Treasure Island — Total Insanity

Sometimes I’m my own worst enemy.  You know, it’s true.  It’s like that old line, “With friends like you, who needs enemies.”

My slippery sequence of events started with me watching Joseph Campbell’s DVD series The Power of Myth once again.  In the first episode, The Hero’s Adventure, Joe Campbell and Bill Moyers talk about the mythological symbols in George Lucas’ Star Wars films.  Moyers asks Campbell about the bar scene in the first episode, Star Wars: A New Hope, where Obi-Wan and Luke go to find Han Solo and Chewbacca.

Joseph Campbell says, “… where you are is on the edge – you’re about to embark into the outlying spaces – a real adventure – this is the jumping off place …”  In The Hero With a Thousand Faces, Campbell writes, “A hero ventures forth from the world of common day into a region of supernatural wonder …”  Here is that threshold between the common world and the special world.

On the DVD, Campbell says, “It reminds me a little bit of Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island – the atmosphere before you start off on the adventure – you’re in a sea port – and there’s the old salt – seamen who have been on the sea, and that’s their world.”

Since I enjoy Star Wars so much – especially the original trilogy – this made me want to read Treasure Island – or at least those parts Mr. Campbell was referring to.

I started out by going to a web site called Daily Lit.  They have hundreds of books – 700+ of them free.  They will send you e-mail messages with chunks of the book – for example, the first chapter of Treasure Island came in 3 installments – all of Treasure Island in 88 installments.  You can read a book in small slices of time – a book you might otherwise not find the time to read.

I used Daily Lit, over two or three days, to read Treasure Island – through chapter 3.  Each e-mail message has a link to request that the next installment be sent immediately.  I was cruising along, and over the July 4th weekend, something happened – I’ve no idea what – and I didn’t get the next installment when I requested it.

So – I went to Google to find the book online.  I tried about a dozen different sites, and I didn’t like the way any of them were set up.  Navigating from one page to the next – or from one chapter to the next – required several clicks – almost like they wanted to discourage you from using their site to read the book.  There were no straightforward, single-click, “Next Page” links – or “Next Chapter” links.

So I went looking for a PDF (Adobe Acrobat) file – so I could download the book and read it on my PC.  I found one in the second page of my Google search results.  So I downloaded it and got it set up, so it was easy to use.

It was at this point, I think, that my troubles really started.  I hadn’t figured it out yet – you know – that I had a problem.  But this was the dropping off point.  The precipice.  I slipped.

Maybe I should have been more careful.  I don’t know.  We all know the ironic value of 20-20 hindsight.

After I set up the PDF file, I made an entry in my “Day Detail” journal – saying what I’d done & when.  That was at about 8:30 in the evening.

At something like two minutes after three – the following morning – I made my next entry in that journal.

That’s right about when I got to “Part 6: Captain Silver” and “Chapter 7: And Last” – and I read that “All of us had an ample share of the treasure and used it wisely or foolishly, according to our nature.”  Ben Gun “got a thousand pounds, which he spent or lost in three weeks.”  “Of (Long John) Silver we have heard no more.”

The narrator, Jim Hawkins, doesn’t comment on how he used his money, but he does say, “The bar silver and the arms still lie, for all that I know, where Flint buried them; and certainly they shall lie there for me.  Oxen and wain-ropes would not bring me back again to that accursed island; and the worst dreams that ever I have are when I hear the surf booming about its coasts or start upright in bed with the sharp voice of Captain Flint still ringing in my ears: “Pieces of eight!  Pieces of eight!”  (Captain Flint is Long John Silver’s parrot.)

It was rather like I imagine it would be to take drugs on a roller coaster that’s headed directly and immediately for the crimson core of the planet.  It’s like taking that next peanut – or that next corn chip – or it’s like that roller coaster – you’re helpless – you are completely incapable of stopping.

And what a ride!

You start at a sleepy, sea-side inn.  In a trice, you are hurtling along a rich story of adventure and treachery on the high seas – most of the story seen through the eyes of a boy.  The characters, the dialog, the atmosphere, the story – are crackling and compelling.

Just watch your head.

For over six hours, I tapped that down key – before I finally read, “Pieces of eight!  Pieces of eight!”

But I plead temporary insanity.  Treasure Island temporary insanity.

It’s like getting caught by a change of season cold – or the flu.  It wasn’t my fault.

And hey!  Maybe tonight, I can get some sleep.

I hope so.  Oh – I do hope so.