Customer Reviews

The Beach of Falesa

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Probably Robert Luis Stevenson's most brillient work. A sensitive probeing of race relations in a turn of the century setting involving an English Trader and a beautiful island girl.

An interesting story, a sensitive love story and an exploration of what is best and what is worst in humanity. This piercing examination is as important today as when Stevenson wrote it.

One can easily understand why he did not want it published in his lifetime.

In this little known story by Robert Louis Stevenson, a trader gets stationed on a small island in the South Pacific, but he immediately has trouble establishing himself as a taboo has been placed on him by the natives. The story brilliantly portrays how any foreigner be he white, black, or Asian holds superiority over the natives. Such relations between races on an isolated island were normal during imperialism but are shocking now. For example, the main character has free choice of any native girl to be his wife. Stevenson honestly portrays imperialism's influence on the island while also exploring the beliefs of the natives and how they can be easily manipulated. This was a great page-turner, one of those rare ones that left me thinking about it months later.