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The Adventures of John Carson in Several Quarters of the World: A Novel of Robert Louis Stevenson
The young Robert Louis Stevenson, living in a boarding house in San Francisco while waiting for his beloved’s divorce from her feckless husband, dreamed of writing a soaring novel about his landlady’s adventurous and globe-trotting husband—but he never got around to it. And very soon thereafter he was married, headed home to Scotland, and on his way to becoming the most famous novelist in the world, after writing such classics as Treasure Island, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, and Kidnapped.
But now Brian Doyle brings Stevenson’s untold tale to life, braiding the adventures of seaman John Carson with those of a young Stevenson, wandering the streets of San Francisco, gathering material for his fiction, and yearning for his beloved across the bay. An adventure tale, an elegy to one of the greatest writers of our language, a time-traveling plunge into The City by the Bay during its own energetic youth, The Adventures of John Carson in Several Quarters of the World is entertaining, poignant, and sensual.
But now Brian Doyle brings Stevenson’s untold tale to life, braiding the adventures of seaman John Carson with those of a young Stevenson, wandering the streets of San Francisco, gathering material for his fiction, and yearning for his beloved across the bay. An adventure tale, an elegy to one of the greatest writers of our language, a time-traveling plunge into The City by the Bay during its own energetic youth, The Adventures of John Carson in Several Quarters of the World is entertaining, poignant, and sensual.
229 pages, Hardcover
First published March 28, 2017
52 people are currently reading
1035 people want to read
About the author
Brian Doyle
60 books719 followersDoyle's essays and poems have appeared in The Atlantic Monthly, Harper's, The American Scholar, Orion, Commonweal, and The Georgia Review, among other magazines and journals, and in The Times of London, The Sydney Morning Herald, The Kansas City Star, The San Francisco Chronicle, The Ottawa Citizen, and Newsday, among other newspapers. He was a book reviewer for The Oregonian and a contributing essayist to both Eureka Street magazine and The Age newspaper in Melbourne, Australia.
Doyle's essays have also been reprinted in:
* the Best American Essays anthologies of 1998, 1999, 2003, and 2005;
* in Best Spiritual Writing 1999, 2001, 2002, and 2005; and
* in Best Essays Northwest (2003);
* and in a dozen other anthologies and writing textbooks.
As for awards and honors, he had three startling children, an incomprehensible and fascinating marriage, and he was named to the 1983 Newton (Massachusetts) Men's Basketball League all-star team, and that was a really tough league.
Doyle delivered many dozens of peculiar and muttered speeches and lectures and rants about writing and stuttering grace at a variety of venues, among them Australian Catholic University and Xavier College (both in Melbourne, Australia), Aquinas Academy (in Sydney, Australia); Washington State, Seattle Pacific, Oregon, Utah State, Concordia, and Marylhurst universities; Boston, Lewis & Clark, and Linfield colleges; the universities of Utah, Oregon, Pittsburgh, and Portland; KBOO radio (Portland), ABC and 3AW radio (Australia); the College Theology Society; National Public Radio's "Talk of the Nation," and in the PBS film Faith and Doubt at Ground Zero (2002).
Doyle was a native of New York, was fitfully educated at the University of Notre Dame, and was a magazine and newspaper journalist in Portland, Boston, and Chicago for more than twenty years. He was living in Portland, Oregon, with his family when died at age 60 from complications related to a brain tumor.
Doyle's essays have also been reprinted in:
* the Best American Essays anthologies of 1998, 1999, 2003, and 2005;
* in Best Spiritual Writing 1999, 2001, 2002, and 2005; and
* in Best Essays Northwest (2003);
* and in a dozen other anthologies and writing textbooks.
As for awards and honors, he had three startling children, an incomprehensible and fascinating marriage, and he was named to the 1983 Newton (Massachusetts) Men's Basketball League all-star team, and that was a really tough league.
Doyle delivered many dozens of peculiar and muttered speeches and lectures and rants about writing and stuttering grace at a variety of venues, among them Australian Catholic University and Xavier College (both in Melbourne, Australia), Aquinas Academy (in Sydney, Australia); Washington State, Seattle Pacific, Oregon, Utah State, Concordia, and Marylhurst universities; Boston, Lewis & Clark, and Linfield colleges; the universities of Utah, Oregon, Pittsburgh, and Portland; KBOO radio (Portland), ABC and 3AW radio (Australia); the College Theology Society; National Public Radio's "Talk of the Nation," and in the PBS film Faith and Doubt at Ground Zero (2002).
Doyle was a native of New York, was fitfully educated at the University of Notre Dame, and was a magazine and newspaper journalist in Portland, Boston, and Chicago for more than twenty years. He was living in Portland, Oregon, with his family when died at age 60 from complications related to a brain tumor.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 100 reviews
September 21, 2016
What we have here is not so much a novel of adventures as a novel of storytelling, characters, and relationships. As the reader, you are challenged to accept this as first-person work that RLS could and might indeed have written himself. You're treated to stories, yes, but more importantly, to artful storytelling by Carson. He deftly and artfully leaves you on the edge of your seat at just the right moments. The writing is delectable. Carson occasionally breaches the fourth wall as Stevenson and delivers a review on his own performance. I'm not enough of an RLS expert to judge that, but the effort comes across as nothing less than fully genuine. Perhaps some studied RLS expert could find a flaw in a single word or grammar choice or turn of events in the book, but I doubt it, and certainly not enough to be significant to the intended audience. Doyle demonstrates extensive research, seems to make plausible choices where choices need to be made, and takes fair liberties where liberties can be taken. I finished it in 2 very enjoyable sittings, and was left with hints of other novels in my mind and wishes that someone would attempt this story for my own favorite author, Herman Melville. Maybe someone's done it and the volume just hasn't crossed my desk yet.
I think the most important question that should be asked of a book such as this, and what Doyle would expect to be asked, is, "What would RLS himself have thought of it?" I say Stevenson would have endorsed it wholeheartedly.
I think the most important question that should be asked of a book such as this, and what Doyle would expect to be asked, is, "What would RLS himself have thought of it?" I say Stevenson would have endorsed it wholeheartedly.
March 16, 2017
Brian Doyle, beloved Oregon author, discovered that Robert Louis Stevenson once referred to a book that he'd (Stevenson) like to write one day: The Adventures of John Carson in Several Quarters of the World. Stevenson never did write that book, and scholars never did find a trace of John Carson. Brian Doyle, huge Stevenson fan that he is, could not resist writing that missing novel for Stevenson.
Full of rollicking and adventurous stories, cameos by such literary luminaries as Joseph Conrad and Mark Twain, and scientist Charles Darwin, and a deep empathy for Stevenson, this is one great novel. Covering the brief period that Stevenson spent in San Francisco in 1880, before his wedding, Doyle imagines an author struggling to survive and also pining for his long-deferred wedding to the woman he loves. Doyle reels in his own expansive and tumbling style and writes a Stevenson firmly set in his own time and prose style. With fantastic stories, deeply felt characters, and impeccable insight into Stevenson, Doyle delivers a spot-on novel that feels both tender and true. Bravo!
