Post #632445 by TikiTomD on Sun, Apr 15, 2012 10:55 AM

Dr. Funk apparently has a greater footprint in modern fiction than I previously thought. In an earlier post, you found that he told his story as one of five real-life physicians who treated Stevenson in The Strange Case of R.L. Stevenson by Richard Woodhead, published by Luath Press Limited in 2001.

In 2011, Dr. Funk had a starring role in a radio play broadcast on Radio Germany, Die Teufel auf Samoa or, in English, The Devil in Samoa, by Holger Teschke...

The play is described as follows...

*The Devil in Samoa
Robert Louis Stevenson in the South Seas
A radio play by Holger Teschke

Robert Louis Stevenson, writer, 43 years
Fanny Vandegrift Stevenson, his wife, 53 years
Dr Bernhard Funk, physician and meteorologist, 50 years

The action takes place from July to August 1893 at Stevenson's Vailima plantation above the port city of Apia, Samoa.*

For those who can’t read German (like me), here’s a place where the online Google translator provides outstanding service. The Google toolbar will offer to translate the web page above or you can go directly to the text version of the radio play here, again asking Google to translate from German to English.

A small excerpt...

Stevenson:
Do you also feel homesick?
Dr. Funk:
It has its limits. Samoa is not the way the Garden of Eden was.
Stevenson:
Why not?
Dr. Funk:
No snakes.
Stevenson laughs:
I did not think the Germans also have black humor.
Dr. Funk:
After thirteen years of the South Pacific? But I will not complain. When I arrived here, I felt like an old man who had seen too much death and destruction and wanted only his red wine and its peace. But then I am once again in love and whistling in my old age...

There’s even an exchange between Dr. Funk and Robert Louis Stevenson about a Tongan Goddess Tiki!

-Tom