kidmapper

happenings on the heugh

From Denise:
"a story for you inspired by your ferny walk..."

Download "a story for tim"

From Paul:
"guddling for fish
a friend's face appears
in the burn"

READING IN THE WILD 10: "Lie here," says he, "and birstle."

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radio silence til monday 13th july

 I am leaving you to read Chapter 21 on your own whilst I rest up in the Heugh of Corrynakiegh (I must learn to pronounce that properly one day). 

To be honest, I am actually going to go home to see my family for a few days. I'll return & start walking again on Monday morning. Happy reading til then.

Oh, message to Paul D! Your message about singing is duly noted. You wrote:

"I wonder if you'll sing something either by the Proclaimers or Jacques Brel along your route. I wish you well along the road and hope you are joined by many fine folk, at least some of whom bear more than a passing resemblance to James Robertson-Justice. Arise ye Must!"

All I can say is, I did my best:

READING IN THE WILD 9: we stood, side by side upon a rock slippery with spray

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what this project is about

The idea that this adventure might be seen as some kind of reality TV show upsets me (but only slightly, Trevor, and I know what you mean). If that is how it looks, it means I'm not really doing justice to the original impulse for this trip.

And what was that impulse? Well it came from reading a passage in Chapter 24 (or 24th August, as we call it):

"The brig was lost on June the 27th," says he, looking in his book, "and we are now at August the 24th. Here is a considerable hiatus, Mr. Balfour, of near upon two months. It has already caused a vast amount of trouble to your friends; and I own I shall not be very well contented until it is set right."

This is the only time in the whole book that Stevenson mentions precise dates, and it intrigued me. Did this mean that the whole book is written with these dates in mind? If you chunked up the text into the moments when night falls or day breaks and charted it from the moment of the shipwreck, would the timeline be precise?

And if the timeline *was* precise, what about the geography? Would it be possible to move from place to place mentioned in the book within the time allowed?

I'm far enough in to believe that Stevenson did have it in mind that this was an adventure that really could be done. In fact, the only thing really slowing me down is documenting the trip for you lot in a transmedia-stylee:

Remember, though, that he was writing this book from the relevant comfort of Bournemouth, and years aways from when he himself actually roamed the Highlands as a kid.

In a very great way then, 'Kidnapped' is a book driven both by childhood memory (what I did) and imaginative projection (what I would like to do, or perhaps what I would have liked to do); it's right in the sweet spot for a walker in a valley looking up to the peaks and imagining leaping from rock to rock (a la Sonic, mebbe?)

The good news is that Adam has made me an introduction to a Stevenson expert in Edinburgh who should be able to set me straight on these musings about how a book gets written.

It's just a shame that I'll have to wait til August 24th to meet him (aka my personal Mr Rankeillor).

READING IN THE WILD 8.2 & 8.3: you Low-country bodies have no clear idea of what's right and wrong

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running for a living

David and Alan are on the run from the redcoats through the wood of Lettermore. To be honest, I am not sure what I am running from. The midges definitely, but what else?

At the moment I am definitely being pursued online by a small posse of ad planners. Such is the power of Iain's blog (aka crackunit) that he has boosted my Twitter following overnight from 1s to 10s of followers!

I think he sums up my ambitions for this project rather well when he says:

"it’s charming. And interesting. And funny. And real. And a touch shambolic. And a little bit odd."

Just two of those qualities would do me; although perhaps not 'shambolic' and 'odd' just on their own. I'm also happy to report of at least four people who have mailed me directly to say that they are now reading 'Kidnapped'. As a percentage rate of my total audience that's a pretty good conversion rate of viewers to readers. Check out this note from one of my growing band of kidmappers:

"just ordered the ebook from amazon for me and joe so we don't feel left out of your travels. joe is making the transition you talk about over the next few years. let's hope this book helps him. he's just finished tom sawyer which for me, did the same."

Hey, Iain, perhaps there is a business model here after all!
 


And maybe it isn't just about this book. Kevin, an English teacher, has contacted me to suggest other novels that could get the same mapper treatment: 39 Steps, Moonfleet, Jamaica Inn...? All other suggestions welcome.

And let's not forget about the potential for a soundtrack album too. I rather liked Garret's suggestion of 'Explosions in the Sky'. He says it goes well with the clip of me walking about in a storm:
.
Less sure about Paul's insistence that I try singing a bit of Jacques Brel as I walk. I'm not sure that will win me friends, Paul, and may even lose me some. Certainly it would worry the sheep. (Yes, they're still here... there... everywhere!)

READING IN THE WILD 8.1: "Take care of yourselves," says he. "I am dead."

Things are moving fast now, so there's a lot more to read out and less time for me to chat or comment. For example whilst the whole of my journey through Mull was covered in one chapter, it takes three chapters to describe the events of 6th July.

Don't let this discourage you from chipping in at any point with comments, tweets, posts - or using any other way you like to communicate:

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READING IN THE WILD 7: there’s love too, and self-denial

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becoming Alan

Trevor and his daughter have asked a very interesting question that I should have addressed earlier: how did Stevenson, sitting all the way down in Bournemouth at Skerryvore, write about the Highlands & Islands with any accuracy?

Well, he did spend some of his childhood up here. His dad and his uncle were both master lighthouse builders and spent some time on Earraid constructing one of the many Stevenson lighthouses dotted all over the region.

So as a kid, Robert Louis would have had license to roam the hills and get to know the place quite well. And he would almost certainly have walked much of the way back to Edinburgh occasionally, accompanying his dad or his uncle on business.

The trick of it, though, is that RL was a sickly kid. And not much better as a grown-up. He was living and working in Bournemouth precisely because it was meant to be good for his health. He couldn't hack it up North. He was a David then, not an Alan. But that didn't stop him dreaming, imagining, making up for his own perceived failings

So interesting - isn’t it? - that he writes so much about big tough outsiders like Alan Breck, John Silver, Mr Hyde. And he always pairs them with potentially vulnerable innocents abroad: David Balfour, Jim Hawkins, Dr Jekyll.

It must have been hard to come to terms with being a slight TB-stricken aesthete growing up in a family full of rough tough engineers. Not that there's any evidence that his dad held it against him in any way. (Dad's aren't like that, are they Trevor?)

But there is something in this story about what kind of man a boy is meant to become. I still wrestle with this. Oh to be a bit more like Alan Breck and a little less like David Balfour.

As I walk through the beautiful Morvern countryside I have time to think about what a boy's adventure story like 'Kidnapped' has to say to a 21st-century man like me.