Publishing Info: -New York: Grosset and Dunplay, 1996. Part of the Illustrated Junior Library. Translated by Anthony Bonner and Illustrated by Stephen Armes
Genre: - Novel
Sub-genre: - Science Fiction // Children's Literature
Nationality: - French
Time Period: - 19th Century
First and Last Read by Dr. Rearick - Spring 1997
Rated: -
Location: - Dr. Rearick's Home
Before I Read:
I started reading this novel because it is mentioned in films which emphasize the importance of firing junior readers' imaginations with literature of the fantastic: The Pagemaster and The Never Ending Story come immediately to mind. Yet, an ironic point worth noting here is that Verne never intended for this novel to be a "children's classic." Although his first success Un Voyage en ballon, originally published in 1851 in a children's magazine, Le Musée des Familles, (Britianica on Line "Fantasy") clearly demonstrates that Verne was not afraid to write for young readers, he's intended audience for this novel are primarily adults.
Since 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea is an adult work, it would seem that here again is a case in which a great story of the imagination has been pressed "officially" into the world of children's literature because those who classify literature somehow can not accept the fact that many adults desire the quality of wonder which these authorities sadly find acceptable only among children.
Into the Novel:
One of the aspects of Jules Verne's writing which I read about before I ever picked up one of his novels is his meticulous attention to detail. This has proven very true. Since he knows that he is taking his readers on a trip into the fantastic he begins 20,000 Leagues by laying down what almost seems to the modern reader excessive amount of figures and facts demonstrating a good solid knowledge of geography and the current mechanisms of sailing. He also establishes his narrator Prof. Aronnax, as a man of science. (Swift does the same type of thing with Dr. Gulliver of Gulliver's Travels.)
Like "The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyl and Mr. Hyde" this story suffers from its popularity. Verne has spends a great deal of time in the first portion of the novel running a red herring across our trail. He wants the reader to think that his narrator is going to find a huge sea beast, but instead it turns out to be a new fangled device (at least it was in Verne's time) called a submarine.
But I've known all along that it is a submarine and basically wish Verne would just get on with the story.
Well, we're finally aboard! But once again I squirm while Nimo and Prof. Aronnax spend chapters describing the workings of the Nautilus' electric engines. It's all very impressive especially when one remembers that Verne was writing this at a time when the sub was just a fledgling device. The Confederate Navy had used a hand cranked sub during the Civil War with mixed results at best and here is Verne imagining a craft which can circumvent the world. But the science is a bit hazy and I suspect that most modern readers will find it plodding reading. What the 19th century reader found wonderfully suggestive is to the modern reader merely close hits to what mankind has been able to accomplish.
This reminds me that one of Verne's pet peeves was that he was constantly being compared with H.G. Wells. Verne disliked the comparison because he claimed that Wells did not really work at making his works scientifically plausible. This is certainly an understandable objection, In Verne's story about a journey to the moon, he spends a lot of time considering the amount of force needed to propel an object to the moon and the math needed to encounter it as the moon follows its orbit. All Wells does is create a metal which defies gravity (something still impossible) and up his astronauts go. (Reminds me of "up-it-daysium" from the Rocky and Bullwinkle Show). Between the two of them we have the classic conflict between hard and soft science fiction.
I probably am showing my bias since I am a literature professor and not a scientist, but it strikes me that Verne's work suffers from his intense concern of staying within what science, as he understands it, can do. What was wonderful for his readers in the 19th century becomes pale in the 20th. We are far more interested in the human element. What kind of person is Captain Nimo? What motivates him to renounce the rest of human kind, and who are his crew-mates? These are the questions I would have asked Nimo during my first interview with him, but Prof. Aronnax continues to be astounded and praises Nimo about his scientific ingenuity-constantly asking technical questions about the Nautilus' nature.
Wells, while fascinated by the possibilities of science, always seems more concerned on the human qualities. Time travel in The Time Machine is used to examine a future marred by class divisions. War of the Worlds is a morality play about a populous being over-run by a technologically superior enemy. And the Island of Dr. Maure examines what the true nature of being human is-never mind that the science which allows him to examine this is cloudy at best.
One other point. A modern reader is going to be reminded every now and then that this work is from another century. The entire hunting fury of the American crew of the Abraham Lincoln seems barbaric to the part of me conditioned by the ecological assumptions of our century, and the fact that the enlightened and brilliant Nimo has a smoking room on board his sub causes the tobacco-hating part of me to pause. Nimo's entire assumption that the seas are his to use and claim is also a personality trait that modern readers both young and old may question. One just has to keep reminding oneself that these are all natural to the mind set of a different century.
Ah, for me the novel has taken on a new life when Nimo opens the great windows of his ship. Verne's admiration of the unexplored vistas he describes is wonderful.
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