Full of rollicking and adventurous stories, cameos by such literary luminaries as Joseph Conrad and Mark Twain, and scientist Charles Darwin, and a deep empathy for Stevenson, this is one great novel. Covering the brief period that Stevenson spent in San Francisco in 1880, before his wedding, Doyle imagines an author struggling to survive and also pining for his long-deferred wedding to the woman he loves. Doyle reels in his own expansive and tumbling style and writes a Stevenson firmly set in his own time and prose style. With fantastic stories, deeply felt characters, and impeccable insight into Stevenson, Doyle delivers a spot-on novel that feels both tender and true. Bravo!
February 17, 2017
This was definitely entertaining. This is a story within a story. The narrator is Robert Louis Stevenson and he recounts the stories as told to him by the people he meets in San Francisco where he was living briefly, waiting for Fanny's divorce to be finalized. The author takes real people and uses source material to create the story. It's an interesting concept and the author's ability to channel RLS, even down to his narrative style is pretty impressive.
August 2, 2017
My five stars is a posthumous homage to a brilliant writer, Brian Doyle. This is a lovely book about Robert Louis Stevenson, and Doyle's final published book. It's hard not to read the words of tribute to one of Doyle's favorite writers, and the utter joy that they both approach story-telling, and wonder if he knew that his time here was soon ending.
January 5, 2018
I was lucky enough to hear Brian Doyle speak in person more than once in recent years, and each time came away impressed anew by his grace and charm, his easy wit and humble eloquence—characteristics which are all in ample evidence in The Adventures of John Carson in Several Quarters of the World: A Novel of Robert Louis Stevenson.
Although written in the voice of Robert Louis Stevenson as a young man in 19th-Century San Francisco—before being married, before becoming the celebrated author of Treasure Island, Kidnapped and other classics—The Adventures of John Carson... is nevertheless very much a Brian Doyle book. The rhythmic cadences of this catalogue of birds in Borneo, for example, ostensibly narrated by the titular John Carson and transcribed by Stevenson, are pure Doyle:
The Adventures of John Carson... is not all exotic travelogue, though. The bulk of the book finds Stevenson simply tramping around San Francisco—the rickety, wood-framed, extravagant boom town as it was decades before the great earthquake and fires of 1906—with John Carson as companion, eating lavish meals prepared by Mrs. Carson (who is a much more fully-realized character than this brief mention makes her seem) while teasing fragments of the Carsons' escapades out of John like some supplicant Shah from a burly Scheherazade. And, more often than not, Carson's adventures are just a springboard anyway, for philosophical musings voiced by Carson or Stevenson but ultimately of course coming from Doyle himself, balancing the more lurid surface narrative with deeper meaning:
I use the word "elegaic" frequently (too frequently, perhaps), but in this case it seems most apt—in The Adventures of John Carson..., Brian Doyle appears to be writing his own elegy, a valediction to his family, and to his friends:
This is Doyle's final book—or, at least, the last one whose jacket copy will be able to mention him in the present tense. And it is fitting, I think, that I finished reading The Adventures of John Carson... on the final day of 2017—the terrible year (terribile erat quod anno) which took him from us, as it took so much else.
Brian Doyle is, already, sorely missed.
Although written in the voice of Robert Louis Stevenson as a young man in 19th-Century San Francisco—before being married, before becoming the celebrated author of Treasure Island, Kidnapped and other classics—The Adventures of John Carson... is nevertheless very much a Brian Doyle book. The rhythmic cadences of this catalogue of birds in Borneo, for example, ostensibly narrated by the titular John Carson and transcribed by Stevenson, are pure Doyle:
"And the birds!—so very many birds of so very many species! Trying to make some sense of their variegation and relationships and cousinly pattern was how I came to meet Mr. Wallace. There was the crocodile-bird, with a song like a thrush, and pigeons and parrots of every color, cuckoos and kingfishers, and ten kinds of eagle, two of whom dearly loved to eat snakes above all else. And all sorts of plovers and terns and stilts along the shore, and owls and swifts and woodpeckers in the forest, and what seemed like a thousand tiny songbirds of the warbler type, elusive as dreams among the fronds; my favorites of all of these were called sunbirds, tiny gleaming creatures that did indeed shine and glitter most amazingly, as if they had bathed every morning in the life-giving orb itself, and shimmered with its aura the rest of the day until dark, at which point they too subsided and vanished until tomorrow's resurrection."
—John Carson, pp.16-17
The Adventures of John Carson... is not all exotic travelogue, though. The bulk of the book finds Stevenson simply tramping around San Francisco—the rickety, wood-framed, extravagant boom town as it was decades before the great earthquake and fires of 1906—with John Carson as companion, eating lavish meals prepared by Mrs. Carson (who is a much more fully-realized character than this brief mention makes her seem) while teasing fragments of the Carsons' escapades out of John like some supplicant Shah from a burly Scheherazade. And, more often than not, Carson's adventures are just a springboard anyway, for philosophical musings voiced by Carson or Stevenson but ultimately of course coming from Doyle himself, balancing the more lurid surface narrative with deeper meaning:
I did not know then, and only can imagine now, the pain of realizing that the child you love with all your heart and soul is a stranger, and perhaps always will be, no matter how many years you both shall live.
—p.199
I use the word "elegaic" frequently (too frequently, perhaps), but in this case it seems most apt—in The Adventures of John Carson..., Brian Doyle appears to be writing his own elegy, a valediction to his family, and to his friends:
We do not acknowledge enough, I think, the clan and tribe of our friends, who are not assigned to us by blood, or given to us to love by a merciful Creator, but come to us by grace and gift from the mass of men, stepping forth unannounced from the passing multitudes, and into our lives; and so very often stepping right into the inner chambers of our hearts. In so many ways we celebrate those we love as wife or husband, father and mother, brother and sister, daughter and son; but it is our friends whom we choose, and who choose us; it is our friends we turn to abashed, when we are bruised and broken by love and pain; it is our friends whose affection and kindness are food and drink to our spirits, and sustain and invigorate us when we are worn and weary.
—p.203
This is Doyle's final book—or, at least, the last one whose jacket copy will be able to mention him in the present tense. And it is fitting, I think, that I finished reading The Adventures of John Carson... on the final day of 2017—the terrible year (terribile erat quod anno) which took him from us, as it took so much else.
Brian Doyle is, already, sorely missed.
December 2, 2016
This is a 3.5 star review. I received a copy as part of a Goodreads giveaway.
Some specific examples of what I liked about this book:
-a few really well-written "zingers" of high caliber. These I had to re-read because they were so witty and fresh!
-the cover art is awesome and appropriate
Okay, to be entirely honest, this was a hard book for me to get through; so was Treasure Island, but that's a genuine compliment to the author for crafting RLS's voice just right. The story was just flat--it simply relayed some short, random tales that happened to someone else. There was absolutely no suspense, high stakes, or emotion. I simply did not care what happened to anyone because the author did not have me invested. This is the reason I preferred Jekyll & Hyde 10x over Treasure Island because the former had a human element. This book had no human element and no real plot. Every character was jolly, brave, generous, practically interchangeable and 2-D. Even though it took place in San Fran, I could have sworn everyone was British. I wasn't convinced of anything.
