Rating: WARTY!
I'm sorely tempted to say that you can't beat a novel with a title which suggests that the author is the villain (Kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson), but my ongoing quest to find a readable classic continues to be frustrated! I recall reading at least part of this young adult novel when I was a lot younger, but since the only thing I remember about that is a couple of Scots dashing around in the heather, I don't think it made an impression on me. I found it looking forlorn on the library audio bookshelf, and decided to revisit it. If mony a mickle maks a muckle, then maybe another little read will have a big impact? Sadly, no!
I started out quite bemused by the novel, both for its antiquated language (of course it wasn't antiquated when it was first published in 1886 in installments no less!), and for the quirky narration by Jim Weiss, who is not even Scots for goodness sakes, has no idea how to emulate a Scots accent, and who seems to have only two voices, sassy and sissy. In the voice avoiding to Tim, all Scots except for Davy Balfour are in the first category. Even without the voices, though, I would have found this novel a thoroughly unworthy read.
Davy was quite simply a chronic whiner, and his story was tedious in most places, describing far too much detail and far too little action. His entire life in this novel, it seems, consists of him repeatedly losing his money or making bad bargains with it, and wandering the Scots "desert" trying to get back to his evil uncle and reclaim his inheritance, threadbare as it is. He would have actually been better off had he made it to the tobacco plantations. He might have become rich there.
I know this novel is not written for modern audiences, but I reserve the right to judge classics the same as any modern novel, and by this judgment it failed to entertain me!
