Agatha Christie must have liked Robert Louis Stevenson’s books very much. I read about them constantly in hers, and in that context he seemed some sort of mystery person – a name, on a book, that would jump out at me. Should Tommy or Tuppence or The-Colonel-when-he-was-still-a-boy or the young son of the flamboyant new lady in the small village – search an old attic, they would have Treasure Island fall promptly on their heads when clearing out the book case. Its falling open and revealing some sort of phrase might even (in one case) lead straightforward to the murderer. The context was certainly one of adventure, of exciting things.

So it took me a while before I realized this was the same man that had been the writer of Jekyll and Hyde.

It was my turn to come up with the next book and theme in my former book club. I chose the old 19^th century gothic novel, putting before my fellow book club members Dracula, Frankenstein and Jekyll and Hyde. Voting led to the third one being chosen. I had already bought both books some time ago, in one of my yearly haunts of the Deventer book market, and realized this only when I discovered them standing next to each other in my book case – Sontag, Steenhuis, Steinbeck, ah, Stevenson: Treasure Island, Jekyll and Hyde.

I knew Jekyll and Hyde of course, in fact, I read a great story of its neighbor Susan Sontag about it¹, but had I ever read it? I had not.

On book club night we had a great conversation at my kitchen table. Its main focus point became, as was usual in our meetings, a different topic, in this case: very well known plots that somehow people have miraculously been able to avoid, introduced by one of us saying off handedly she did not know the plot beforehand. Innocently she took a sip of wine, while the remaining four of us stared at her in disbelief. This then led to a thenceforward famous tale of one of us taking a friend to the cinema and finding out, during the movie, her friend did not know the ending of Romeo and Juliet – this friend crying in shock afterwards ‘I thought it was supposed to be romantic!’ – which, of course, became our catch phrase for saying: I did not know this very famous storyline.
We all jumped at her, asking her all kinds of questions: what did she think of the book, what did she think of the twist, what was it like to read the story for her? She was a bit overwhelmed and surprised by us, and immediately ashamed, and we tried to silence that shame, as it was an opportunity.

After that book club night I read the two stories that were embedded in my version of Jekyll and Hyde, and was really blown away this time. I particularly loved The ebb tide, a story about an old (in his fifties was old) man, originally British but having sailed and travelled mainly the Caribbean for about thirty years, and him meeting the I-person, the protagonist telling the story. He finds out this man is ‘married’ to a local woman, has children with her. This man is interesting: he is not exactly a villain, but not a good person either. (Well, ok. Lots of literary characters are.) But he is clearly described and I mean clearly, because Stevenson is not a person that wants to see what he hopes for, but a person that sees, well, the truth, somehow. He describes this man as a cheater, someone who robs and cheats this storyteller and other people as well, and as a good husband, sort of a good father, and someone who is aware of the local customs and reveres and honors them. There is, so to say, an honesty about him. He is what he is, even in his robbing and stealing. He does not pretend to be a good person. He will just cheekily laugh at you. He is like Long John Silver, in his manners, appearance and (very funny and attractive way) of speaking pirate-like (posh but also mock-posh, with lots of secret meanings to common high society phrasings).

But this story is not really about him. It’s about the protagonist, the one who tells this story to us. He is a man fleeing, a man travelling abroad, travelling very far indeed, and then, finally, finding a companion, ill mannered maybe, but still, to lead him the way in life. It shows the land left behind in everything it lacks, which might not be riches or safety, but certainly honesty. Most of all it is remarkable in its anger.

Now, Jekyll and Hyde and Treasure Island may indeed safely be sewn together, in harmony even, by this tale. It combines the theme of a man who is secretly a monster; of society and its very hypocrite morals, with the theme of fleeing all that and trying to find some solution in sailing away in pursuit of different treasure.

The books are different genres, though. When I started finally reading Treasure Island, I had to brace myself a little, because, as the foreword in that book told me as well, ‘Treasure Island is an adventure novel’. I do not really care about those, but, having read Jekyll and Hyde, and mainly having read The ebb tide, I now wanted to see if this book was the source of those two, of that theme – that astonishing anger.

I then enjoyed reading Treasure Island very much. The feel of the book is different from Jekyll and Hyde – clearly it is written mainly to entertain you, and does so easily. There is no thick threat like fog, there is no deftness in phrasing. Yet they are written by the same man, and really not that far apart.
So we might conclude, or better said, I want to, that Stevenson was capable of doing both of these things, and thus would sort his skills, easily, according to the need of the story he was going to write. Like a cook preparing his ‘mise en place’: for a good stew you need lots of neatly chopped stuff, long brewing, stirring in between, good herbs – for a good Asian stir fry you have to use the right wok with a thin bottom and raise the flames high, stir, shake, and be done in seconds, or you waste it. That seems to be what he is doing here, which is remarkable.
Or is it? Writers, the canon tells us, often are one-trick ponies. I would think this is not the case and many a writer can do like Stevenson has done, but is only known for one genre, following their most famous book. Maybe the remarkable thing is then that in his case both of these books are so well known.