In short, RLS was waiting for his fiance's divorce to go through and killing time with his landlady and landlady's hubby. The author tried too hard to make Mrs. Carson as adventurous as her husband because all she really did was cook amazing meals and shop for the ingredients to cook amazing meals. There was zero flow in the book. Every time I picked up the book again to start reading, I would have re-read whole pages because none of the little stories had to do with each other. For such a brief novel, it took me forever to finish. I would describe the writing style as basic. Good thing the author had a few zingers up his sleeve because they really stood out amongst the rest of the book.
I would recommend this to all the fanboys of Treasure Island. I did manage to learn a bit about RLS himself but I still question whether he really was that jolly, easily impressed and trusting all the time?
Some specific examples of what I liked about this book:
-a few really well-written "zingers" of high caliber. These I had to re-read because they were so witty and fresh!
-the cover art is awesome and appropriate
Okay, to be entirely honest, this was a hard book for me to get through; so was Treasure Island, but that's a genuine compliment to the author for crafting RLS's voice just right. The story was just flat--it simply relayed some short, random tales that happened to someone else. There was absolutely no suspense, high stakes, or emotion. I simply did not care what happened to anyone because the author did not have me invested. This is the reason I preferred Jekyll & Hyde 10x over Treasure Island because the former had a human element. This book had no human element and no real plot. Every character was jolly, brave, generous, practically interchangeable and 2-D. Even though it took place in San Fran, I could have sworn everyone was British. I wasn't convinced of anything.
In short, RLS was waiting for his fiance's divorce to go through and killing time with his landlady and landlady's hubby. The author tried too hard to make Mrs. Carson as adventurous as her husband because all she really did was cook amazing meals and shop for the ingredients to cook amazing meals. There was zero flow in the book. Every time I picked up the book again to start reading, I would have re-read whole pages because none of the little stories had to do with each other. For such a brief novel, it took me forever to finish. I would describe the writing style as basic. Good thing the author had a few zingers up his sleeve because they really stood out amongst the rest of the book.
I would recommend this to all the fanboys of Treasure Island. I did manage to learn a bit about RLS himself but I still question whether he really was that jolly, easily impressed and trusting all the time?
November 10, 2017
Fantastic book. It was slow going at first, but ended so well!!
Ironically, I have never read a book BY RLS. But now I have read two novels of his life. Obviously the next step is to read a book that he is written.
As for Brian Doyle's book, it is three love stories: John and Mary Carson, RLS and Fanny Osbourne AND (most importantly) STORIES. Yes, this book is like an ode TO stories. Awesome concept.
Here is my favorite quote (from page 192): Stories, among their many virtues, are messages from friends you did not know you had; and while you may well never meet the friend, you feel better, with one more companion by your side, than you thought you knew. (My thoughts, exactly of many of my GOODREADS friends).
A review by Naomi Williams, author of Landfalls is printed on the back cover:
A richly layered, altogether enchanting reimagining of a few months in the life of Robert Louis Stevenson. An homage to the great Scottish writer, a collection of tales both adventurous and romantic, a love letter to San Francisco-it is all of these things. But most of all, it is a compelling and profound meditation on the power of stories... a rare book that is both entirely entertaining and entirely good for you. (BTW, Landfalls is now on my to-read list)
Toward the end of the book my eyes were misting; the thoughts portrayed brought up latent emotions in me. Almost like a good, cathartic cry!!
I just had to have my own copy, so the book is on its way from Amazon.
Doyle's Afterword is pretty compelling too. He provides homework for the reader: books that one should read that are excellent follow-ups to this book. OK, this review is done. It is time to contemplate a plan to finish the homework!!
Ironically, I have never read a book BY RLS. But now I have read two novels of his life. Obviously the next step is to read a book that he is written.
As for Brian Doyle's book, it is three love stories: John and Mary Carson, RLS and Fanny Osbourne AND (most importantly) STORIES. Yes, this book is like an ode TO stories. Awesome concept.
Here is my favorite quote (from page 192): Stories, among their many virtues, are messages from friends you did not know you had; and while you may well never meet the friend, you feel better, with one more companion by your side, than you thought you knew. (My thoughts, exactly of many of my GOODREADS friends).
A review by Naomi Williams, author of Landfalls is printed on the back cover:
A richly layered, altogether enchanting reimagining of a few months in the life of Robert Louis Stevenson. An homage to the great Scottish writer, a collection of tales both adventurous and romantic, a love letter to San Francisco-it is all of these things. But most of all, it is a compelling and profound meditation on the power of stories... a rare book that is both entirely entertaining and entirely good for you. (BTW, Landfalls is now on my to-read list)
Toward the end of the book my eyes were misting; the thoughts portrayed brought up latent emotions in me. Almost like a good, cathartic cry!!
I just had to have my own copy, so the book is on its way from Amazon.
Doyle's Afterword is pretty compelling too. He provides homework for the reader: books that one should read that are excellent follow-ups to this book. OK, this review is done. It is time to contemplate a plan to finish the homework!!
July 7, 2018
Summer bingo-By an author who died last year
I don't know how to describe just how wonderful this book is. It's a book that drew me into the world of San Francisco in 1880, to a boarding house, next to a fire listening to John Carson tell his stories to a young RLS. These stories are not simply adventure stories, but are about journeys, life, friends, faith, love, and all the things that make for a full and meaningful life. Although it isn't a long book, I read it slowly because I wanted to savor every word and image.
I'm sad that Brian Doyle is no longer with us to write more of his wonderful stories and I am grateful for all he has written.
I don't know how to describe just how wonderful this book is. It's a book that drew me into the world of San Francisco in 1880, to a boarding house, next to a fire listening to John Carson tell his stories to a young RLS. These stories are not simply adventure stories, but are about journeys, life, friends, faith, love, and all the things that make for a full and meaningful life. Although it isn't a long book, I read it slowly because I wanted to savor every word and image.
I'm sad that Brian Doyle is no longer with us to write more of his wonderful stories and I am grateful for all he has written.
May 11, 2021
As a boy I loved Robert Louis Stevenson stories and as an adult I have enjoyed the works of Brian Doyle so this literary fusion of the two was a recent discovery and the prospect for some zen was high. It’s a homage that meanders too much. Still a tantalizing, fascinating, and enjoyable read but one I was all too eager to see end.
It’s really a sort of chain letter of stories. Doyle is telling the story of RLS who is telling the stories John Carson tells RLS, and JC is telling us about all the stories of a Polish seafarer (Joseph Conrad)in Sydney Harbor. Should title this book “The Story Chain.”
It’s really a sort of chain letter of stories. Doyle is telling the story of RLS who is telling the stories John Carson tells RLS, and JC is telling us about all the stories of a Polish seafarer (Joseph Conrad)in Sydney Harbor. Should title this book “The Story Chain.”
January 26, 2017
A tender-hearted look at the fictional life of author Robert Louis Stevenson, "The Adventures of John Carson..." is a feel-good book about life, love, and family.
