From: OO@AA.COM
"Pete Bayle" wrote in message
news:8d9486cd.0409241017.1b41bd94@posting.google.com...
> "ROBBIE" wrote in message
news:<2rgu7tF1acnbsU1@uni-berlin.de>...
> > I noticed in the Spectator that Scruton's magazine 'The Salisbury
Review' is
> > doing a special issue on how '..Multiculturalism is destroying British
> > Culture.'
> > Naturally I was up for that and so rang the magazine up to find out
where it
> > was sold. A cold female upper class voice answered:
> >
> > 'Hello?'
> > 'Is that the Salisbury Review?'
> > 'It is.'
> > 'Is your magazine available in the shops?'
> >
> > That did it: '..in the shops.' Voice gets icier with a slight tetch:
> >
> > 'Well no not really but you can get it in Borders in Charing Cross
Road.'
> > 'Wonderful. Cheers!'
> > 'Mmmmm. Thank you.'
> >
> > I looked it up on the web: Thatcher likes it. Oh dear. Still, according
to
> > Theodore Dalrymple, who appalls and enthralls by turns, it says things
other
> > people wouldn't dare, which, in these evil times, must be good. In the
end,
> > I still see conservatives as being people who think money is more
important
> > than people.
> >
> > I noticed on their web site they were doing something called
Conservative
> > Classics and that issue was Treasure Island. Is Treasure Island a
> > conservative classic? Funnily enough I've been reading it recently and
have
> > enjoyed it greatly. also funnily enough I was thinking last week what a
> > field day a Marxist or a committed socialist would have with the text.
Never
> > mind John Silver having charismatic anti-heroic ways about him, it would
be
> > all the other way for a full-on lefty: wicked Squire Trelawny, greedy
Jim
> > Hawkins, imperious Dr Livesey (taking a line with Billy Bones not unlike
> > Theodore Dalrymple would I imagine) and all those servile fools like
Gray
> > and Joyce and Redruth. Eric Frogspawn would be rooting for the poor
> > benighted buccaneers who have taken matters into their own hands with
> > banditry on the high seas. Disabled people (Silver, Pew), alcoholics
(Bones,
> > Flint), oppressed and frequently unemployed workers (Black Dog, Israel
Hands
> > and Ben Gunn).
> > The book is bloody good though. Stevenson considered fiction writing no
> > more than an adult version of 'play' but he could play well all right.
The
> > whole thing is so alive and believable. There are so many little touches
but
> > a few come to mind: Sliver talking about a broadside on and old voyage
in
> > which 'Pew lost his deadlights.' In one line that breaths so much life
into
> > an already vivid and kicking plot. The bit where Billy Bones chases
Black
> > Dog out and lands his cutlass in the frame of the Admiral Benbow's sign
> > where 'you may see the notch on the lower side of the frame to this
day.'
> > And when Doctor Livesey is leaving the Hispaniola and drops all the arms
and
> > powder they can't carry over the side 'in two fathoms and a half of
water,
> > so that we could see the bright steel shining far below us in the sun,
on
> > the clean, sandy bottom.'
> > These are just a few examples of vivid and clever fictional brushwork
in a
> > book full of them. The story would be good without them, but they are
the
> > things that that really breathe life throught it. It is also done very
> > unobtrusively, so you suddenly drop back and think, 'how bloody
inspired.'
> >
> > http://robbie.journalspace.com/
>
> As is your review. Guess I need to check out Treasure Island. Thanks.
Cheers--it's worth it believe me.
--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)
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