I wanted to read one of the books that was written right around the time when science fiction as a genre was just starting to form, so I decided to read this classic by Jules Verne. Even though I knew the story already, it was fairly enjoyable to read, and I noticed a few things in it that are typical of the genre even today…
The story is told from the point of view of a scientist (of course) named Pierre Aronnax who studies marine biology. The time period is the mid to late 1800’s. Pierre is in New York when an expedition sets out to find and identify a strange sea monster that has been seen by multiple people on the high seas. For some time, the international community has been in an uproar about this monster, because it is so much larger and so much stranger than anything that has ever been seen before. Everybody is very anxious to uncover the secrets of this monster, not the least Pierre Aronnax himself.
He brings along his friend and servant, Conseil, a stoicly formal Belgian who never gets upset about anything, and while on the ship they meet and befriend a famous harpooner, Ned Land, from Canada. They voyage from New York City to the sea of China, where they finally find the monster. However, soon after they find it, the monster rams their boat, and the three friends fall off into the sea.
They find that the supposed “monster” is actually a highly advanced submarine, called the Nautilus, piloted by the enigmatic Captain Nemo, a man who finds everything about civilization and humanity repulsive, and has rejected the world above the water for the fantastic world below. He tells the three friends that they are welcome to go anywhere on the ship that they would like, so long as he can confine them to their quarters at certain times, for reasons unexplained. Captain Nemo also tells them that he intends to never let them off the ship again, to keep his secret from the world.
At first, the three of them are reluctant to accept their virtual imprisonment, but as the Nautilus commences a fantastic sea voyage that takes them across the globe, to the deepest depths of the ocean, and the furthest extremities of the earth, Pierre finds himself more and more reluctant to leave. He and captain Nemo discover amazing things that science has never uncovered, and experience wonderful adventures in places where no man has ever been.
However, as the journey continues, the three friends realize that Nemo, their captain, has many dark secrets, and that even though he has turned his back on humanity, he is not content to separate himself entirely from civilization without gaining his revenge.
This book was more about setting than it was about plot or character. There were long pages where Aronnax and Conseil did nothing but describe dozens and dozens of species of animals, plants, and other sea creatures. Because of that, the tension wasn’t as thick as it would perhaps be in a typical book written in our age, and there were parts where I zoned out a bit. However, the places that the characters visited were really fascinating, and the Nautilus itself was a pretty cool ship, if outdated according to the technology we have today.
One thing I noticed in the story that is fairly typical of hard sci fi is that Jules Verne often used the story as a vehicle to share scientific ideas and concepts, such as variances of temperature at different ocean depths, the workings of undersea ecologies, how electricity can be used to power a submarine, etc. There was a lot of dialogue that served primarily to flesh out large scientific concepts without long info dumps / pages of description. That made the dialogue seem a little bit stale at times, but overall I didn’t mind. I also think that this was more acceptable in the 1800s than it is today, so it was understandable.
There was one part that really got to me: it was when they were returning from the south pole, and they had to break out of a prison of ice but were running out of air. The way Verne described it, I almost had trouble breathing myself as I read it, and I got really wound up in the story at that point. That was one of the points where the tension was highest, but in general Verne does an excellent job with his descriptions, so it’s very easy to find yourself immersed in the world.
I also noticed some scientist vs. layman themes in the book, which made it very interesting. The character Ned Land was very much a layman, whereas Aronnax and Conseil approached everything in a very scientific way, classifying things and looking for new discoveries. Ned Land, OTOH, would look at the fish and say “that one’s good to eat, but this one isn’t,” and was always trying to find a way to escape. I’m glad that Verne put him in as a character, because the way he saw things contrasted with the way the scientists saw things, and helped flesh out both viewpoints.
This book is different from what’s published today in that it’s much slower, less character-based, and has long descriptions that sometimes sound repetitive, but it also has similarities to today’s hard sci fi, by using story to demonstrate and explain futuristic sciences, and is similar to a lot of sci fi in general in that it takes place in a fantastic world that is easy to get immersed in as a reader. Overall, I enjoyed it. I can definitely see now why Jules Verne is considered the father of science fiction, and I’m glad that he had the impact and influence on the genre that he did.
