Verne, Jules
About the Author:
Jules Gabriel Verne was born in Nantes, France in 1828. He studied law in Paris between 1847 and 1849, before taking up writing. Verne married Honorine de Viane in 1857. He died in 1905 and is widely regarded as the father of the science fiction genre.
AVERAGE REVIEW SCORE:
3.7 out of 5
(3 books)
TOP PICK:
20,000 Leagues Under The Sea
20,000 Leagues Under The Sea
One of the most famous science fiction stories of all time, this book begins with a scientific expedition to investigate reports of a sea monster attacking shipping. The expedition soon discovers that it is a highly advanced submarine, the Nautilus, and its enigmatic Captain Nemo who are behind the attacks. Taken prisoner but treated with respect and honour, they accompany the crew of the Nautilus on a journey around the globe beneath the seven seas.
As with much 19th Century literature, this book has been obscured in the public's eye by countless movies, TV shows and comic books etcetera. It was therefore an interesting and exciting experience to go back to the original work which spawned a thousand imitations. Verne's great talent was in taking the scientific advances of his time and applying carefully researched logical extensions of them in order to create wonderous fiction. This talent is in full effect here as we are presented with the Nautilus, a submarine which is entirely believable to the modern reader but which is leaps and bounds beyond the technology of Verne's day. We experience this wonder, and others, through the eyes of scientist Pierre Aronnax and his companions as he is whisked away on a thrilling adventure.
This is a great 19th Century adventure novel which is well-written, engrossing and thought-provoking. One of the things I liked most about it was that Verne doesn't always see fit to resolve all of the questions and issues he raises, particularly in regard to the tempestuous and enigmatic Nemo.
If this book can be said to have a downside, it is one produced by the change in attitudes towards the natural world since the book was written. In Verne's time nature was not only a source of boundless wonder but it was also seen as an expendable resource entirely at the service of mankind. However, in the more ecologically aware 21st Century (and speaking as an animal-loving vegetarian), the fact that every wonderful new animal the characters encounter must be first documented and then, inescapably, shot and eaten doesn't sit too well.
4 out of 5
From The Earth To The Moon & Around The Moon
Two novels which combine to tell the story of members of the Baltimore Gun Club who decide to launch a projectile to the moon from an enormous cannon. Late in the development of the project the eccentric Frenchman Michel Ardan joins the team with the suggestion of sending a manned capsule to explore Earth's satellite.
This is an incredibly influential book, pioneering the concept in fiction of sending human beings to another world in space. It is often compared with H. G. Wells' 'The First Men in the Moon' but Verne himself disliked the comparison. Where Wells' story was a product of pure imagination (beginning with the discovery of a gravity-resistant mineral), Verne's is firmly built on the scientific observations of his day. The introduction to my copy is at great pains to explain that Verne didn't actually think firing a cannon at the moon would work though, which I found to be an annoying an unnecessary preface. It's a work of fiction; is there really anyone out there trying to discredit Verne's value as a novelist based on the fact that some of his fictional ideas aren't real? (If you are out there, you are an idiot).
This is very much a book of two halves, which is unsurprising when you consider it's made up of two separate but linked novels. The first half is absolutely the superior of the two. The second half, comprising 'Around the Moon', becomes a bit tedious with its cast of just three characters whose interactions largely consist of Michel Ardan spouting some obvious nonsense and then one (or both) of his companions explaining the scientific reality in excruciating detail. There's no real drama, just a canvas for Verne to exposit all of the (then) known facts about the surface of the moon. This is where Verne's strict adherence to known science gets in his own way and he shies away from inventing anything on the moon for the explorers to discover, instead leaving everything as open-ended and unknown as when the story started. There is also a very bizarre (and tragi-comic) series of events involving the dog Satellite, which leads to some of the weirdest and inadvertently hilarious illustrations I've ever seen in a 19th Century novel.
But, setting the disappointing second novel aside, 'From the Earth to the Moon' was great fun to read. Very much to my surprise it has a deep vein of satire to it and some of the scenes involving the overly-enthusiastic members of the Baltimore Gun Club were so comically farcical that they actually put me in mind of Terry Pratchett's Faculty of the Unseen University. Verne pokes fun at the attitudes of Americans, the English and even his own countrymen, all the while building his detailed description of how the titular journey could be achieved. For every scene of boring number-crunching that made me roll my eyes was a scene of genuine humour that, on occasion, actually made me laugh out loud (and I almost never do that whilst reading).
Not the most consistent of Verne's books that I've read, with 'Around the Moon' holding it back considerably, but if I'd read 'From the Earth to the Moon' in isolation, it would've gone straight to Number 1 as my favourite.
3 out of 5
Journey To The Centre Of The Earth
The discovery of evidence of a previous expedition to the centre of the Earth leads Professor Liedenbrock and his nephew Axel to depart Germany and travel to Iceland to seek passage beneath the surface of the planet within an extinct volcano. Accompanied by their faithful Icelandic guide Hans, the explorers cross vast distances and delve to unimaginable depths, seeing countless wonders on the way.
It's hard to appreciate this book in isolation due to the massive impact it has had on later popular culture, but in essence this is another story in which an intrepid team of explorers undertake a remarkable journey, facing challenges and hardships along the way. It's an adventure story but one focused on science as the impetus for the adventure. If you're not interested in either 19th Century scientific discoveries or adventure stories then this isn't the book for you. I, however, have great affection for both and thoroughly enjoyed reading Verne once again show why he was the undisputed master of the 'scientific romance'.
There is just one major flaw to this book, however. One of the author's greatest strengths was in showing an interest in new scientific discoveries and then using solid scientific reasoning to extrapolate his 'Voyages Extraordinaires' from them. That's not the flaw, of course. The flaw at the heart of this book is that it runs with scientific theories that have since been thoroughly debunked or, in the case of the various prehistoric creatures the explorers encounter, which are now understood in a completely different way. It means it's hard to read Verne's well-thought-out and cleverly-reasoned scientific assertions knowing full-well that they are, in fact, nonsense. It certainly doesn't ruin the book by any measure, but it does stop it short of being perfect.
4 out of 5
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