Dead Man's Chest: Travels After Robert Louis Stevenson

So said Jorge Luis Borges about Robert Louis Stevenson. I would not make quite so emphatic a statement, but I do like the fiction of RLS -- very much so, more than I like the fiction of Borges for that matter. The quote is one of many comments by literary luminaries on RLS from Nicholas Rankin's DEAD MAN'S CHEST, which, in addition to being part literary criticism, is also part biography and part travelogue. And the sum of those parts is a very engaging book. DEAD MAN'S CHEST is structured around the author's travels, circa 1984, to the various places around the world that RLS lived: Edinburgh, where RLS was born and raised; the Hebrides, including Earraid (the island of "Kidnapped"); France; the United States, including Monterey, Napa Valley, and Saranac Lake, N.Y.; and the Pacific, including Hawaii and Samoa, where he died, age 44. By the end of the book, the reader has a very good feel and sense for RLS. He certainly was imaginative, likeable, humane, and compassionate. Above all, perhaps, he transcended race and social class and conventions in his dealings with others. His life would have been a remarkable and admirable one, worthy of a biography, had he never published any of his tales, novels, or poetry. Although it is not strictly a biography and does not attempt to recount RLS's life in detail from cradle to grave, DEAD MAN'S CHEST is more successful in portraying a "three-dimensional" RLS than was the more conventional biography of him I read years ago (Ian Bell's "Dreams of Exile"). With regard to Stevenson's success as a writer, Rankin, I think, neatly captures his most distinctive quality: "Stevenson's gift is to strike up a personal relationship with the reader, sharing every experience, even down to the glow of his night-time cigarette reflected in the silver ring on his hand. He is a palpable self in the darkness; an immediate living presence throughout the book." I rarely comment negatively on others' reviews, but in this instance I feel compelled to state that the one previous review of DEAD MAN'S CHEST is grossly misleading. Yes, Rankin writes a few harsh things about the U.S. and Americans vintage 1984, but those sour comments are made in passing; the book is NOT an anti-American diatribe. Rather, most decidedly, DEAD MAN'S CHEST is about Robert Louis Stevenson. For RLS enthusiasts it is, easily, a five-star book. For others it might not merit a full five stars, but I will award it the full five, in part to offset the ridiculously Scroogelike single star given by the other reviewer.