Review: The Original Science Fiction Classic
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 11 22, 2011
My exposure to science fiction is embarrassingly limited, so who better to remedy it than Verne?  Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea was a groundbreaking work.  It particularly established hard science fiction at a time when technology could not help but change the way we looked at the world.And therein lies much of my criticism.  With its frequent calculations of the size of the submarine and what not, it sometimes reads like a math textbook.  Sadly, I do not take the same interest in the science as Verne so obviously did and other readers may.  The descriptions of life at the bottom of the sea, on the other hand, make me want to visit an aquarium post-haste.  Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea is very much the type of science fiction that revels in the `science' part.That is not to say that Verne does take advantage of speculative fiction to use the "speculative" portion to explore human nature.  Captain Nemo is as fertile ground as Captain Ahab for this.  And our narrator has even less to say about his captain--he is consistently nave, to the point that the subtleties of Nemo can be at first lost.  However, over the course of the novel it becomes apparent that all is not well.  We are never told what great sin civilization has done Nemo, rather we must wrestle over whether any sin could justify his actions.  The action is quite light and the plot slow-placed.  Most of the book is devoted to a tour of the wonders of the deep, with Nemo's gradual, swirling decline in the background.The titular "twenty thousand leagues" refers to the distance covered by the Nautilus over the course of the book--well over twice the circumference of the earth--not the depth to which it sinks.  There is no good reason to think the latter, but I was nonetheless confused on this point for years.Of course any book this old will not age evenly.  Captain Nemo's conservation instincts are a bit off-base.  Shortly after chastising the whaler Ned Land for seeking to hunt southern whales, which he describes as "inoffensive creature[s]," he gleefully slaughters a herd of "cruel, mischievous" sperm whales.  Hardly sustainability at its best.  But perhaps Verne too expected us to recoil with Land at the bloodbath (how odd it is to side with the whaler over the conservationist).Verne is as successful as any science fiction writer at his predictive science and technology.  Sometimes it's incredibly accurate--Verne describes a light bulb a decade prior to its invention, the crew of the Nautilus communicate with an invented language a little under fifteen years before the invention of Esperanto, the South Pole is on a southern continent, and the Nautilus is largely built and operates like modern submarines (especially the double-hulled design).  Other times, it's less so--a workable electric bullet has yet to be invented.  Verne also repeats errors of his day--e.g., the misplaced notion that malaria was caused by "foul air."Verne wrote at an exciting time.  The south pole had not yet been reached and the first trans-Atlantic (telegraph) cable had recently been laid.  We were just beginning to understand electricity.  The ocean remained a great, unknown frontier.Verne frequently uses archaic or technical terms for the sea creatures encountered.  Sperm whales are called cachalots, walruses are called morse, and sea horses are called hippocampi.I read the Kindle version of Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea offered free through Amazon.  There are a handful of typographical errors, but not enough to be overly distracting and none that cause confusion.  Most bothersome is the degree symbol is replaced by a question mark throughout--a common error as the submarine's latitude is frequently given.  It includes neither a foreword nor an afterword.  I also own an old Educator Classic Library edition from 1968.  It contains numerous added illustrations and helpful definitions and explanations throughout the text (directly next to the relevant text in the margin so they do not affect readability like a footnote or endnote would).  These are particularly helpful for an older hard science fiction novel.  It also contains a "backword" with helpful information about Verne and the history of the submarine.