Scottish Treasure
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I'm as great a fan of the present item, Stevenson's *Kidnapped*, as of his better known *Treasure Island*. Yet if really forced to recommend one over the other, I'd choose *Kidnapped*.
At first sight, the two works are disquietingly similar: around the middle of the 18th Century (not Stevenson's own 19th Century), an impoverished, inexperienced, but self-respecting teenage hero is set to sea by circumstance. Here he comes across a crew of thugs whom, supported by strong role-models, he valiantly defeats. Then follows a long voyage of wandering & discovery until he at last comes to spiritual & material independence under the wise & watchful eye of his mentors, portrayed throughout as very pillars of a romanticized British Empire.
But there the similarity stops. *Kidnapped* is exclusively about Scotland & its entirely unforgettable inhabitants. Its sea voyage is a circumnavigation of Scotland, no more, no less. The perilous return to the home town takes place across hills & heather. Finally & most important, every character in the novel is as Scottish as its teenage hero - or indeed as RL Stevenson was himself.
You might say that *Kidnapped* offers all the assets of *Treasure Island*, plus one: the tense but warm atmosphere of an independence-loving nation during the waning years of its armed rebellion against the English. Stevenson, in loving mastery of his subject yet never as uncritical as he seems, ignores neither politics, intrigues, & clan quarrels, nor the (somewhat predictable) homage to bagpipe & tartans. The book is therefore flavoursome in a manner that even *Treasure Island*, for all its power, never attains. The historical & cultural depth in *Kidnapped* is simply greater - & the book exactly as entertaining, if not more.
I believe this now classic work will go just as well with teens as it did 100 years ago. But it certainly is a book for adults too.
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