kidmapper

READING IN THE WILD 2: The Ross of Mull, which I had now got upon, was rugged and trackless...

THE VIDEO

THE PODCAST         THE TEXT 
          

What is it like to be lost & homeless?

When I think of David Balfour - the boy in the book -  I think of a 16-year-old who’s lost his parents, his uncle has tried to kill him, he’s been kidnapped by pirates, there’s a been a gunfight, a shipwreck and now he’s trudging across this alien and unfriendly landscape.

‘Kidnapped’ really is a great read for anyone who’s making that journey from child to adult; that period of your life when you feel very isolated, that you’re on your own, nobody understands you, and you have to discover for yourself about other people, realising (often painfully) that the world is not black and white, that there are not straightforwardly good or bad people, but that there are shades of gray and that we align ourselves to friends who are sometimes noble, sometimes feeble, sometimes socially acceptable and sometimes lawless.

I am thinking about my friends and family a lot whilst I am walking across Mull. I am already wondering why I separated myself from them and chose to take on this crazy mission.

And now the weather is turning and the rain will soon be upon me. Things are definitely going to get harder along the trail. But they don’t necessarily need to be lonelier. Not if anyone out there chose to travel with me for a bit...

With my stepping ashore I began the most unhappy part of my adventures.

Over the coming days and weeks, you'll have several ways to get into 'Kidnapped', exploring the world it describes and thinking about why this book is so darn good and still relevant to our world today. So here is the story for the 28th-29th June:

as a podcast: (as soon as I can work out how to do it properly you'll be able to subscribe to future podcasts in the far right column of the blog. Bear with me. It's kinda hard walking, recording & site building all at the same time.)

the full text online: (which I've put on a wiki so you you can edit and annotate it as much as you like; indeed, I'd *encourage* you to mess about so we can perhaps end the trip with our own "mashed-up" book.)

as a video: (which is currently being a bugger to upload so will appear soon I promise). I hope to make these vids downloadable for ipod users soon too. Again, bear with me...

It's here!:

Every day I'll read out the section of the book (abridged) in the location being described in that section. Today I'm on Earraid using Chapter 14 as my guide.

Because Stevenson has noted in the book that David gets to Queensferry on 24th August, it's quite simple to work back through the story day by day and conclude that the journey from Earraid must have started on 30th June, and that the shipwreck occurred on the night of the 26th June.

Actually I think my maths is better than Stevenson's since he appears to have lost a day somewhere along the way. Perhaps you can spot where this happens...

How a book begins

'Kidnapped' is a fantastically exciting book. The story of David Balfour running for his life across the Highlands, sometimes accompanied by tough and rebellious Alan, sometimes pursued by the English army, seemed so visceral and exciting to me that I wanted to try it for myself. 

So that is exactly what I am doing. From 30th June to 25th August, I'll be following a route across Scotland from the south western tip of Mull to the outskirts of Edinburgh, as charted in Chapters 14–27 of Robert Louis Stevenson’s ‘Kidnapped’.

From this blog you'll be able to read and discuss the book itself, listen to extracts being read out in the places the book describes and keep in touch about where I am each day.

Perhaps there's something you'd like me to do or think about whilst I'm walking. Perhaps you'd like me to visit specific sites and film them for you. Or better still, perhaps you'd like to come out here and join me for a walk, add your own responses to being on the Kidnapped Trail and have an adventure of your very own.

Now read on...