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A review by mohogan2063
The Adventures of John Carson in Several Quarters of the World: A Novel of Robert Louis Stevenson by Brian Doyle
4.0
It took me a while to get into this book. Perhaps because in the words of Brian Doyle, speaking as Robert Louis Stevenson, "I have been at pains in this account to be as accurate as I can, with the soaring stories and rhythms of speech I heard in Mrs. Carson's house, during my months there; but I am well aware that this is not the sort of book many readers want--it is a tide of competing voices, is all it is!, I hear the disconsolate reviewers say, who so wished for headlong adventure, and a narrative arc, and dark villains vanquished, and tumultuous hearts, and mysterious heroes and heroines slowly becoming aware of their deeper selves, slowly becoming more self aware--slowly, perhaps, maturing. And what about love stories, a staple of our literature, rightly so? The love stories in this account are already launched, and where is our desperate fellow yearning for a woman who loves another, or our innocent girl pining for a preening cad, or the good woman gone bad by virtue of her own inflexible ego? (Doyle 166-7)."
"Trust me, I feel as you do; and this is all the more ironic, for I dream daily and nightly of the books I want so fervently to write, filled with headlong escapes across Highland meadows, and ferocious battles on remote islands, and terrifying chases and hauntings on icy moors, and spirits emerging from fantastic bottles, and black-hearted nobles outwitted by noble woodsmen whose arrows unerringly find their targets. No one loves a dashing tale more than I do, and O!, how I yearn to write one after another, as fast as I can get the words from my pen, and shiver and delight readers of every age from nine to ninety! And I will, too--I will, if He who spoke the stars alight grants me ten more years, or twenty (Doyle 167-8)." Delightful book. I highly recommend it. Read the Afterword at the back of the book, first, for more insight into Doyle's tale of "The Adventures of John Carson."
"Trust me, I feel as you do; and this is all the more ironic, for I dream daily and nightly of the books I want so fervently to write, filled with headlong escapes across Highland meadows, and ferocious battles on remote islands, and terrifying chases and hauntings on icy moors, and spirits emerging from fantastic bottles, and black-hearted nobles outwitted by noble woodsmen whose arrows unerringly find their targets. No one loves a dashing tale more than I do, and O!, how I yearn to write one after another, as fast as I can get the words from my pen, and shiver and delight readers of every age from nine to ninety! And I will, too--I will, if He who spoke the stars alight grants me ten more years, or twenty (Doyle 167-8)." Delightful book. I highly recommend it. Read the Afterword at the back of the book, first, for more insight into Doyle's tale of "The Adventures of John Carson."