Tuesday, January 17, 2012
Lit & Lectures Fiction Week: Treasure Island!!!
Posted by
Jerome Ludwig on Tue, Jan 17, 2012 at 1:00 PMI'm a bit claustrophobic, so when I'm on an eight and a half hour flight, as I was over the holidays, I don't spend my time watching in-flight movies. The headphones just make me feel more enclosed. So I bring books to read.
One I took on this trip was Sara Levine's Treasure Island!!!, published by Europa Editions. (Levine is chair of the writing program at the School of the Art Institute.)
It's really good!!! And funny!!!
The novel follows a self-centered, directionless, slackerish young woman with little in the way of aspirations. But when she happens to read Robert Louis Stevenson's adventure story Treasure Island, she finds that its hero, Jim Hawkins, is a character to emulate.
In an effort to turn around her hapless life, she adopts four "Core Values" from the work: Boldness. Resolution. Independence. Horn-blowing.
With varying degrees of success. Maybe could've used more horn-blowing.
