RM Ballantyne, The Coral Island, 1857.
RM Ballantyne, The Coral Island, 1857.
The book is terribly dated, in terms of its biology (coconuts are not soft skinned, you cannot see more easily in warm sea water than in cold sea water). It is even more dated in terms of its values (white folks are not natural leaders, missionaries are not an unmitigated good, South Sea Islanders are not savage cannibals who sacrifice babies to eel gods).
However, I still retain fondness for this book, in the same way I am fond of Robinson Crusoe (1719) or Enid Blyton’s Secret Island (1937). There is something exciting about the idea of being cast away on an island, being self sufficient, making a bower out of palm fronds.
Every time I read it I forget about the last third of the novel. As written, it has one chapter on Ralph’s infancy, one on the voyage out and then the three boys are briskly left alone on an island with no hope of rescue. There follows a heap of adventures and information dumping about candle trees and yams and coconut trees and musings about the amazing beneficence of God who has made all this for his subjects. The boys rise to every occasion, even boar hunting and subsequent shoe making, and have no problems until the pirates arrive and kidnap Ralph! I remember all of it to this point with great affection.
What I forget is the coda. All the pirates are killed off (though one does get to maybe repent and be redeemed) and Ralph takes the ship back to rescue his companions. The novel then gets to the worst section, as the boys encounter the irredeemably, cartoonishly evil South Sea Islanders. Those converted by the missionaries are pious but oppressed. Those not converted are wicked, baby eating monsters who hit each other on the head with clubs and laugh or, for a change, watch each other get eaten by sharks and laugh. The boys wind up being held in a dungeon, certain to be killed and then eaten when – voila! – the local chief is converted and they are instead showered with gifts and sent on their way with the wealth of the pirate ship to carry them back to England.
It is imperialist propaganda, of course. Wildly implausible, factually inaccurate, overtly racist, blindly pro-Christian nonsense. Yet, the idea of surviving on a desert island has such an ongoing charm, partly because Ralph, Jack and Peterkin’s Coral Island lead to Treasure Island (1883) and then to Peter Pan’s Never Land (1904).
