Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea

I was prompted to read this after appreciating the 1954 live-action Disney classic starring James Mason and Kirk Douglas. Its screenwriters were dismayed to read the novel, feeling there's no overarching plot but only a series of incidents. Perhaps I was made insensitive to this by exaggerating in my own mind what the movie brings to the fore: the three leads are trapped onboard, and must seek a means of escape. While they await their opportunity, Verne knew how to keep his novel interesting as Captain Nemo tours them and the Nautilus through a series of underwater wonders.

The forward to my edition offers some interesting background: Verne had a grudge against the British for how they managed the Indian Mutiny, and posited Nemo as show more having Indian background and exacting vengeance on British shipping. His editor insisted on stripping that out, but in the sequel "The Mysterious Island" the good captain's heritage is more firmly established. Nemo, it is interesting to note, means "nobody" and it is a key part of appreciating his character ... which makes it further interesting how readily Pixar brushed this fact aside when naming their cute clownfish.

There's an incredible amount of well-researched details about undersea life, a lot of which apparently still holds up well in the century and a half since this was written. The only thing I smirked at is his initial description of Drake's Passage, which Verne makes sound like a pleasure cruise. Granted, several adventures engaged in by the Nautilus are known to be completely impossible now - no spoilers - so you'll have to indulge in a bit of fantasy and just play along.

Callous disregard for the environment has become a standout feature of this novel, now. Ned is enthused at the idea of hunting and killing an island's entire population of red-blooded mammals, and even the professor can't imagine anything wrong with that. In one of the novel's least realistic adventures, the Nautilus is transformed into a weapon for stabbing an entire pod of sperm whales to death just because the captain doesn't like the species. The professor does speak knowledgeably about how the extinction of manatee might do irreparable ecological damage - but then they proceed to harvest all the manatee in sight anyways. Verne made a lot of smart guesses about the future, but he underestimated how much damage we might eventually perpetrate through thoughtless actions such as these. show less

What do you get when you combine marine biology from the late 1800s and an action-adventure classic? 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne, of course!

If you haven’t already read it or seen one of the many film adaptations, the novel follows Professor Arannox, an educated gentleman, and Conseil, his servant, on their search for knowledge within the ocean’s depths. Along the way, they encounter many wonders and meet the acquaintance of some intriguing characters, including the mysterious Captain Nemo.

When the plot focuses on the conflicts our cast of characters face on their journey, the pages fly by. From kidnappings to shipwrecks, a lot happens in what could be considered a rather short novel. Unfortunately, where there’s show more adventure, there’s also quite a lot of seemingly unnecessary description. Much of the book focuses on various characters making observations about fish. Unless you’re a scientist with a keen interest in the biological classification of sea creatures, there’s not much that will intrigue you in those passages. The descriptions that did not bother me were those that detailed the intricacies of Captain Nemo’s vessel, the Nautilus. At the time the novel was published, submarines were still incredibly primitive, so it’s impressive that Verne was able to predict the future, in a manner of speaking.

All of the main and supporting characters are fascinating, to say the least. Professor Aronnax values knowledge over freedom, Conseil takes great pride in his subservient position, Ned Land has a bloodlust for the hunt, and Captain Nemo, well, we don’t know much about him, do we? The level of secrecy he exudes kept me engaged until the bitter end. Verne has a subtle way with dialogue too. There were many moments, particularly in interactions between Ned and Conseil, which left me chuckling to myself.

20,000 Leagues is a classic for a reason. As much as I disliked the long scientific passages, the novel certainly has its merits. If you’re bothered by the extensive marine life descriptions, I highly recommend skimming or skipping them completely if you’re concerned that they’re ruining your reading experience. show less

It is always hard to appraise classics like this one. Their legend and influence on popular culture often means that when you finally get around to reading the genesis, it can be underwhelming. So it proves, to some degree, in Jules Verne's 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. (The number of leagues indicates how far they travel in total around the globe, not – as I believed – the depth to which the submarine sinks).