Here I was, reading this source of many treasure hunting books. It surprised me in a few ways. Firstly, they find the treasure. And then they do indeed live a very rich and good life after that, in the end. It had never occurred to me that actually finding a bunch of pieces of eight would in fact really, truly, solidify your life – you would never have to work again. You would be able to stay abroad forever and live a fine life. No wonder the pirates fight each other to the death for this! Having read or seen so much, so many, many Baudrillard-like echos of this story, having read so many very American phrases of ‘maybe the real treasure is the friends we find along the way’, it simply did not occur to me anymore that the ending would in fact be 1) them finding the treasure (though, granted, through some loopholes) and 2) then living a nice life for it.

Long John Silver surprised me too. He seemed to be always described as the protagonist (he is not), the captain (he is not), who is a bold adventurer, leading the way (he is not). Like in The ebb tide there is a protagonist telling the story like something he has experienced himself. Silver is observed, seen, then described to us. In fact, this final description, does fit the character of The ebb tide also rather well. But Long John Silver is described by this storyteller in a miraculously interesting and very entertaining way: he is rather handsome, but the main first thing you see about him is he misses one leg. He is bold, much more in a cheeky way, though. He is very charismatic. He speaks very strangely. He laughs a lot. He lies, clearly, and laughs at you for it. He makes you feel, immediately, like you want to do everything for him. He makes you a conspirator. He makes you feel like you are special. Of course: he makes the protagonist, a young adult boy who has just lost his father, feel like this. But in telling on this to us, he makes the reader feel the same, or certaintly tries to. Stevenson is toying, playing with us – and tempting.  

The main thing
A screenwriter once told me the main thing should happen in the middle of the story. Stevenson duly follows that adage, so then you can tell what his main thing is. It is not finding the treasure. What happens in the middle of the story is this: Long John Silver kills a man in the blink of an eye.

Here I sat up straight. I felt the fear the protagonist was feeling, and his surprise, his bewilderment on describing the thing right in front of him. And I felt, very well, the immediate collapse and then relapse of the story; Long John Silver is not who he seems, he is not who you would want him to be (the boy having just lost his father too), he is in fact a very dangerous man.

Now, what will he do? I thought, both as reader and writer. I thought: this boy is in danger, and I thought: but how will Stevenson go on? How does he remain entertaining now we already know this?

The remaining story is about trying to escape him, this evil man, and trying to sneak out the treasure in the meantime. But, in order to do so, they need Long John Silver. They have to work with him, because they cannot sail away from Treasure Island without him (even though he is the cook, he knows the way, because he was and old shipmate of the very notorious captain who drew the treasure map).
So now here we have this situation, of two groups of people. First the good ones flee away, scattering themselves over Treasure Island, and Silver stays, with the mates he did manage to persuade, on the ship, thrashing it, drinking all the alcohol.
The boy manages to get to the other group and they eventually master Silver. But then they literally sit in the boat with this man and have to keep him alive, have to listen to him, to get away from the island to safety. This is the part where, after having killed and wounded some of the good guys severely, they capture the man, he is a goner, and all he can do save from being killed is talk. So then naturally as a reader you lean in, you think: how can this man escape again? But he does. Such a talker is he, that they almost immediately believe him, again, and follow him, setting sail. And he is genuine, in some ways. He does also just want to board ship, with a part of the treasure, and set sail.

In a way, all three stories are about the same thing: how do you navigate life, how do you navigate society, with people being so much not what they seem? How to remain sane, how to remain good? Because of course Hyde is the one that feels free most. And Silver is not a bad tempered person either. They are happy, wallowing freely in their not-only-ugly beastliness. Stevenson is very good in guiding you in your feelings of both longing and disgust towards this behavior. You want to run away from it. But you want to run away from all the fake politeness on the other side, too. In the end the protagonist chooses the right things, and Stevenson rewards him with the most booty. But Silver does get some as well.

Robert Louis Stevenson did in fact just that: he sailed away to foreign lands and stayed there, forever. His Treasure book became his treasure to live on, to be able to write, far away from it all, about the hypocrisy of the society he left behind.

Imagine being a young sick bedridden boy, keeping sane through fantasizing about becoming a pirate on an island far away. You never really experience being part of society, as you remain physically frail your entire life, thus feel forever disgusted by it, rejected by it, as well as being able to really see it for what it is. Then you are able to actually go, and remain in your own escapist fantasy forever.
The real treasure we find along the way, considering all this, I do leave you to discover on your own: the fact that Stevenson is not bitter. He writes passionately, honestly, seeing things for what they are. His is a very human voice, and a very entertaining one too. 

1. Susan Sontag has written a tale called Doctor Jekyll, in which the titular character has conversations with a doctor Utterson, a two-faced man: he tries to pry Hyde away from him, but also grins widely, telling him he can see into the future. A whole other story (or is it?) ↩︎