Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea (Captain Nemo, #2) in The Dusty Bookshelf

Dec 19, 2011 Hayley Stewart rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: 2012, hayley-dusty-bookshelf

Full review can be found here

This book is written in the first person narrative of Professor Arronax as it follows the journey that he and his two friends Conseil (his manservant) and Ned Land (a Canadian harpooner) take as captive guests on board the fearsome Captain Nemo's 'Nautilus'.

The book starts in 1866 when something, commonly believed to be a creature of the deep, terrorising the shipping world. The professor is invited to join a ship setting off to hunt down this creature and there make Full review can be found here

This book is written in the first person narrative of Professor Arronax as it follows the journey that he and his two friends Conseil (his manservant) and Ned Land (a Canadian harpooner) take as captive guests on board the fearsome Captain Nemo's 'Nautilus'.

The book starts in 1866 when something, commonly believed to be a creature of the deep, terrorising the shipping world. The professor is invited to join a ship setting off to hunt down this creature and there makes the acquaintance of the fiery harpoonist. What follows is a struggle between boat and creature that is actually a highly sophisticated submarine vessel, whereupon our three characters end up on top of the Nautilus.

The three men are then to become unwilling guests of the captain of this vessel, Captain Nemo, with the promise that he will never let them leave the Nautilus now that they know so much about it.

In a bid not to spoil this book for anyone who has yet to read it I will say that it takes the reader on a journey around the world, seeing different wonders of the ocean and joining in with the characters at their times of admiration as well as fears at what hides beneath the oceans.

Written in 1869, Jules Verne's masterpiece was really ahead of it's time with the idea of the Nautilus having on it a device to create electricity through the power of the sea, not to mention the Nautilus itself with the power of electricity and the means of keeping her supplied wityh oxygen. At the time of it's writing it must have seemed rather intriguing to the common reader.

I enjoyed this book in as much as the idea is a great one that has withstood the test of time and the writing is, at times, absolutely riveting. However, I did find that there were a lot of unnecessary stops in the story to allow paragraph upon paragraph of detail and description. this may have been intriguing to the reader of the time but now it stops the flow and just started to put me off reading.

Overall a good classic that I think everyone should consider reading, but be prepared to go through a lot of description. ...more

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Feb 17, 2013 Casey rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: quick-reads, the-not-so-serious-lit, approved-for-future-progeny

Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea is kind of the anti-Moby Dick (why am I making this comparison? Because they're both set in the ocean and I read them both recently and I'm so sleep deprived from a red-eye flight that you really shouldn't expect this review to make sense. Really.). Moby Dick is long and awesome and full of biblical references and generally makes you believe in the ephemeral joy of humanity. Moby Dick also makes you hate f*cking whales, and hate the f*cking bible, and really ...more

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Jan 01, 2016 Kristina rated it liked it

Shelves: classics, science-fiction

I kicked off my month of reading science fiction with a classic of the genre: 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne. I chose this particular novel because Captain Nemo and The Nautilus are such famous and enduring figures in the literary world; I wanted to see where they came from. Plus, I have vague and pleasant memories of going on the ride based on the movie version of this novel at Disney when I was a kid.

The novel starts out with an intriguing mystery. Ships from all over the world h I kicked off my month of reading science fiction with a classic of the genre: 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne. I chose this particular novel because Captain Nemo and The Nautilus are such famous and enduring figures in the literary world; I wanted to see where they came from. Plus, I have vague and pleasant memories of going on the ride based on the movie version of this novel at Disney when I was a kid.

The novel starts out with an intriguing mystery. Ships from all over the world have been reporting dangerous encounters with a gigantic monster in the ocean. After a few accidents in which some ships are sunk, a special navy voyage on board the frigate Abraham Lincoln is launched to hunt down the beast and kill it. Professor Aronnax, French marine expert, and his devoted servant, Conseil, are invited along on this expedition to help out. After a long search, the frigate finds the beast. The ensuing attack, however, is a failure. The Abraham Lincoln is neither fast enough nor carrying enough firepower to take it down, and in attempting to harpoon it, Aronnax, Conseil, and the Canadian harpooner Ned Land are washed overboard. They end up completely separated from their frigate and wash up on the back of the creature, which turns out not to be a beast at all, but a giant submarine. They are taken on board by the enigmatic Captain Nemo, and their adventure of underwater exploration aboard The Nautilus begins.

20.000 Leagues ended up being a lot different than I imagined it, in both good and bad ways. I was immediately intrigued by Captain Nemo, who was not merely an undersea adventurer, but a vengeful and scary man. He wasn't traveling in The Nautilus for the fun of it- he was living under the ocean because he had sworn off the world of men. He was officially done with humanity and preferred to live under the waves with his crew. As he explains to Aronnax,

"The sea is everything. It covers seven-tenths of the terrestrial globe. Its breath is pure and healthy. It is an immense desert, where man is never lonely, for he feels life stirring on all sides. The sea is only the embodiment of a supernatural and wonderful existence. It is nothing but love and emotion...Ah! sir, live--live in the bosom of the waters! There only is independence! There I recognize no masters! There I am free!"

This disillusionment was caused by a personal tragedy in Nemo's life that he remains very secretive about throughout the novel. He was decidedly not happy to deal with Aronnax, Conseil and Ned. He took them aboard as prisoners and his intent was to never let them return to land and risk them telling others about his secret existence under the sea. Overconfident, highly intelligent and wracked with personal pain, Captain Nemo was by far my favorite character, and I dearly wish that Verne had developed him a bit more. We never get to find out where Nemo is from, what happened in his past that was so terrible, why he speaks a weird made-up language with his crew or what happened when one of his crewman suffered a fatal head injury during a time when Nemo had Aronnax locked up in his cabin. It was a bit of a disappointment to leave so much unfinished.