We start with struggling writer Stevenson in ill health and wanting to be married to the love his life Fanny, settling in to a "rooming house" with Mary Carson and her husband John Carson. From there, we gets tales of adventure and see Stevenson struggle with his future as a writer, a soon-to-be father to children who are not his, and his struggle with his family over his chosen career path and his marriage to a divorced woman.
I would say that for fans of shows like "Downton Abbey", minus the opulence, the storytelling here is along the same path and with the real drama being every day lives. This is a compliment, to be sure. Full of romantic language and lightness.
Each story John Carson tells to Stevenson, interrupted usually by dinner, makes us just as impatient as the narrator for the conclusion to each terrific tale. And the story of how John and Mary Carson met is just romantic and a powerful message about destiny. In fact, the whole novel is about destiny and how our lives are formed by friendship and family, in whatever form it comes in.
A great novel and one I'm sure everyone will enjoy.
We start with struggling writer Stevenson in ill health and wanting to be married to the love his life Fanny, settling in to a "rooming house" with Mary Carson and her husband John Carson. From there, we gets tales of adventure and see Stevenson struggle with his future as a writer, a soon-to-be father to children who are not his, and his struggle with his family over his chosen career path and his marriage to a divorced woman.
I would say that for fans of shows like "Downton Abbey", minus the opulence, the storytelling here is along the same path and with the real drama being every day lives. This is a compliment, to be sure. Full of romantic language and lightness.
Each story John Carson tells to Stevenson, interrupted usually by dinner, makes us just as impatient as the narrator for the conclusion to each terrific tale. And the story of how John and Mary Carson met is just romantic and a powerful message about destiny. In fact, the whole novel is about destiny and how our lives are formed by friendship and family, in whatever form it comes in.
A great novel and one I'm sure everyone will enjoy.
abandoned
May 8, 2017You'd think this would be my kind of book - I love Brain Doyle and I love Robert Louis Stevenson - but I'm just not getting into this book. It may just be bad timing, I may try it again in the future.
September 16, 2018
Backstory:
My husband was driving thru a commercial area and saw a battered book lying in the street. Altho a non-reader, he respets books and knows how I love them. So. He parked, dodged traffic, and dashed out to rescue the book. He noticed the author, recognized the name from hearing me rave about this guy for thepast 5-10 years, and brought it home to me.
And I just finished reading it!
It's a very quirky sort of memoir-ish book by my just-about favorite-ever-author, Brian Doyle, a genius who died too young by far.
Here's how he does it:
He, Doyle, writes a 1st person book as if he were actually RLS, and as RLS, he relates stories told to him by John Carson,a sea-faring man now settled on Bush St. in San Francisco, where his wife runs a boarding house where RLS did indeed actually stay. There's a plaque on the building today.
Really.
The common thread thru the story is the true tale of those months RLS stayed w Carson while awaiting everything to fall into place so he could marry Fanny, his forever-love who lived across the bay in Oakland.
I believe this is the last book Doyle published before dying of a vicious brain tumor in 2017...a loss to lovers of all things literary. Do yourselves a favor and read Mink River and Martin Marten and everything else he ever wrote.
My husband was driving thru a commercial area and saw a battered book lying in the street. Altho a non-reader, he respets books and knows how I love them. So. He parked, dodged traffic, and dashed out to rescue the book. He noticed the author, recognized the name from hearing me rave about this guy for thepast 5-10 years, and brought it home to me.
And I just finished reading it!
It's a very quirky sort of memoir-ish book by my just-about favorite-ever-author, Brian Doyle, a genius who died too young by far.
Here's how he does it:
He, Doyle, writes a 1st person book as if he were actually RLS, and as RLS, he relates stories told to him by John Carson,a sea-faring man now settled on Bush St. in San Francisco, where his wife runs a boarding house where RLS did indeed actually stay. There's a plaque on the building today.
Really.
The common thread thru the story is the true tale of those months RLS stayed w Carson while awaiting everything to fall into place so he could marry Fanny, his forever-love who lived across the bay in Oakland.
I believe this is the last book Doyle published before dying of a vicious brain tumor in 2017...a loss to lovers of all things literary. Do yourselves a favor and read Mink River and Martin Marten and everything else he ever wrote.
November 2, 2018
I wish I would've read the Afterword @ the end of this book before reading the novel because all of the incidents were true and real that he described in the book, it made the book even more interesting. Stevenson lived in San Francisco for almost 2 years with a couple, the Carsons, whose adventures he writes about but never published in a book. Doyle reveals to us the myriad tales of the Carsons and makes us feel and almost smell the streets of San Francisco in RLS's days.
August 10, 2018
I really enjoyed this story. As the author intended, it has made me want to read Stevenson’s books & also learn more about his life. The fact that the sweet spirit of Brian Doyle will no longer be writing stories such as this, truly makes me sad. Thankfully I am a late comer to his words, so I have several books still to be enriched by.
May 31, 2018
Not what I expected...lovely and kind and good-hearted.
"I hear the disconsolate reviewers say, who so wished for headlong adventure, and a narrative arc, and dark villains vanquished, and tumultuous hearts, and mysterious heroes and heroines slowly becoming aware of their deeper selves...Are we to read all the way through these pages and find nothing but the brave and courteous Mr Carson, and the gentle and remarkable Mrs Carson, and the idyllic Fanny Osbourne across the bay...Trust me, I feel as you do...But I cannot make this account into that sort of wonderful novel; for I wish most of all to capture something of what is, right around me, right now, in this house..."
"I hear the disconsolate reviewers say, who so wished for headlong adventure, and a narrative arc, and dark villains vanquished, and tumultuous hearts, and mysterious heroes and heroines slowly becoming aware of their deeper selves...Are we to read all the way through these pages and find nothing but the brave and courteous Mr Carson, and the gentle and remarkable Mrs Carson, and the idyllic Fanny Osbourne across the bay...Trust me, I feel as you do...But I cannot make this account into that sort of wonderful novel; for I wish most of all to capture something of what is, right around me, right now, in this house..."
June 25, 2022
Doyle's gentle humanity and thoughtful observance of human interaction are subtly brilliant.
April 23, 2019
A sweet little book of tales within a tale. The characters are perhaps a bit too perfectly lovely and saintly, but it was a welcome diversion from the real world.
July 28, 2017
A wonderful book that has become one of my favorites, which I am sure I will return to in the future. Partly a fictionalized biography of a period in the life of Robert Louis Stevenson, told in the first person, and partly a collection of short stories -- "adventures" -- as told to Stevenson by the characters he ecounters in the city of San Francisco in 1880, it is also a tale of two touching love stories. But what makes the novel so memorable for me is the exuberant flow of the narrative and descriptive language that the author Brian Doyle has conjured to capture the spirit and style of RLS. Wonderful examples may be found on any page; here is a description of the city from halfway through the novel:
"Past Leavenworth, Hyde, and Larkin, and now our legs are straining a little -- it surely is a city of steeps and slopes, pitches and precipices, though I give no credence to stories of small dogs and toddlers slipping on Polk and rolling all the way down Bush into the bay; they would have slowed down sufficiently after ten or twelve blocks of hurtling along, so that a policeman or an enterprising preacher could have snatched them up; such legends are not to be countenanced, though occasionally I have seen carts and barrels hurtling down the street on their own, either lost by their owners, or breaking out at long last in coveted independence. It is that sort of country, where all things desire to be governed just a little, if at all; never was a country like these United States, where independence is the common cry, dependence is the communal glue, and some sort of grudging independence a possible future; ...."
