Book Review: "South Sea Tales" by R.L Stevenson

Robert Louis Stevenson is probably better known for his work on the shorter gothic novella entitled “The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde” which has been made into many a great movie from the Jazz age all the way to our own day, being transferred on to the stage and into television shows with the main character even making it big in other films not based on the book itself. When it comes to his lesser known works though, Robert Louis Stevenson does not disappoint. Think of “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde” as his magnum opus yes, but never think of him as a one-trick pony. “South Sea Tales” is written about the time where Robert Louis Stevenson moved to Samoa for his health in 1890 and was influenced by the culture he saw there and the ravaging that imperialism did to it. As a homage to the great and wonderful country of Samoa, Robert Louis Stevenson writes with aesthetic pleasure, appreciation and more than often, love - of a place he called his new home only some few years before his untimely death. He died at the age of 44, only a mere four years after moving to Samoa and was so loved by the community there that they carried his body up a mountain and inscribed his tomb with a cultural song of praise. He had written their country so beautifully into the work we now know as “South Sea Tales” which holds the picturesque island in high regard over its imperial enslavers in both morality and personality.

Let’s take a look at some of the great quotations that I want to share with you as an example of what you will find in this book:

“For the cocoa-tree and the island man are both lovers and neighbours of the surf. ‘The coral waxes, the palm grows, but man departs,’ says the sad Tahitian proverb; but they are all three, so long as they endure, co-haunters of the beach.”

This quotation is only one of the more picturesque views of the country around. There is a definite sense of not only appreciation but of sensory regard in this quotation and many more as Robert Louis Stevenson seeks to explore this new and exciting country in all of its charm and glory.

“He was accomplished too; played the accordion first rate; and give him a piece of strong or a cork or a pack of cards and he could show you tricks equal to any professional. He could speak when he chose, fit for a drawing room; and when he chose he could blaspheme worse than a Yankee boatswain and talk smart to sicken a Kanaka. The way he thought would pay best at the moment, that was Case’s way, and it always seemed to come natural and like as if he was born to it. He had the courage of a lion, and the cunning of a rat; if he’s not in hell today then there’s no such place.”

I loved this quotation so much I actually went back and read it a couple of times and since I have read this book a few times anyway, I have seen this quotation in many different moods both as an appreciation for the country’s cultural freedoms, but also as a way of sensing that morality of being is not based on the terms and conditions laid out by the imperialist ruler. It is something that has always stuck to me in a way that many of the characters, including the beautiful Case, do in their individuality and movement.

After reading the entire book, I always think about the way in which Robert Louis Stevenson would have gone about his final years in Samoa and how he made friends with many of the people there, not treating them any less than himself and seeing the culture of Samoa as a wide experience normally shut off to the imperialist country of Great Britain. I can honestly say that in all my reads and re-reads of this book, he had captured their world perfectly and this book stands today, still, as a love letter to the culture and its people. Something that the world was clearly missing in his own time and we today, have come to appreciate more and more.