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A review by cator_and_bliss
Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne
3.0
Actually rather odd. I was expecting a novel of adventure but found a novel of exploration, which is a rather different thing. Aside from Nemo's 'imprisonment' of Arronax, Conseil and Land and a handful of swiftly resolved incidents, there's very little in the way of threat and jeopardy. Instead, much of the novel is devoted to the simple exploration of the undersea world, amid page after page after page of marine taxonomy.
Remember the old idea that JRR Tolkien invented a language and then built a story in which to house it? This book made me think that Verne tried a similar trick with biological classification in place of Elvish.
Not a bad book overall, and the exploration is entertaining enough, but somewhat uncanny all the same.
Oh, and I wanted to slap Conseil by about the eighth chapter. Twenty thousand leagues under the sea and he's the wettest thing in it.
Remember the old idea that JRR Tolkien invented a language and then built a story in which to house it? This book made me think that Verne tried a similar trick with biological classification in place of Elvish.
Not a bad book overall, and the exploration is entertaining enough, but somewhat uncanny all the same.
Oh, and I wanted to slap Conseil by about the eighth chapter. Twenty thousand leagues under the sea and he's the wettest thing in it.