For the ninth year in a row, I started off my new year of reading with a Jules Verne novel. I began reading his Extraordinary Voyages series in order last year after making my way through his most famous works. The Adventures of Captain Hatteras is the second book in the series, right after Five Weeks in a Balloon, which I read as my first book of 2023. I didn't have any idea what the story was about before I got started, but I was ready to kick of 2024 with a new adventure. As such, I got nice and cozy with a cup of coffee and got started.
**This review will contain spoilers for the whole story - it's very hard to discuss the plot without them!**
The Adventures of Captain Hatters is composed of two parts. Part One is about Captain Hatteras' dangerous and daring 1861 expedition to the North Pole. He believes that the Pole will be surrounded by an open ocean and will stop at nothing to be the first to discover it and bring glory to England. This won't be his first try at the voyage, however. His past attempts were unsuccessful and ended in the loss of all of his crew. As a results, people aren't exactly rushing to sign up for his latest trip. To solve this problem, he disguises himself and prepares for the trip under a pseudonym. He engages the services of a Commander Shandon to act in his stead, passes him orders by letter, and then joins his own crew as a deckhand when everything is ready. He reveals himself only when it is too late for the ship to turn back and formally takes on his role as captain. The crew is understandably angry about this, but he is temporarily able to maintain his authority with the promise of a big payday for everyone once the North Pole is reached. He does have a few men on the ship that are loyal to him, including the brilliant Dr. Clawbonny, who is both the ship's doctor and resident scientific expert, but most of the voyage is extremely tense, with the crew frequently considering mutiny.
Things do not go smoothly on the voyage. The ship is constantly in danger of being trapped or crushed by icebergs, the temperature is continually dropping, and the storms are violent and dangerous. All these problems increase in intensity as the winter approaches. There are many times where turning around or finding a safe place to stop for the winter would have been the safest course, but Hatteras is unwilling to stop exploring for any reason and continues forward. He does not listen to the concerns of his crew and burns through the ship's supply of coal at a speed most consider to be imprudent. Eventually, his supplies run out and the icebergs hem him along a frozen coast. He is forced to stop for the winter. With the need for coal becoming urgent, he is forced to mount a small trip over the ice to try finding an old supply cache left along these shores by previous explorers. He sets out with a few men, but is unable to find anything useful. When he returns, he discovers that the crew he left behind have finally mutinied. They have taken the smaller boat they were carrying and are attempting to go back to England. They burned the remains of Hatteras' ship in anger, leaving him and his four remaining loyal men with nothing.
Part Two is about Captain Hatteras and his few remaining friends trying to survive alone in the Arctic. Luckily for him, Dr. Clawbonny is among the group, and his intelligence helps the men establish a dwelling the spend the winter in. They run into trouble with bears, cold, and supplies, but after finding an old shipwreck to salvage supplies from, they are able to get along comfortably enough until winter ends and the seas start to open up again. Incredibly, Hatteras still wants to continue his journey to the North Pole and is able to get the rest of his very small crew to agree. They build a boat out of the old shipwreck and continue northwards. Eventually, they do reach their destination and find that the North Pole is situated in the middle of an active volcano sitting in the middle of an open ocean. Hatteras, mad with the desire to plant his English boot on the exact location of the North Pole, breaks away from the group, runs up the volcano, and throws himself into it. He somehow survives this, but is driven insane by the experience and never speaks another word. His friends recover his body, manage to make it home to England, and place him in an asylum where he spends the rest of his days always attempting to walk to the north.
This book was wild, and pretty different from the other Jules Verne books I have read so far. There was still a grand adventure, of course, and lots of scientific information from the time period. It was the characters that were a bit unusual for me, especially Captain Hatteras. I'm used to Jules Verne protagonists being generally faultless. They are smart, brave, and the kinds of leaders that men follow to the ends of the earth. Hatteras was...not that. He was obsessive, deceptive, and quite careless with human life. Most of his crew was mad at him for the duration of part one of the story, and for very good reasons. However, their mutiny was portrayed negatively, and it is eventually revealed that they fail in their mission to return to England and end up cannibalizing each other. So, as a reader, as I supposed to feel like they should have continued following Hatteras, even though he was clearly completely unconcerned with their welfare? The characters that stick by him, including the smartest character, Doctor Clawbonny, view him as an admirable leader and the way he is written in the story makes it clear that I am supposed to view him similarly, but I had a hard time doing that. Much like Commander Shandon, I never got over his initial deception of the crew. I suppose there is something grand and dignified in the way he never gave up on his goal, but that goal led him to jump into an active volcano and then drove him insane. I'm not sure that's a win.
However, the fact that Hatteras was an unusual character kept me very engaged in the story. I honestly had no idea what this man would do next and I kept turning the pages to find out. Both the sailing and survival sections of the novel were interesting, with lots of dangers for the characters to overcome. Some of this was somewhat realistic and some was not. My favorite unrealistic bit was when a group of polar bears teamed up to try and deliberately suffocate Hatteras and his buddies by piling snow all over their shelter. Dr. Clawbonny eventually figures out a way to blow up the bears using some gunpowder. The whole sequence was amazing. Of course, being a Jules Verne novel, there were several sections of scientific and historical information that dragged on a bit too long, but those parts weren't bad to get through and didn't take away from the story too much. The pacing was actually better than a lot of other Verne novels I've read in the past. The accuracy was not great, but as usual, it was correct for its time. The writing itself was nice as well. This was a book set in the Arctic and it felt cold. It was the perfect read for winter.
Overall, The Adventures of Captain Hatteras was a pretty good time. It wasn't my favorite Verne novel, but it was a fun (and strange) one. I would place it solidly in the middle of the pack out of what I have read from him so far. It was most definitely a grand adventure and a great way to start off what will hopefully be a productive year of reading.
2024 Reading Challenges Tally:
Goodreads Reading Challenge: 1/30
Clear the Shelves 2024: 0
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