The Ebb-Tide

What on earth did I just read? This was one of the most bleak, meandering, maddening tales I've read in a long while. It was hard to connect to the characters or to understand them, and eventually, it was hard to care. They're well-drawn and interesting enough as characters; the problem (for me) is that they lack the context a better plot would have given them. We are introduced to them only after they have lost all hope and are pushed to desperation. How did they come to this? Stevenson explains, kind of. A little. But it was hard for me to appreciate the gravity of their situation, especially Herrick and Huish, when it seemed as though they could still pretty easily solve their problems and go home. Instead, they become criminals, and show more even then, they are still mean to each other! Stevenson is a gifted author, and the tension did build slowly and steadily toward the dramatic climax . . . and then what? An epilogue that doesn't wrap things up, some characters that seem suddenly a little out of character—and how does a story that drags on so long even manage to create such an abrupt ending? Tedious, but interesting enough, I suppose. If you got something out of this, then great! I have enough respect for Stevenson to recognize his skill, even if the finished product leaves me scratching my head. show less

The Ebb-Tide was published in 1894, the same year Stevenson died suddenly of a brain hemnerage. It was a joint project with Stevenson's step-son Llyod Osbourne. It was the beginning of a new project to depict the Pacific in serious literature, to show the evils and contradictions of European colonialism. This had never been done before and it was a loss to the world with Stevenson's untimely death. It would have been a noble and important project, as Joseph Conrad would eventually demonstrate. The Ebb-Tide reverses the typical stereotypes and shows the Europeans to be uncivilized and the natives to be righteous and upstanding. Of course this all seems old hat now, but at the time it was a break from the norms that would eventually lead show more to post-colonialism, which is still ongoing to this day.

This story itself is very entertaining and has Stevenson's trademark psychological drama. The character of Captain Davis is particularly dynamic. The cockney language of Huish is priceless, right out of Dickens. Mr. Attwater is a bad-ass missionary, a sort of piratical devil in the clothing of the lord, operating in the wilderness beyond the pale of civilization., a prototype of Mr. Kurtz in Heart of Darkness and Colonel Kurtz in Apocalypse Now.

--Review by Stephen Balbach, via CoolReading (c) 2008 cc-by-nd show less

"I should find room also for Stevenson's "Wrecker" and "Ebb Tide." " --Through the Magic Door, p. 241