The most disappointing thing was that the characters did not land; Ned Land's motivations are clear, but our narrator, Monsieur Aronnax, leaves something to desired, whilst Conseil is a cartoon. Even the fascinating and enigmatic Captain Nemo – the star of the show – has a vagueness to him. Over the course of this long and show more detailed novel, we learn very little about his motivations. In reading the book, I kept expecting a plot that never arrived.

That this is deliberate – 'Nemo' is Latin for 'nobody' – is particularly incomprehensible in light of the fact that Verne devotes practically half the book (and that is no exaggeration) to "a mania for classification" (pg. 268). The book is in large part an encyclopaedic chronicle of marine ecology, with the detail on the flora and fauna, not to mention ship displacements and longitudes and latitudes, becoming a meticulous cataloguing that is simply absurd by any narrative standard. Thankfully, these passages are so intrusive and wordy that it is – paradoxically – quite easy for the reader's mind to glaze over them, and tear through the actual interesting parts of the novel.

Despite its flaws it is a fascinating book, with a prescient conception of the submarine and a pseudo-scientific framework to the story that is delivered with such diligence that it ensured future science-fiction writers would also endeavour to do their duty. The adventure itself is a thrilling one, despite its seeming aimlessness, and told in that incredulous gentleman-narrator's tone which is common to all Victorian-era adventure fiction. There is every conceivable adventurous or wondrous element of the oceans crammed into this book: naval combat, deep-sea exploration, whales and narwhals, sharks and kraken, storms and icebergs and whirlpools, shipwrecks and lost treasure… I could go on. The book is a luminous feat of imagination that captures the reader in spite of its objective flaws. show less

I love this book. Anyone who wants to write sci-fi must learn from Verne. He makes it what it should be: man and nature in conflict, and the technology he envisions to unite them. But an undercurrent in this book of rousing, scientific, seafaring adventure is one of tragedy and a deep bitterness. Yes,I have a fondness Captain Nemo. I still like to think, as he sat alone in the half-light, playing his organ, he played Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata...

The narrator has a habit of listing by genus and phylum every single plant and animal he sees and every shipwreck that has occurred in each region he travels to, but I skimed those and the rest was pretty good. I enjoyed the odd combination of 19th-century-style entitlement with surprisingly modern-sounding environmentalism (that species has been nearly hunted to extinction and this may be the last of its kind...let's eat it! or praising nature for creating new coal deposits in the sargasso sea for humanity to use when the land-bound deposits run out, or berating the harpooner for wanting to kill a whale needlessly, then slaughtering a huge group of other whales that came to hunt the first group....) And of course, an ambiguous show more villain(?) is often enjoyable. show less

Wow, what an amazing book! This science fiction adventure, so thoughtfully written that even the fantastical elements seem almost plausible, tells of an underwater journey that is grand in scale and full of excitement and danger. Although it is long, full of detail and digression, it is never the least bit dull. That is due, at least in part, to the care with which this underwater world is crafted; even the long descriptions serve to build excitement for this magical voyage. Another element that works well is the cast of characters. The distinctive personalities play off each other well, and the two supporting characters—the passionate and courageous Canadian and the calm Frenchman—appeal to different facets of the main character's show more personality. Even the mysterious Captain Nemo, who is perhaps the nearest thing this book has to an antagonist, still has enough nuance and depth to inspire empathy. A powerful tale from a man lauded as the father of science fiction. show less

Wow, what an amazing book! This science fiction adventure, so thoughtfully written that even the fantastical elements seem almost plausible, tells of an underwater journey that is grand in scale and full of excitement and danger. Although it is long, full of detail and digression, it is never the least bit dull. That is due, at least in part, to the care with which this underwater world is crafted; even the long descriptions serve to build excitement for this magical voyage. Another element that works well is the cast of characters. The distinctive personalities play off each other well, and the two supporting characters—the passionate and courageous Canadian and the calm Frenchman—appeal to different facets of the main character's show more personality. Even the mysterious Captain Nemo, who is perhaps the nearest thing this book has to an antagonist, still has enough nuance and depth to inspire empathy. A powerful tale from a man lauded as the father of science fiction. show less