f late, steamers, frigates and fishing boats have had violent encounters with a mysterious creature in remote waters. Speculation has run mad as to the exact nature of the beast, but eyewitnesses testify it is larger than the largest whale. Because of his expertise as an oceanic naturalist, M. Arronax is asked to join a hunting expedition that swears it will slay the elusive leviathan or perish trying. For weeks, Arronax and the rest of the crew restlessly scan the sea, eager for sign of their quarry. At last they spy it -- it is as immense as reports have said, but no cannon volley or harpoon seems to damage it, and it slides maddeningly out of their grasp. They give chase until evening falls, but it seems to taunt them, always keeping the same distance away.
A storm whips up suddenly, at night, and Arronax and two crewmen are swept into the sea. They find refuge, but at perilous cost, for this refuge has been found on the back of the beast they have been hunting -- no beast at all, but an immense submarine. Their astonishment is short-lived, as their haven begins to sink: the submarine is diving. Desperately, they pound on its hull as the waters rise around them. Their signal is heard, and they are brought below and introduced to the Nautilus' enigmatic captain, Nemo, who invites them to tour the wonders of the deep.
The submarine, Nautilus, is a technological, self-sustaining wonder, enabling its crew to investigate worlds hundreds of fathoms beneath the surface -- strange creatures, shipwrecks, the Antarctic, even fabled Atlantis. However, the Nautilus is also the newcomers' prison, for Nemo has renounced civilization and decreed the three must remain aboard forever...
Meticulous detail. Very meticulous.
20,000 Leagues Under the Sea is one of those classics that has so made its imprint upon SF and popular culture that one needn't have read the book to know its features: the dark genius, Captain Nemo; the futuristic Nautilus with its thousand strange inventions and capabilities; and gigantic octopi that can drag a ship down to the abyss. In fact, this book is so invested into modern culture that hardly anyone nowadays has read it, and it is a work that, even more than 120 years after its first publication, yet deserves examination.
This revisitation is warranted because Jules Verne was so profoundly insightful regarding future technology and humanity's interaction with it. Although recognizable submarines had been kicking around since the 18th century, it was Verne who conceived of this invention on a massive scale. He equipped his Nautilus with newborn technologies (like electricity), and meticulously researched and described the possibilities (the Nautilus derived all of its electrical power from chemical reactions using seawater). In essence, the Nautilus was the first, detailed sketch of a submarine research vessel.
However, plausible science, excellent research and fantastic voyages don't always make great stories. 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea deserves acclaim for its futuristic insight and its contributions to the establishment of the SF genre, but it's not the most riveting yarn. Essentially plotless, the Nautilus' adventures, albeit interesting, are cobbled together without any sense of overall architecture, rendering the volume a very long travelogue. Stylistically, its time has past -- its examinations of biological wonders are with the calculating eye of 19th-century Europe, which substituted wholesale killing for science and sought to plant its flag on any new land mass, regardless of who might already live there. Fascinating at first, the book becomes tiresome, but is in the end redeemed, for it is a stout lesson on how to build tactile facts into solid futurism.
