[BWF] Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne and I'm keeping it at 4 stars because Ioved this as a child (but not now)

[Karin]

Wow, this book is definitely one I greatly enjoyed as a child so I'm opting to keep the 4 star rating even though it wasn't that good for me as an adult. However, the audiobook was well-read and helped when there was actual story going on; it made it slow and onerous when boring things like taxonomy were being listed.

It was very difficult to suspend my disbelief for certain things and annoying that the protagonist basically said that Canadians are sort of French when it's not true, and later referred to Québec as the Canadian's home town when it's Québec City, plus Ned Land is not a French name! Things I just couldn't suspend my disbelief for included (view spoiler)[ the underground water passage below the Suez Canal and the fact that this book was going off the inane popular (but not universally believed) theory at that time that the poles weren't frozen that defied all logic back then. It wasn't debunked until Europeans got to the poles. (hide spoiler)]

[Robin P]

I am reading this now in French and finding the details on flora and fauna pretty dull, skimming through them. Although I could accept the technical ideas of a submarine, I can't believe in the devoted servant who has no will of his own and the almost superhumanly strong Ned. Actually all the characters are one-dimensional. It's also amusing how Nemo has a complete Victorian library, dining room, and music room with organ. He mysteriously has extra rooms for his guests and some kind of space for the crew, who we hardly see. I have toured an actual submarine and it sure wasn't like that! And the class-consciousness bothered me. The professor gets his own room and the attention of Nemo, while Ned and Conseil are sharing somewhere else and rarely getting info directly.

I suppose for readers of the time, they would never get to experience the diverse parts of the world described here, so it might have been thrilling.

[Karin]

Robin P wrote: "I am reading this now in French and finding the details on flora and fauna pretty dull, skimming through them. Although I could accept the technical ideas of a submarine, I can't believe in the dev..."

I can believe Ned because I have a sister and some forbears who are as strong as he was (my sister for a woman), but the servant is difficult to believe outside of a cult.