Arg... Ugh...

I'm really glad that you guys enjoyed the book.  I was supremely bored with it.  Like Jackie said, a good tale for boys with lots of "this is the right thing to do" examples.  Satisfies the mystical call to sea that was so prevalent among young men for so many centuries.  I think that so much literature of the day was separated into these gender categories and makes it difficult to cross them.  I hate to find myself thinking this because I've always argued that anyone can read Jane Austen and love it, no matter what gender they are.

I did want to focus on this call of adventure in young people, young men particularly.  Where has this gone?  Does it exist in the youth of America today?  In my experience with young men, cynical though it is, I do not see this spark to strike out from the ordinary and try something new.  I see very little independence and wish to make his own way in the young men that I know.  I know that the sample of which I speak is a poor representative of the youth of America but I look beyond that to other men that I know or have known and still see very little evidence of adventure.

Didn't these boys read Hatchet?  What about The Call of The Wild?  Or maybe even Jack Kerouac? I know, I know.  Kids today don't read, let alone imagine what possibilities exist in the world.  And I did read Into the Wild and I saw 127 Hours.  I know that some men are possessed with the spirit of Hemingway but I'm sorely lost to see much of it.

So I throw the question to you.  Have you seen the spirit of Jack London in any of the men you've known?

Anyway, in addition to that, I have little to say about Treasure Island.  Lady Anne, it is your turn to select a book.  What have you got in mind?

ps.  On a side note, I recently read Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen and Empire Falls by Richard Russo.  Both were excellent and I highly recommend them.  Water for Elephants is being made into a movie staring Reese Witherspoon and (uck!) Robert Pattinson.  Empire Falls is written by the same man who wrote Nobody's Fool, which was made into a movie like 15 years ago staring Paul Newman.  Very good books both and worth picking up.