The Nautilus itself was a very cool machine. Huge, fast, sleek and powerful, she could do almost everything. Equipped with a library, museum, kitchen, spacious cabins and endless storage space, she was the perfect advanced vehicle for undersea travel. It is clear that Verne had very well-researched and specific ideas about how this submarine would function, which he describes thoroughly. It was easy to see why The Nautilus has stuck in people's minds since 20,000 Leagues was published in 1870. I found myself wishing that I could take a quick trip on board to explore the wonders of the deep.

Another high point in the novel for me were the adventures The Nautilus encounters throughout the voyage. Aronnax and company spend a total of ten months on board and in that time they take a walk through an underwater forest, view the ruins of Atlantis, mine shipwrecks for treasure, fight a giant squid, get stuck inside of a glacier and become the first humans to set foot on the South Pole, among other things. These moments of action were really fun science fiction. The Nautilus travels through every major ocean and sea on earth, and most areas have their own little special event.

What was not very fun, however, were the scientific explanations that made up the bulk of the writing. The story is narrated from Professor Aronnax's perspective, and he records everything in the form of an academic travelogue. Latitude, longitude, and depth are scrupulously noted every time the submarine changes position and hugely long descriptions of the ocean life, both plant and animal, from each region of the earth are included. Since the professor uses the scientific name for everything he describes, I found that I often had no idea what he was talking about and couldn't picture the setting in my head. It was always a relief to get to a little bit of action, because it meant a break from the science terms. While all the proper terminology definitely gives a feeling of credibility to the story, it felt like too much. It detracted from my enjoyment of the text.

An additional small gripe I had was the fact that there are absolutely no female characters in the whole story. It would have been nice to have a girl or two in there to mix things up a bit. I also felt pretty bad for Ned Land, the harpooner, throughout the story. Aronnax didn't really mind his captivity on The Nautilus, because as a scientist, he was enjoying the exploration. Ned, however, couldn't care less about that. He just wanted to go home. He spends the novel alternating between being full of rage and completely withdrawn and depressed. It must have been a long ten months for him, but his character is never developed. His only function in the story seems to be to occasionally remind everyone that they weren't on a pleasure cruise. I wish he was a little less flat and had more to do in the novel.

Despite the difficulties I had with some aspects of 20,000 Leagues, I ultimately enjoyed reading the novel and I'm very glad I chose this one. It was weird and cool- a charming mix of old fashioned ideas and retro predictions about the future. Jules Verne is considered by many to be one of the fathers of the science fiction genre, and fans of these stories would do well to visit the places where this kind of fiction began. ...more

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Aug 08, 2013 Jessica (Books: A true story) rated it liked it

Shelves: own, kindle, blog, amazon, 3-stars, tbr-2013, audiobook, audible, instagram-review

I liked this waaaay better than Journey to the Center of the Earth. Despite being so old, the science is not that inaccurate. In Journey to the Center of the Earth the science was so outdated it was practically unreadable to me. Jules Verne focused on facts and details to make it feel real. The fact that they are trying to hunt down a mythical beast is not that far fetched because "Either we know every variety of creature populating our planet or we do not." (pg 13) Math, names, dates, latitude I liked this waaaay better than Journey to the Center of the Earth. Despite being so old, the science is not that inaccurate. In Journey to the Center of the Earth the science was so outdated it was practically unreadable to me. Jules Verne focused on facts and details to make it feel real. The fact that they are trying to hunt down a mythical beast is not that far fetched because "Either we know every variety of creature populating our planet or we do not." (pg 13) Math, names, dates, latitude and longitude, and news stories were all details that lent a lot of realism to this fictional story. There's a strange fantasy feel to the ocean, this amazing part of our planet that we are still trying to understand.

The action in the plot starts right away and moves pretty fast for a classic. It does slow down in the middle because you are supposed to be in shock and awe about breathing under water and I was sadly not shocked by that. The voyages of the Nautilus follow up unfinished stories of real life explorers again adding this cool realism in fictional way.

It feels like steampunk even though it's not. Or is it? Because everything is powered by electricity, not steam, but the technology is so charmingly old and everything is made of metal...Well steampunk or not, the tech in this book is cool. I loved the disbelief when they discover that Captain Nemo's ship is powered by electricity. It made me laugh at how adorable they are all being until I realize THIS BOOK WAS WRITTEN BEFORE ELECTRICITY WAS A THING. And then I'm impressed at the author's imagination and how well he predicted things. And then I laugh when someone gets shocked. It's a cycle between humor and awe (but mostly humor).

I loved the characters. The unflappable Conseil. The usually-pissed-off Ned Land. He was my favorite. The mysterious Captain Nemo who is very environmentally friendly and save the whales which made him seem very odd to everyone else. I thought he was pretty cool and modern. The main character is...eh. I can't even remember his name. So he would probably be the exception to the interesting characters award for this book.

As I was listening to the unabridged audiobook, I would want to look up things in my kindle version and that's when I realized that most of the novels of 20000 Leagues Under the Sea are abridged. The abridged version probably leaves out the lists and lists of fish that they see in the ocean. So many lists. So many fish. But listening to the lists on audiobook actually gave it this beautiful and mysterious atmosphere. Reading it unabridged might result in skimming of fish names. I highly recommend the audiobook.

The ending. (view spoiler) But oh well! I still loved it! ...more

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