The book is a joy to read.
"Past Leavenworth, Hyde, and Larkin, and now our legs are straining a little -- it surely is a city of steeps and slopes, pitches and precipices, though I give no credence to stories of small dogs and toddlers slipping on Polk and rolling all the way down Bush into the bay; they would have slowed down sufficiently after ten or twelve blocks of hurtling along, so that a policeman or an enterprising preacher could have snatched them up; such legends are not to be countenanced, though occasionally I have seen carts and barrels hurtling down the street on their own, either lost by their owners, or breaking out at long last in coveted independence. It is that sort of country, where all things desire to be governed just a little, if at all; never was a country like these United States, where independence is the common cry, dependence is the communal glue, and some sort of grudging independence a possible future; ...."
The book is a joy to read.
November 14, 2017
I went to a community memorial tribute to the late Brian Doyle here in Portland, and picked up this book there. Doyle loved the writing of Robert Louis Stevenson, and found that Stevenson had told a friend he wanted to write a book about "the adventures of John Carson", a sailor and world traveler. But Stevenson never wrote it, so Doyle wrote it in Stevenson's voice. More a collection of stories than a novel, this book brings RLS and John Carson to life. Focusing on the time period when RLS lived in San Francisco as he waited for his future wife to be divorced from her first husband, the book shows us Stevenson's youthful impatience for love, his energy for writing, and his love of a good story told by his landlord, John Carson. As the book jacket says, it's an elegy to RLS, and a magnificent look at San Francisco in 1880, and a collection of tales of adventure, held together by the relationship between the two men and the narrative that gradually develops about how John Carson met his superlative Mrs. Carson.
As with any book by Brian Doyle, this is now filled with my highlights of favorite passages. Here's one, that comes from one of the stories told by a great friend of Carson: "We do not acknowledge enough, I think, the clan and tribe of our friends, who are not assigned to us by blood, or given to us to love by a merciful Creator, but come to us by grace and gift from the mass of men, stepping forth unannounced from the passing multitudes, and into our lives; and so very often stepping right into the inner chambers of our hearts."
As with any book by Brian Doyle, this is now filled with my highlights of favorite passages. Here's one, that comes from one of the stories told by a great friend of Carson: "We do not acknowledge enough, I think, the clan and tribe of our friends, who are not assigned to us by blood, or given to us to love by a merciful Creator, but come to us by grace and gift from the mass of men, stepping forth unannounced from the passing multitudes, and into our lives; and so very often stepping right into the inner chambers of our hearts."
October 8, 2020
I am willing to acknowledge the possibility that, five novels in, I've just grown tired of Brian Doyle.
But I don't really think so. What I really think is that this book isn't very good.
Though he has to work visibly hard to do so, Doyle here largely suppresses the lyricism that makes his writing such a visceral pleasure. He says he wanted to write like Robert Louis Stevenson, so obviously he couldn't just go off all Brian Doyle-y. But, boy, did I miss the Doyle-iness.
And that's not even the greatest flaw here. The real deal-breaker in this book is the saccharine parade of characters, every one of whom is good and wise and brave and deeply philosophical. A lack of human weakness and conflict is painfully justified by first-person narrator Robert Louis Stevenson (fictionalized) on the basis that these characters really are just that perfect and all he wants to do is present them truly.
Um. Except... They're fictional. They're Brian Doyle's imagination, not Robert Louis Stevenson's real-life acquaintances. Fictional Robert Louis Stevenson may have been restrained by the "true" angelic nature of his subjects, but real-life Brian Doyle wasn't. He could have added as much bad as he wanted. I guess he didn't want.
To summarize:
Brian Doyle's delicious writing style -- absent.
The tension that any good novel requires -- absent.
I'm sad that Doyle is gone and will never get to write another "Mink River" or "The Plover." What I wouldn't give for more of that.
But I don't really think so. What I really think is that this book isn't very good.
Though he has to work visibly hard to do so, Doyle here largely suppresses the lyricism that makes his writing such a visceral pleasure. He says he wanted to write like Robert Louis Stevenson, so obviously he couldn't just go off all Brian Doyle-y. But, boy, did I miss the Doyle-iness.
And that's not even the greatest flaw here. The real deal-breaker in this book is the saccharine parade of characters, every one of whom is good and wise and brave and deeply philosophical. A lack of human weakness and conflict is painfully justified by first-person narrator Robert Louis Stevenson (fictionalized) on the basis that these characters really are just that perfect and all he wants to do is present them truly.
Um. Except... They're fictional. They're Brian Doyle's imagination, not Robert Louis Stevenson's real-life acquaintances. Fictional Robert Louis Stevenson may have been restrained by the "true" angelic nature of his subjects, but real-life Brian Doyle wasn't. He could have added as much bad as he wanted. I guess he didn't want.
To summarize:
Brian Doyle's delicious writing style -- absent.
The tension that any good novel requires -- absent.
I'm sad that Doyle is gone and will never get to write another "Mink River" or "The Plover." What I wouldn't give for more of that.
October 15, 2016
I have a confession to make: I haven't read any of the novels penned by RLS. Of course I am familiar with Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde as well as Treasure Island, but never got around to reading them. I suppose this is where I have to trust that the writing style of Brian Doyle is like that of RLS...elegant and extravagant wording and descriptions stretching from page to page. I thoroughly enjoyed the tales of Mr. and Mrs. Carson's adventures but found the long-winded declarations of "RLS" tedious at some points. But again, this is probably because I am not familiar with the writing style. That being said, I truly enjoyed the message of truth, friendship and belief of what makes a man into a real man.
June 11, 2017
This is a rambling tale of Robert Lewis Stevenson’s days in San Francisco with Carson’s short stories mixed in. I have enjoyed Stevenson's books and I wanted to like this one, but I lost interest half way through. I discussed this with my local book seller and he commented "Brian Doyle's writing is an acquired taste. I enjoy hearing him read, but reading him can be tedious. Not all like his stream of consciousness style." It did not work for me.
July 5, 2017
Normally I could have finished a short book like this in less than two days. This took me a week to read. Whilst reading it, I always found something else to do which would be more rewarding than plowing through another chapter in this book. I finally finished it and my boredom is relieved at last.
November 21, 2016
I won a copy of this book.
I totally enjoyed this book! Such a literary gem.
I totally enjoyed this book! Such a literary gem.
August 3, 2020
Okay. 4.5 stars. But after this author's Mink River saved me from the pandemic panic, I just can't find a 5-star-worthy read. A bold endeavor, this, taking on an unwritten RL Stevenson tale, for which 5 stars should certainly be given for bravery, alone. I loved the Carson adventures, wanted more of them, but not so much the Fanny story. I kept waiting for something terrible to happen. And I'm glad it didn't, given that this was RL's real life story, mind you, but I wanted more of the adventure.
