20,000 Leagues Under The Sea

Protagonists: Prof. Aronnax

Other characters: Captain Nemo (Prince Dakkar, son of an Indian Rajah) ,Ned, and Conseil

SETTING: 20,000 Leagues (60,000 nautical miles) around almost all of the world’s oceans.

Original Book Cover

OVERVIEW: The adventure begins when Prof. Aronnax a marine biologist, Ned a Canadian harpooner and Conseil serves his master Prof. Aronnax get called to the Abraham Lincoln in New York to track down a creature that Prof. Aronnax thinks is a giant Narwhal, but boy is he wrong! After 3 days at sea they get attacked by what Prof. Aronnax calls a Narwhal. He gets thrown off board and Conseil jumps in the water to save him. After many hours of floating they found Ned who hauls them on to the Narwhal which is made of sheet iron. Some mysterious people capture them inside the so called Narwhal and offer them a delicious meal. The next morning Prof. Aronnax meets the ship’s mysterious captain, Captain Nemo  who says that they may not exit the submarine. Nemo meant ‘No One’ - he clearly wanted to keep his identity a secret. He also learns that the ship’s name is the Nautilus. On the whirlwind of an adventure they go hunting underwater, they save an Indian pearl diver, went through a underwater tunnel that links the Mediterranean Sea to the Red Sea, see the lost city Atlantis, journey to the South Pole, and battle a giant squid. Prof. Aronnax, Ned, and Conseil finally escape the submarine in a *Maelstrom in Norway.                     

    

MY RECOMMENDATION: I loved this book because of the author’s vivid imagination. Verne was thinking way ahead of his time. The most leagues a ship had sailed in his time was only 80 leagues, which is way smaller than 20,000 leagues. And even now submarines can’t dive as far a the Nautilus which is 5,200 feet.   

BOOK DETAILS:

Author: Jules Verne

Original title: Vingt mille lieues sous les mers

Original language: French  

Genre: Fiction

Book type: Science Fiction

Publication date: 1870 (original one)

English publication date: 1872

Publisher's recommended age(s): 9+

Number of pages: 413

Publisher: Pierre-Jules Hetzel (original)  

*A Maelstrom is a powerful circular current that occurs off the northern coast of Norway. Ships can get into serious trouble if they run into this Whirlpool.