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Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea
by Jules Verne, Scott McKowen , Arthur Pober
by Jules Verne, Scott McKowen , Arthur Pober
Victorian sci-fi / thrilling adventure books are always better in one's imagination than when one finally gets around to reading them. There's only so much semi-prophetic/humorously off-base "future" technology that one can marvel at in retrospect, especially when all the characters save Nemo are laughably flat (though the loyal, stoic man-servant is always a nice touch). I was hoping for a bit more fiery anti-colonialism from Nemo, but the book is 90% a written version of a National Geographic special. Verne's contemporaries may have thrilled at his descriptions of under-sea forests, but when you've grown up seeing them on TV, that's not enough to keep reading.
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Malbadeen
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Feb 06, 2008 07:41am
pshew! and to think I almost read it.
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while i can't dispute you... actually, that's all i have to say: it is a boring book. the endless catalogs of the sea are best read in a jacques cousteau voice (ah, la mer, la mere, la maitresse de tous, toutes le monde, le monde sub-marin, le mer). of course--blah blah blah--there's the historical importance of the book. (though as people have pointed out, verne's science is problematic, especially when considered as prophetic sf--not only were there submarines before verne, there were submarines named "nautilus" before verne.)on the other hand, i think you misread a lot of older fiction--not just sf--if you look for characters. (which are a relatively recent invention in some ways--much more common for a long time had been the type, like the long-suffering manservant, like Passepartout--no, wait, i mean, Joe (5 Weeks in a Balloon)--no wait, etc.).
anyway, i always think the real heart of the story is Nemo's library and salon--who builds a fountain underwater?
I agree with your statement that looking it can be a mistake to over-value character in older fiction. I never saw that as a failing in Haggard, Lovecraft, or similar pulp authors. I think I mentioned it here as it seemed more glaring in the absence of anything else I could really latch on to - say, plot. Though I did enjoy reading the long-suffering manservant's lines out-loud, bits like "I jumped into the ocean to follow sir. Is there anything sir would like as we drown here in the Atlantic?" Unflappable in the face of danger and never bothered by the fact that he's 32 and referred to as "boy."
I attempted this book as a child and was bored silly. Recently read Around The World in 80 Days and was delighted by the humor in his prose. Really fun. Now I am listening to Journey To The Center of the Earth a the rate of 1 Chapter per week or so and it is somewhere between the two. Wooden summation of Iceland's geography in one paragraph, awesome sentence in the next. My fave:"If this sand spout broke over us, we must all be infallibly destroyed, crushed in its fearful embraces."
There is such beauty there. Infallibly destroyed! Fearful embraces! Love it.
I wonder how much depends on the translation. Around the World in 80 Days was a new translation. Journey appears to be the original Griffith and Farran translation from 1871.