Beyond the narrative, what Doyle has given us is his own priceless wisdom and instruction on his craft, for which I am grateful. And if you, like me, are a great admirer of this sadly departed author, here are some of his pearls, boldly channeled through the voice of RL himself:
“He was, I could tell, choosing his way among the possible skeins of story, and picking carefully which to trace, and which to leave in shadow; it is a surpassing art, as I have learned, to know which things NOT to say or write, so that those that DO see light are not obscured by tangles of lesser growth, so to speak.”
"I knew myself well enough as a writer by then to know that anything written in exhaustion would be prim and wan and desiccated and not worth the ink on the page. Even then, while still in my twenties, I was dimly aware that there was one sort of writing that discusses and comments and informs, at best usefully, and sometimes quite beautifully; but there is also another sort of writing altogether, that uses every conceivable tool and angle and approach and trick and delight-of-hand to reach for that which is deep and inarticulate in each one of us; and it was on Bush St. that I first began to perceive that I might be capable of this latter thing."
"I loved the essay, for it is the form closest to the human voice, closest to the general loose and free and untrammeled manner of human thought; but for the most part when I was young, I did but add to the mountain of mannered essays, poor writings all too conscious of themselves in their delivery, like actors who are trying too hard to act, rather than simply being the character portrayed. But on Bush Street I sought, in a real sense, to approach that for which we do not have good words, or words at all; and too I began to see how a fiction could hint a a deeper truth than any essay or article could achieve, though the latter reveled in their veracity, and dismissed novels as only airy wisps and dreams."
“I began to wonder if he was not very consciously and deliberately choosing particular chapters of his life to tell, in order to tell me other things, perhaps --- about the nature and power of stories, about how decisions not only reflect but create character, about how stories actually shape our lives; could it be that the words we choose to have resident in our mouths act as a sort of mysterious food, and soak down into our blood and bones, and form that which we wish to be?”
And then there is this to ponder. And I do think I have met a soilsithe in my own life. You? "I believe him to be one of the illuminated ones, the soilsithe, as my mother would say, the menerangi, John tells me they are called in Borneo. Every land is graced by the soilsithe, and how they arise from among us, and what strange and fantastic shapes they assume, and where they come from and where they go when they die is a great mystery; but were we more honest with each other than we are, we would speak more freely of them, for every one of us has met one or more, and knew it instantly, too. But we are so often afraid to speak of the things that mean the most to us, isn’t that so? You of all men, being an author, would know that, isn’t that why you write your books, in the end, to speak openly in print of the things we do not say aloud?”
“We do not acknowledge enough, I think, the clan and tribe of our friends, who are not assigned to us by blood, or given to us to love by a merciful Creator, but come to us by grace and gift from the mass of men, stepping forth unannounced from the passing multitudes, and into our lives; and so very often stepping right into the inner chambers of our hearts. In so many ways we celebrate those we love as wife or husband, father and mother, brother and sister, daughter and son; but it is our friends whom we choose, and who choose us; it is our friends we turn to abashed, when we are bruised and broken by love and pain; it is our friends whose affection and kindness are food and drink to our spirits, and sustain and invigorate us when we are worn and weary.”
If nothing else, this book leaves you with a long list of other books to add to your list, a list for me which now includes RL himself. Thank you, Brian, wherever you are...
K3
Beyond the narrative, what Doyle has given us is his own priceless wisdom and instruction on his craft, for which I am grateful. And if you, like me, are a great admirer of this sadly departed author, here are some of his pearls, boldly channeled through the voice of RL himself:
“He was, I could tell, choosing his way among the possible skeins of story, and picking carefully which to trace, and which to leave in shadow; it is a surpassing art, as I have learned, to know which things NOT to say or write, so that those that DO see light are not obscured by tangles of lesser growth, so to speak.”
"I knew myself well enough as a writer by then to know that anything written in exhaustion would be prim and wan and desiccated and not worth the ink on the page. Even then, while still in my twenties, I was dimly aware that there was one sort of writing that discusses and comments and informs, at best usefully, and sometimes quite beautifully; but there is also another sort of writing altogether, that uses every conceivable tool and angle and approach and trick and delight-of-hand to reach for that which is deep and inarticulate in each one of us; and it was on Bush St. that I first began to perceive that I might be capable of this latter thing."
"I loved the essay, for it is the form closest to the human voice, closest to the general loose and free and untrammeled manner of human thought; but for the most part when I was young, I did but add to the mountain of mannered essays, poor writings all too conscious of themselves in their delivery, like actors who are trying too hard to act, rather than simply being the character portrayed. But on Bush Street I sought, in a real sense, to approach that for which we do not have good words, or words at all; and too I began to see how a fiction could hint a a deeper truth than any essay or article could achieve, though the latter reveled in their veracity, and dismissed novels as only airy wisps and dreams."
“I began to wonder if he was not very consciously and deliberately choosing particular chapters of his life to tell, in order to tell me other things, perhaps --- about the nature and power of stories, about how decisions not only reflect but create character, about how stories actually shape our lives; could it be that the words we choose to have resident in our mouths act as a sort of mysterious food, and soak down into our blood and bones, and form that which we wish to be?”
And then there is this to ponder. And I do think I have met a soilsithe in my own life. You? "I believe him to be one of the illuminated ones, the soilsithe, as my mother would say, the menerangi, John tells me they are called in Borneo. Every land is graced by the soilsithe, and how they arise from among us, and what strange and fantastic shapes they assume, and where they come from and where they go when they die is a great mystery; but were we more honest with each other than we are, we would speak more freely of them, for every one of us has met one or more, and knew it instantly, too. But we are so often afraid to speak of the things that mean the most to us, isn’t that so? You of all men, being an author, would know that, isn’t that why you write your books, in the end, to speak openly in print of the things we do not say aloud?”
“We do not acknowledge enough, I think, the clan and tribe of our friends, who are not assigned to us by blood, or given to us to love by a merciful Creator, but come to us by grace and gift from the mass of men, stepping forth unannounced from the passing multitudes, and into our lives; and so very often stepping right into the inner chambers of our hearts. In so many ways we celebrate those we love as wife or husband, father and mother, brother and sister, daughter and son; but it is our friends whom we choose, and who choose us; it is our friends we turn to abashed, when we are bruised and broken by love and pain; it is our friends whose affection and kindness are food and drink to our spirits, and sustain and invigorate us when we are worn and weary.”
If nothing else, this book leaves you with a long list of other books to add to your list, a list for me which now includes RL himself. Thank you, Brian, wherever you are...
