Where else can you go for your adventure needs than the OG? Stevenson is an absolute master of adventure novels with likeable young protagonists who take it up to the man. David Balfour, orphaned after his father’s death, went to seek his fortunes when he finds out that his father has a brother, not too far away from where he lives. As a matter of fact, he is an heir to a fortune that’s been sitting there under the uncle’s arse and is practically a wealthy orphan.
It’s just a shame that the uncle is a bit of a douchebag and on the way to the lawyer’s he was taken forcefully into a ship full of miscreants, hence the title. David was to be a forced farmed labourer in the Americas, to perish anonymously. In the journey, the ship picked up Alan Breck, with a mission of his own to deliver money over to his kinsman in Scotland for the uprising. The captain, Hoseason, planned to take this money by force and toss him overboard. David being in a similar situation and finding an unlikely ally, mutinied against the captain and braved the assault of the crew in the roundhouse of the brig.
When David was tossed overboard, he needed to make his way inland, now with little money and in the highlands of Scotland, so he can reclaim his fortune. By chance, he was a witness to an assassination when he ran into Alan. They both became instant fugitives on the run from the authorities.
To be honest, I am not too familiar with English history up to this point especially in relation to the question of Scottish independence. Where religion is concerned, David being a protestant and Alan being a Jacobite. This adds another complexity to the story which may be more familiar to the readers of the era. And I’m gonna go ahead that I didn’t want to invest too much time in reading about the politics and religion of the epoch, as I wanted to enjoy the book for what it was: an escapist adventure novel.
But perhaps there are some merits of having a second look of the context of Kidnapped. Stevenson wrote Kidnapped when there are many political ingredients brewing in the region: the Scottish rebellion against the English, the Jacobites and the Whigs dabbling their hands in politics (which caused some friction between the two main characters) and it is also a period when England was reaching the heights of its colonial prowess. We can see the interactions between David and the highlanders as he could never bridge the distance between them and seldom can ever call them friends, even though they somewhat helped him in his journey. I think understanding the context in a high level will help the reading somewhat.
Besides, many of the characters in the book are based on real life figures, even Alan Stewart who was infamously blamed for the assassination of another character in the book, Colin Roy Campbell, the Red Fox. You can read about that here. This event was also a centrepiece in the novel which forced David and Alan on the run together. Some of these characters also appear in Stevenson’s contemporaries, such as Sir Walter Scott’s Rob Roy. If you are enamoured with Scottish history, then there is a wealth of that for you in Kidnapped.
Bur for the normal modern reader, who wants to enjoy the book as I described, as an adventure novel, this knowledge may be defunct. Kidnapped first appeared as a serial in the Young Folks magazine, a Scottish literary publication for youth. But like any quality novels, it can be digested by anybody. The adventures of David Balfour is epic, Ulysses-like, even in his young age. There is a lot of brutality in this book that will make you wince, and yet adds so much to the book, such as the relationships between the shipmates of the Covenant where David was first kidnapped. There is a depth to minor characters here which engage you and keep you reading along, regardless of the ambiguities of the novel.
