- plenty of fictional characters inhabit islands, and here are five of the most interesting.
The best-known island dweller in English literature is Robinson Crusoe, eponymous hero of Daniel Defoe's novel. Most people probably know the rough outlines of the story through one of its many adaptations (including this memorably theme-tuned French version which was a staple of children's TV in the 1970s and 80s). Fewer have read the original, first published in 1719.
Crusoe's resourcefulness and energy are perpetually fascinating, and the novel celebrates his industry and determination as he harvests what he can from the (rather conveniently accessible) wreck, and sets about transforming the island into his stronghold. It's also a story of personal struggle, as Crusoe comes to terms with his solitude, and fights against despair, and one of the earliest novels to present a character's journey in such an individualised way. But Crusoe is also the embodiment of the colonial impulse - a former slave-trader, who believes he has a God-given right to conquer, 'civilise', subjugate and exploit the island's natural resources, and the other races he encounters.
Shakespeare's The Tempest also uses an island to explore ideas about power: magical, colonial and theatrical. Prospero, the Duke of Milan, prefers reading to ruling, is toppled from his position, and cast adrift in an open boat, with only his books and his baby daughter to keep him company. He washes up on the shores of a nameless island, conquers its original rulers (Sycorax, a 'foul witch', and her son Caliban) and liberates Ariel, a spirit they have imprisoned. Years later, as the treacherous Milanese courtiers sail by on their way to a wedding, Prospero conjures up a storm that will deliver his usurping brother into his hands and enable him to take revenge.
Shakespeare's final complete play, The Tempest is part tragedy (it follows the Aristotelian unities of action, time and place), and part comedy (the island is a 'green space' where hierarchies are overturned and love resolves all difficulties). Prospero's relationship with Caliban, like Crusoe's with the cannibal he christens 'Friday' (as if his existence only began the day Crusoe found him), is a fascinating study in colonial power dynamics. 'You taught me language', Caliban snarls, 'and my profit on't is I know how to curse.' But Caliban also has some of the play's finest poetry, including the speech that inspired Frank Cottrell Boyce's Isle of Wonder opening ceremony for the 2012 Olympics.
Be not afeard. The isle is full of noises,
Sounds, and sweet airs, that give delight, and hurt not.
Sometimes a thousand twangling instruments
Will hum about mine ears, and sometime voices,
That if I then had waked after long sleep
Will make me sleep again; and then in dreaming,
The clouds methought would open and show riches
Ready to drop upon me, that when I waked
I cried to dream again.
The Tempest also works meta-theatrically: the island is the stage itself and Prospero's magic is the dramatist's art. It's a brilliant, endlessly fascinating and infinitely permutable play, and if you've never seen or read it, there are countless adaptations to explore. The RSC's most recent version, with Simon Russell Beale as Prospero, is available for streaming, as is the Donmar Warehouse's all-female version, tho sadly Rupert Goold's production with Patrick Stewart, which re-located Prospero's island from somewhere between Italy and Africa to the Arctic,and featured Ariel as a giant prawn, is not.
There are also excellent, deeply idiosyncratic film versions by Derek Jarman and Peter Greenaway, as well as a more mainstream version by Julie Taymor, with Helen Mirren as Prospero, and there's also Thomas Ades's stunning opera, with a libretto by the American poet, Alice Goodman, who casts a caustic eye at Prospero's power, and looks more sympathetically at the frustrations of his usurping younger brother. And there's the fabulous 1950s sci-fi movie Forbidden Planet, which re-locates the island to outer space. Ariel is transformed into Robbie the Robot, and, in a Freudian spin, Caliban is a monster generated by Prospero's subconscious.
Neither Robinson Crusoe nor Prospero deliberately set out to live on an island: Axel Heyst, the central character in Joseph Conrad's undersung Victory, on the other hand, is more comfortable with where his life has taken him.
A profoundly thoughtful individual, Heyst has grown disenchanted by human society, and a series of accidents (largely the result of his tendency to help those in trouble) have led him to the island of Samburan, where he lives as a virtual recluse. But a further generous impulse - he rescues a young girl, Alma, from the predatory intentions of her boss - unwittingly brings down trouble upon Heyst's head. His island retreat is invaded by a pair of spectacularly sinister villains, the skeletal Mr Jones and his brutal manservant, Ricardo - 'we are the world, come to pay you a visit' - who are convinced Heyst is hoarding treasure. Chaos and skullduggery inevitably ensue in this gripping philosophical thriller.
Villainous treasure-hunters also abound in Frances Hardinge's award-winning fantasy novel, The Lie Tree. Faith and her family flee to the fictional island of Vane, after her father's mysterious death. But, as in Victory, the world soon comes to pay them a visit, in search of a valuable botanical specimen, the mysterious Lie Tree, and prepared to do pretty much anything to obtain it.
Beautifully written - 'the green glass waves and crashing foam had a false brilliance like a lunatic’s smile' - this is an ingenious and compelling adventure story, set against the backdrop of Victorian science and Darwin's discoveries. Like Stevenson's Jim Hawkins in Treasure Island, who briefly turns pirate, Faith finds that she has a darker, more dangerous side, as she risks her life, and the lives of those closest to her, to protect her father's discovery. But patriarchal figures in island stories tend to be deeply dubious: and this one is no exception.
Most of the island stories considered so far, while brilliant, are also dark: and we haven't even mentioned Lord of the Flies yet. A quirkier, gently comical island story is Mr Pye by Mervyn Peake, about an angelic figure who travels to Sark (where Peake and his family lived for some years), determined to bring goodness to the islanders, but gets carried away with his own success.
This eccentric, whimsical fable might not be to everyone's taste, so today's final choice opts instead for its homophone - Yann Martell's Life of Pi. Yes, it's true, the boat which carries Pi and his tiger isn't a literal island, but it might as well be; and Pi's resourcefulness, and ingenuity in his determination to survive is every bit as compelling as Robinson Crusoe's.
The novel plays with reality and illusion, rather like The Tempest, and Pi's voyage navigates complex psychological and philosophical territory, just as in Conrad's Victory. And there is even a real island, where Pi and Richard Parker briefly dock: an island which isn't quite the haven it originally appears to be ...
Ultimately, Martell has suggested, the message of his novel is that you choose your own story. The central figures in the books recommended here often try to use their isolation to shape their own story, with varying degrees of success: but inevitably, the world comes to pay them a visit, forcing them to fight for control of their own narrative. A novel that explores this particularly powerfully is Lloyd Jones's Mister Pip, set in Papua, New Guinea - but that will have to wait until another post ...
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