K3
September 11, 2017
"-novels where I could, at one level, tell a roaring tale of adventure and skullduggery, but at other levels perhaps hint or suggest things we know about ourselves and our lives but do not often, if at all, bring up into the light to examine: our deep inarticulate love for our friends; the ways that we are both dark and light in our hearts, and ever the two sides struggle for mastery..."p82
"...could it be that the words we choose to have resident in our mouths act as a sort of mysterious food, and soak down into our blood and bones, and form that which we wish to be? We think this to be so, do we not?, insofar as lewd and vulgar language, and look upon those who berate and blaspheme as avatars and exemplars of the foulness the emit, just as volcanoes are made of the lava they vomit forth into the innocent air." p84"
"...San Francisco. Yes, there were bastions of power, streets of old and new money, and forts where one could hear the rattle of weapons and the tramp of sergeants; but the true lifeblood of the city was its triple waterfront, from which came and went ships of every description from every part and corner of the world, and it seemed to me that the maritime nature of the city, thrust like a thumb into the eye of the sea, defined and dictated its character. Certainly it dictated its weather, so often mist and fog, and sheeting tides of rain, and a wind so steady you could steer by it in the street, blown due east in the morning and true west again at might; I always half-expected to see residents erect small personal sails, and whirl their way to work or school, tacking here and there as necessary with rigging made of string." p102
"It is just that sort of country, where all things desire to be governed just a little, if at all: never was there a country like these United States, where independence is the common cry, dependence is the communal glue, and some sort of grudging inter-independence a possible future; the whole nation is a kind of cheerful violent experiment in just how lightly the reins of government can lie upon the body of a people, without the commonality pulling apart in pockets of shrill rage and chaos. There are no robed kings and bewigged courts here, as the Americans are very fond of telling you, though they do have kings of their own kind, in lush offices and armed citadels, the former who dictate their will to underlings and shiver the markets at will, and the latter who obliterate the aboriginals, having no other enemy on which to exercise their armies." p106
"So many tales of adventure and voyage and journey are finally stories of a subtle change inside a person, with the tumultuous passage of the body over mountain and desert and sea only an excuse, a drapery, a costume on something else altogether. Indeed sometimes I think everything that we do is some sort of theater; perhaps we need the aura of performance as a screen between us and naked feeling, so that we can sip it rather than be drowned by it." p113
"I believe him to be one of the illuminated ones, the soilsithe." p126
"...I dream daily and nightly of the books I want so fervently to write...No on loves a dashing tale more than I do , and O!, how I yearn to write one after another, as fast as I can get the words from my pen, and shiver and delight readers of every age from nine to ninety! And I will, too - I will, if He who spoke the stars alight grants me ten more years, or twenty. Surely no more than that, for many times I have already thought I had coughed my last, and the most optimistic soul, staring at the grinning skeleton I have become, would place no sensible bet on many more years for me in this world. But give me ten. Lord, give me twenty, and I swear I will write such books as will never be forgotten, books that roar and sing and chime and ring..." pp 167-168
"Every day now was a last day, and I savored every moment, every detail, every drop." p207
"...could it be that the words we choose to have resident in our mouths act as a sort of mysterious food, and soak down into our blood and bones, and form that which we wish to be? We think this to be so, do we not?, insofar as lewd and vulgar language, and look upon those who berate and blaspheme as avatars and exemplars of the foulness the emit, just as volcanoes are made of the lava they vomit forth into the innocent air." p84"
"...San Francisco. Yes, there were bastions of power, streets of old and new money, and forts where one could hear the rattle of weapons and the tramp of sergeants; but the true lifeblood of the city was its triple waterfront, from which came and went ships of every description from every part and corner of the world, and it seemed to me that the maritime nature of the city, thrust like a thumb into the eye of the sea, defined and dictated its character. Certainly it dictated its weather, so often mist and fog, and sheeting tides of rain, and a wind so steady you could steer by it in the street, blown due east in the morning and true west again at might; I always half-expected to see residents erect small personal sails, and whirl their way to work or school, tacking here and there as necessary with rigging made of string." p102
"It is just that sort of country, where all things desire to be governed just a little, if at all: never was there a country like these United States, where independence is the common cry, dependence is the communal glue, and some sort of grudging inter-independence a possible future; the whole nation is a kind of cheerful violent experiment in just how lightly the reins of government can lie upon the body of a people, without the commonality pulling apart in pockets of shrill rage and chaos. There are no robed kings and bewigged courts here, as the Americans are very fond of telling you, though they do have kings of their own kind, in lush offices and armed citadels, the former who dictate their will to underlings and shiver the markets at will, and the latter who obliterate the aboriginals, having no other enemy on which to exercise their armies." p106
"So many tales of adventure and voyage and journey are finally stories of a subtle change inside a person, with the tumultuous passage of the body over mountain and desert and sea only an excuse, a drapery, a costume on something else altogether. Indeed sometimes I think everything that we do is some sort of theater; perhaps we need the aura of performance as a screen between us and naked feeling, so that we can sip it rather than be drowned by it." p113
"I believe him to be one of the illuminated ones, the soilsithe." p126
"...I dream daily and nightly of the books I want so fervently to write...No on loves a dashing tale more than I do , and O!, how I yearn to write one after another, as fast as I can get the words from my pen, and shiver and delight readers of every age from nine to ninety! And I will, too - I will, if He who spoke the stars alight grants me ten more years, or twenty. Surely no more than that, for many times I have already thought I had coughed my last, and the most optimistic soul, staring at the grinning skeleton I have become, would place no sensible bet on many more years for me in this world. But give me ten. Lord, give me twenty, and I swear I will write such books as will never be forgotten, books that roar and sing and chime and ring..." pp 167-168
"Every day now was a last day, and I savored every moment, every detail, every drop." p207
May 29, 2020
It took me a while to get into this book. Perhaps because in the words of Brian Doyle, speaking as Robert Louis Stevenson, "I have been at pains in this account to be as accurate as I can, with the soaring stories and rhythms of speech I heard in Mrs. Carson's house, during my months there; but I am well aware that this is not the sort of book many readers want--it is a tide of competing voices, is all it is!, I hear the disconsolate reviewers say, who so wished for headlong adventure, and a narrative arc, and dark villains vanquished, and tumultuous hearts, and mysterious heroes and heroines slowly becoming aware of their deeper selves, slowly becoming more self aware--slowly, perhaps, maturing. And what about love stories, a staple of our literature, rightly so? The love stories in this account are already launched, and where is our desperate fellow yearning for a woman who loves another, or our innocent girl pining for a preening cad, or the good woman gone bad by virtue of her own inflexible ego? (Doyle 166-7)."
"Trust me, I feel as you do; and this is all the more ironic, for I dream daily and nightly of the books I want so fervently to write, filled with headlong escapes across Highland meadows, and ferocious battles on remote islands, and terrifying chases and hauntings on icy moors, and spirits emerging from fantastic bottles, and black-hearted nobles outwitted by noble woodsmen whose arrows unerringly find their targets. No one loves a dashing tale more than I do, and O!, how I yearn to write one after another, as fast as I can get the words from my pen, and shiver and delight readers of every age from nine to ninety! And I will, too--I will, if He who spoke the stars alight grants me ten more years, or twenty (Doyle 167-8)." Delightful book. I highly recommend it. Read the Afterword at the back of the book, first, for more insight into Doyle's tale of "The Adventures of John Carson."
"Trust me, I feel as you do; and this is all the more ironic, for I dream daily and nightly of the books I want so fervently to write, filled with headlong escapes across Highland meadows, and ferocious battles on remote islands, and terrifying chases and hauntings on icy moors, and spirits emerging from fantastic bottles, and black-hearted nobles outwitted by noble woodsmen whose arrows unerringly find their targets. No one loves a dashing tale more than I do, and O!, how I yearn to write one after another, as fast as I can get the words from my pen, and shiver and delight readers of every age from nine to ninety! And I will, too--I will, if He who spoke the stars alight grants me ten more years, or twenty (Doyle 167-8)." Delightful book. I highly recommend it. Read the Afterword at the back of the book, first, for more insight into Doyle's tale of "The Adventures of John Carson."
