(6) Vingt mille lieues sous les mers (Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Seas, 1869-70) (2 volumes) 142
K words
The sixth novel in Verne's Voyages Extraordinaires is probably the best-known, slightly ahead of Around the World in Eighty Days and Journey to the Center of the Earth.
I'm reading the Voyages using unabridged Spanish translations. If you read this novel in English, the English version you find most often is Mercier's 1873 translation, which is abridged and rather inaccurate. There are several modern translations, and I'd recommend looking for one of them (to see some options, read the wikipedia entry for this novel). If you must have a free ebook, the best option is F.P. Walter's 1991 translation (
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/2488).
First read or reread?: This is a first read for me, although I was familiar with the story from other media.
What is it about? (from Goodreads):
When an unidentified “monster” threatens international shipping, French oceanographer Pierre Aronnax and his unflappable assistant Conseil join an expedition organized by the US Navy to hunt down and destroy the menace. After months of fruitless searching, they finally grapple with their quarry, but Aronnax, Conseil, and the brash Canadian harpooner Ned Land are thrown overboard in the attack, only to find that the “monster” is actually a futuristic submarine, the Nautilus, commanded by a shadowy, mystical, preternaturally imposing man who calls himself Captain Nemo. Thus begins a journey of 20,000 leagues—nearly 50,000 miles—that will take Captain Nemo, his crew, and these three adventurers on a journey of discovery through undersea forests, coral graveyards, miles-deep trenches, and even the sunken ruins of Atlantis.
This is widely regarded as one of Verne's best, but reading goodreads reviews, I see a number of complaints about boring passages about the types of fishes inhabiting each part of the ocean. Both of those opinions have a point, as I'll comment in this review. I do think that this novel gets more than its fair share of criticism about those descriptive passages. The reason is that when people read only one Verne novel, it's often this one, so you get a lot of reviews from readers who are not used to his style.
The beginning is very interesting, with the hunt for the "sea monster" that is threatening the international sea routes, but the main part of the story, of course, begins once the adventurers get into the Nautilus, which turns out not to be a giant cetaceous animal but a submarine.
So this is one of those Verne novels where a futuristic vehicle plays an important role. But it's not his style to jump wildly ahead. The first submarine had just been invented when Verne wrote this novel, although of course it was far more primitive than the Nautilus. From there, Verne rigorously extrapolated what could be accomplished, and in some ways the Nautilus is surprisingly similar to modern submarines. He also described diving suits quite similar to modern ones. In his descriptions, Verne shows a good understanding of the effects of pressure under a deep layer of water, and also how apparent weight decreases inside the water due to Archimedes' principle. However, it seems to me he overestimated the visibility range you can get underwater. Also, he tends to have divers walking on the sea floor, when it seems that swimming would be easier.
In any case, this book is another example of Verne being good at extrapolating from existing technology. It's also another novel where the sense of wonder plays a huge role. Unfortunately, this is something that many modern readers are going to miss, since nowadays submarines and divers are quite common. It's only when you put yourself in the frame of mind of someone from 1869 that you can gaze in wonder at how this story opens the underwater world to people who had no access to it.
One problem this novel has is that the plot is a bit unfocused. After being saved by the crew of the Nautilus, the adventurers are treated well, but are basically prisoners. They are forced to accompany Captain Nemo and his crew in their exploration of the oceans. That makes the story rather episodic, as we contemplate some of the wonders of the underwater world. This episodic structure reminds me of Five Weeks in a Balloon, but that one was a faster story, being only one volume versus the two volumes of this novel (in the original edition of Verne's work, one volume typically was around 65K words). Also, the point of view characters were in charge, while here they can only go where they are taken. In the second half of the novel, the pace improves, and the plot focuses on the adventurer's planning a way to to escape. However, until then the story can be a bit slow, particularly for readers who are unable to appreciate the sense of wonder in these adventures. In these episodic chapters we get some moments which are more contemplative, like the visit to the submerged remains of civilization, and others which are more exciting, like trying to get to the South Pole and getting trapped under the ice.
Another enjoyable element of this novel is Captain Nemo, possible Verne's most intriguing character. In this novel we do not learn his true identity (Nemo just means "nobody", and it's the pseudonym the sea-faring hero Odysseus used in Greek mythology to outwit the Cyclops Polyphemus, in the Latin translation of The Odyssey). This character, however, would be revisited in a future Verne novel (The Mysterious Island). What makes him interesting is his complex and ambiguous nature. He's a well-educated and civilized man, but has also a dark side and a tragic past. He is a misanthrope, resentful of the human race, but at the same time he can't disengage completely from it, and gets involved in supporting groups of people who fight for their freedom. I can not describe him as an ecologist in the modern sense, but for the first time in a Verne novel there is some conscience in this character that nature's resources, seemingly unlimited, can actually be exhausted by human depredations.
Among the other main characters we have Professor Pierre Aronnax, who narrates the story. He is a French marine biologist (as I have said in other reviews, at this point it was normal for Verne to have a French character in his novels). This is the second novel of the Voyages told in first person, after Journey to the Center of the Earth, and once again the narrator is a scientist, allowing Verne to explain through him the scientific aspects of the story.
We also have his servant, Conseil, who seemingly knows the scientific classification of all animals, but is unable to distinguish one from the other in practice. Like other Verne characters with a similar role, Conseil is faithful to his employer to a fanatical extent.
Finally, we have Ned Land, a highly skilled Canadian harpooner, who is the man of action and feels particularly constrained by his imprisonment.
Before we finish, we have to talk about the scientific info-dumps. As I mentioned before, reviewers who complain about them have a point. It's Verne's style to educate his readers about science and the wonders of the world as he tells his adventure stories. It's a feature of his writing, but I found the scientific info-dumps rather dry here (pun not intended), as we often get enumerations of sea-life that take several pages. As I'm not into marine biology, I confess that I sometimes skipped them, jumping a few paragraphs ahead, which was easy to do without missing any part of the story.
Enjoyment factor: I enjoyed it. In the first half of the novel, the pace was not as good as in Verne's most dynamic stories, but it was compensated by the sense of wonder and by the enigmatic Captain Nemo. Do not get the impression that nothing exciting happens here, though. Despite the slower parts there is still plenty of adventure and danger.
Next up: Around The Moon
A few years later, when I got access to the novel, I was shocked that the character's name was Phileas rather than Willy.
