3.59 AVERAGE

adventurous informative mysterious slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Character
Strong character development: No
Loveable characters: Yes
Diverse cast of characters: No
Flaws of characters a main focus: No

beacou's review against another edition

DID NOT FINISH: 23%

Boring 

I was surprised to find myself so gripped by Around the World in Eighty Days, but fear not! We are back to the good old "19th century author goes on a long digression" story with 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. If you want long lists of scientific names of sea creatures you have no mental image for, this is your book!


I did enjoy it though, almost entirely because of Captain Nemo. He's an utterly fascinating character like, I get it, if I was in the 19th century reading this book serialised I'd be queueing up round the block to get the next installment too

.



"Ah! it is a fine death for a sailor!" said Captain Nemo, at last. "A coral tomb makes a quiet grave; and I trust that I and my comrades will find no other."

adventurous mysterious sad fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven: A mix
Strong character development: No
Loveable characters: Yes
Diverse cast of characters: Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

Now I want to know the theories on who Captain Nemo was

I must confess that I really had no idea what this book was about other than a submarine. I'm not sure where I got it from, but I was under the impression that this book was about fighting sea monsters and whatnot. While there is a giant squid that makes for a pretty cool scene. The rest of the book is just kind of boring explanation of science stuff. Don't get me wrong, I don't look down my nose at science, but there was a whole unexplored world to play with and they spend so much time talking about things that are putting me to sleep. I know he was a visionary, and one of the founding fathers of the Sci-Fi genre, but sweet lord shorten it up. I still liked it, despite that fact, because it was so far ahead of its time it's mind boggling. Not my favorite of Verne's books.
adventurous informative mysterious tense slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Plot
Strong character development: Complicated
Loveable characters: Complicated
Diverse cast of characters: Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus: No

Vivid imagination and best to read as a child when the mind is awed by the sea
adventurous mysterious tense medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: A mix
Strong character development: Complicated
Loveable characters: No
Diverse cast of characters: No
Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated
adventurous challenging emotional mysterious reflective sad fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Character
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: Yes
Diverse cast of characters: Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

A very interesting adventure story that despite its lack of action was still an enjoyable read.

*Read for class.

Who doesn't know this book or at least haven't heard of it? Pretty much no one. And I am now proud to be one of the people who's read it. Jules Verne is one of my dad's favourite author and I've never read anything by him before, although I've wanted to for years now. I finally did and now I can see why my dad enjoyed his books when he was young.

I was afraid that's it's gonna be just another boring classic I have to read for university, though, but it was surprisingly exciting, although the book's "sci-fi" element is outdated. But hey. It was written in the 19th century.
I'll admit that I skipped most of flora and fauna descriptions, I wouldn't remember anything useful anyway, but the story itself was gripping! It was easy to read this novel, didn't feel bored or like I was making myself do it.

Captain Nemo is such a mysterious character, we only get hints at why he left land and went under water. So much is still unknown, but maybe it's better that way. Makes you wonder.
Professor is our narrator and thanks to him we get to know a lot of interesting facts about oceans and seas (which I didn't bother reading... Shame on me). But he didn't feel like a living character most of the time. More like someone who's there just to tell a story. His servant (?) was a little bit weird, such loyalty... I've never seen that in life, I guess that's rare if exists at all. And, I don't know. He was there to give classifications for fish. Best role in a book ever (sarcasm). Maybe I can't appreciate him enough, but as a character I couldn't care less about him.
Ned Land. Oh, that man and his harpoons. He was the one who was missing land the most (do you see the pun here?). He was the one who felt the most human to me in this book. The most realistic one.

I do apologize, if this review seems incoherent and rambly, I don't really know what to write about this classic other than it's a great book more people should not be afraid to read.