June 9, 2021
Robert Louis Stevenson passed the winter of 1879-1880 in a San Francisco boardinghouse, writing prolifically and looking forward to marrying his beloved Fanny Osbourne after her divorce was finalized. In Adventures of John Carson, Brian Doyle, a longtime Stevenson fanboy, envisions Stevenson spending many of those winter evenings by the fire, listening to his landlady’s husband recount tales from the decades he spent as a seafarer.
I haven’t actually read Stevenson’s most famous novels Treasure Island and The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde , but of course I’m familiar with their presence in pop culture—and I’d wager that their popularity might have to do with how well they portray villainy and evil. John Carson, however, has plenty of heroes and no villains (except perhaps Fanny’s ex-husband, but he’s not very present in the story). As other Goodreads reviewers have pointed out, it feels like every character is a paragon of wisdom and virtue. Stevenson/Doyle even hangs a lampshade on this tendency toward the end of the book (“Are we to read all the way though these pages and find nothing but the brave and courteous Mr. Carson, and the gentle and remarkable Mrs. Carson, and the idyllic Fanny Osbourne across the bay, and her young and callow lover, all of them with good manners and the best intentions? Have we no evil and illness with which to contend?”), but it feels like protesting too much.
There’s also a weird inconsistency at the heart of the book. John and Mary Carson are initially portrayed as though they are a long-married couple and long-established in their cozy San Francisco boardinghouse, but later on, we discover that they got married and moved to SF only 6 months before Stevenson met them. Learning about their love story therefore feels confusing instead of satisfying.
The writing style, full of semicolons and long “riverine” sentences, does feel genuinely nineteenth-century, as does Doyle/Stevenson’s worldview. He talks about virtue and moral character in an openhearted, old-fashioned way; the book is a paean to courage, friendship, and non-toxic masculinity. There are also some wonderful passages describing San Francisco’s landscape and culture.
This is Doyle’s last book, and he wrote it while dying of brain cancer, which helps to forgive some of its “flaws”. When you realize that Doyle wanted to spend his last years writing in praise of good food, good friends, and good stories, devoid of real conflict or sorrow, the book gains a new poignancy. So do Stevenson’s frequent references to his poor constitution and ill health. It may not be my favorite kind of book to read, but I cannot fault a dying man for leaving us a last testament of kindness and grace—and impressively evoking 19th-century style along the way.
I haven’t actually read Stevenson’s most famous novels Treasure Island and The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde , but of course I’m familiar with their presence in pop culture—and I’d wager that their popularity might have to do with how well they portray villainy and evil. John Carson, however, has plenty of heroes and no villains (except perhaps Fanny’s ex-husband, but he’s not very present in the story). As other Goodreads reviewers have pointed out, it feels like every character is a paragon of wisdom and virtue. Stevenson/Doyle even hangs a lampshade on this tendency toward the end of the book (“Are we to read all the way though these pages and find nothing but the brave and courteous Mr. Carson, and the gentle and remarkable Mrs. Carson, and the idyllic Fanny Osbourne across the bay, and her young and callow lover, all of them with good manners and the best intentions? Have we no evil and illness with which to contend?”), but it feels like protesting too much.
There’s also a weird inconsistency at the heart of the book. John and Mary Carson are initially portrayed as though they are a long-married couple and long-established in their cozy San Francisco boardinghouse, but later on, we discover that they got married and moved to SF only 6 months before Stevenson met them. Learning about their love story therefore feels confusing instead of satisfying.
The writing style, full of semicolons and long “riverine” sentences, does feel genuinely nineteenth-century, as does Doyle/Stevenson’s worldview. He talks about virtue and moral character in an openhearted, old-fashioned way; the book is a paean to courage, friendship, and non-toxic masculinity. There are also some wonderful passages describing San Francisco’s landscape and culture.
This is Doyle’s last book, and he wrote it while dying of brain cancer, which helps to forgive some of its “flaws”. When you realize that Doyle wanted to spend his last years writing in praise of good food, good friends, and good stories, devoid of real conflict or sorrow, the book gains a new poignancy. So do Stevenson’s frequent references to his poor constitution and ill health. It may not be my favorite kind of book to read, but I cannot fault a dying man for leaving us a last testament of kindness and grace—and impressively evoking 19th-century style along the way.
May 14, 2024
This book was a gift to me in May 2018. I have finally read it as I am making an effort to read books I have owned for years and have not read 🙂
It a fascinating idea: the author discovered that Robert Louis Stevenson had thought about writing a book titled The Adventures of John Carson in Several Quarters of the World (what a mouthful!) So this author became taken by the idea of writing the book that RLS never got to. Doyle uses real people and events and credible source material to weave his story out of real things. It is well done.
I don’t remember reading any RLS (😬), so I will take the word of other reviewers that Doyle caught Stevenson’s narrative style nicely. RLS is the narrator of the book.
The book itself doesn’t necessarily have a plot (at least not a strong one), but is more a story of people and friendships and experiences.
One of the bits I enjoyed:
“Stories, among their many virtues, are messages from friends you did not know you had; and while you may well never meet the friend, you feel the better, with one more companion by your side, than you thought you knew.”
It a fascinating idea: the author discovered that Robert Louis Stevenson had thought about writing a book titled The Adventures of John Carson in Several Quarters of the World (what a mouthful!) So this author became taken by the idea of writing the book that RLS never got to. Doyle uses real people and events and credible source material to weave his story out of real things. It is well done.
I don’t remember reading any RLS (😬), so I will take the word of other reviewers that Doyle caught Stevenson’s narrative style nicely. RLS is the narrator of the book.
The book itself doesn’t necessarily have a plot (at least not a strong one), but is more a story of people and friendships and experiences.
One of the bits I enjoyed:
“Stories, among their many virtues, are messages from friends you did not know you had; and while you may well never meet the friend, you feel the better, with one more companion by your side, than you thought you knew.”
June 16, 2017
Subtitled “A Novel of Robert Louis Stevenson,” this well-imagined first-person narrative in Stevenson’s voice recreates, in a beautiful classic prose style, several months of the author’s life as a renter in the Carson boarding house high atop Bush Street in San Francisco during 1879 and 1880, awaiting his marriage to Fanny Osbourne of Oakland. Carson was a seafarer who finally landed in San Francisco with his hard-won wife (and wonderful cook, especially of anything oysters) Mary, with adventures of her own to tell. The tales of both, as told to Stevenson, he recounts here, with the “several quarters” encompassing the US Civil War, Borneo, Australia’s Queensland coast, Canada (Montreal to Victoria Island), and Ireland’s West Coast (wish there were more). Walks along San Francisco’s streets, hills, and waterfronts, and the Carsons’ warm hearth, are the settings for embarking as new tales unwind. The adventures are peopled by historical personages throughout, some (named and unnamed) recognizable, others (like the Carsons) less so.
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