The Beach of Falesà Book

The South Seas are not at all the paradise it is cut out to be, and Robert Louis Stevenson, to his benefit, realized this. The Beach of Falesa begins on a high note, with the trader Wiltshire arriving at Falesa and getting a good reception. In fact, he is offered a beautiful women to marry the first night he is on shore, the lovely Uma.

That's when the real story begins. Wiltshire and Uma are a good match for each other, but the white man who introduced them, one Case, is actually trying to lay a taboo on him because Uma comes from a suspect family. This seriously affects the way the natives behave toward him from that point on. What is more serious, no one is selling copra to Wiltshire -- but they are selling it to case.

Instead of a paradisaic romp under the palms, what we have is a confrontation with a very superstitious culture that could be (and is) easily manipulated by an unscrupulous person. Case goes so far as to build a "devil temple" called Tiavolo out in the brush, where he takes groups of natives to overawe them as to his power among the world of devils.

This is what Wiltshire must overcome, and he does a fair job of it. This is not one of RLS's classic short works like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, and its author knows it -- but it is by far the best work of fiction I have ever read, including Conrad, on the tribal culture of the Pacific Islands.