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A review by superdilettante
The Coral Island by R.M. Ballantyne
2.0
So let me get this straight.
You're a teenage sailor, shipwrecked with 2 buddies on a pacific island. You get along pretty well, and are fairly happy with your lot there, but one day you see a big ship arrive and you flag it down, but O NOES it's Pirates. The pirate ship captures one of you, and sails away with you, and you are treated to all sorts of horrors including cannibalism. Nobody is any good except this one other guy, and then one day you have a chance to fool all the bad guys and you do, and they get captured by the savage cannibals (or is it cannibal savages?) and while the savages are dancing and whooping around their tied-up bodies, the Good Guy and you escape on the nice big pirate ship. But the good guy is mortally wounded, and he dies. Nevertheless, you keep going, returning to the island where you last saw your buddies. You find them! Hurrah! Also you have a boat! So you load it up with more provisions (because it's already pretty sweet, being a real live pirate ship) and you could head back to civilization or England or wherever it was you came from, but your buddy says HOLD ON A MINUTE THERE'S ONE LAST THING WE NEED TO DO. So you head off to an island where you try to save -one- island girl from being married to a guy she doesn't want to be married to. YOU COULD SAVE YOURSELVES, YOU HAVE A BOAT, BUT INSTEAD okay anyway, they're tremendously thwarted in their attempts, and it's lucky they don't end up "long pigs" on the cannibal fire, but instead they're just in prison for a few months, by which I mean a cave. Probably the whole time thinking, WE HAD A BOAT, GODDAMN IT.
Of course it all ends up ok, because one day they're led from prison and their bonds are cut and it's all because a really convincing missionary (separate from the existing Island Missionary, who I guess didn't have the chops) showed up and convinced the Chief to convert to Christianity and he builds a church and lets the Island Girl love who she pleases. And she gets to marry her Christian chief and the guys say "Phew, I guess we can go home now."
Praise Jesus.
You're a teenage sailor, shipwrecked with 2 buddies on a pacific island. You get along pretty well, and are fairly happy with your lot there, but one day you see a big ship arrive and you flag it down, but O NOES it's Pirates. The pirate ship captures one of you, and sails away with you, and you are treated to all sorts of horrors including cannibalism. Nobody is any good except this one other guy, and then one day you have a chance to fool all the bad guys and you do, and they get captured by the savage cannibals (or is it cannibal savages?) and while the savages are dancing and whooping around their tied-up bodies, the Good Guy and you escape on the nice big pirate ship. But the good guy is mortally wounded, and he dies. Nevertheless, you keep going, returning to the island where you last saw your buddies. You find them! Hurrah! Also you have a boat! So you load it up with more provisions (because it's already pretty sweet, being a real live pirate ship) and you could head back to civilization or England or wherever it was you came from, but your buddy says HOLD ON A MINUTE THERE'S ONE LAST THING WE NEED TO DO. So you head off to an island where you try to save -one- island girl from being married to a guy she doesn't want to be married to. YOU COULD SAVE YOURSELVES, YOU HAVE A BOAT, BUT INSTEAD okay anyway, they're tremendously thwarted in their attempts, and it's lucky they don't end up "long pigs" on the cannibal fire, but instead they're just in prison for a few months, by which I mean a cave. Probably the whole time thinking, WE HAD A BOAT, GODDAMN IT.
Of course it all ends up ok, because one day they're led from prison and their bonds are cut and it's all because a really convincing missionary (separate from the existing Island Missionary, who I guess didn't have the chops) showed up and convinced the Chief to convert to Christianity and he builds a church and lets the Island Girl love who she pleases. And she gets to marry her Christian chief and the guys say "Phew, I guess we can go home now."
Praise Jesus.