20,000 Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne

Image by Jonathan Burton

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 this novel at Disney when I was a kid.

The best part was when they made the water bubble up past the portholes so it looked like you were going deep under the ocean.

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.

James Mason as Captain Nemo

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.

Image by Justin Mezzell

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.