentially an adventure, however the quality of the prose rightly set it out as a classic.
I really need to stop reading these old books, I never like them. I'm sure the story is fine if you like the old ways, but books have come so far since them and I'm more of a fan of the new way of writing. Not my style.
Book Confessions of an ExBallerina
Book Confessions of an ExBallerina