What a Story! (20,000 Leagues Under the Sea - Jules Verne)

Member Name: lap dancer

Product:	20,000 Leagues Under the Sea - Jules Verne
Date:	22/03/01 (164 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: great, clasic aventure

Disadvantages: some english difficult to understand

This book is an old classic, although still, even with the slightly old form of the English language used in it, I found this book very exciting. It is written by Jules Verne in the 19th century, 1886 to be precise.

The books main plot is of a 'monster' terrorizing the oceans, hot and cold, destroying vessels with its long 'tentacles' and basically causing complete havoc on the high seas, it was the talk of the towns and cities all over the world. "There had been many reliable sightings many leagues apart." The 'monster was described as," long, spindle shaped, and sometimes phosphorescent object, much larger and rapid than a whale." The 'monster' sank a liner, the Moravian, and tension sprung again, also the Scotia had been sunk by it as well.

In anger a fleet of ships was assembled to catch the monster and on one of the ships was Ned Land, a harpoonist from the US navy, Conseil, the authors servant, and the author, who is 'I and is called M. Arronax' in the book.
The ship they were on had traveled all over the high seas looking for the 'monster and after months of looking finally they caught up with it. A battle ensued and Ned Land harpooned it many times but they concluded that its skin was too thick, as the harpoon wouldn't stick. In anger the 'monster hit the hull of the boat and knocked Conseil, Ned Land and 'I' over board, right onto the back of the monster!

However that was the beginning of a classic tale of adventure. The 'monster' wasn't actually a monster at all, it was made of metal and when the three were onboard, it swam away as fast as possible. When out of sight of their own vessel, the 'monster' stopped and men came up on deck to take the three terrified men below. The men were sent to a jail part of their new vessel and were given food and were made to wait. Finally someone came to talk to them, it was the Captain of thi
s new ship and he introduced himself as, Captain Nemo. He told them that this was actually a submarine, called Nautilus, and that no one else knew about it and that that's the way he wanted it to stay. But of course the only way the Nautilus was going to stay secret was if the three were kept on the ship. However he also added that as he did not want to keep them prisoner, as such, he wanted them to be free to roam the ship as they pleased. He told them that there was a library on the ship and that there were going to be some excursions later on and that they were welcome to come along. He went away and the three were very frustrated at the thought of spending a lot of time cooped up on this submarine. The three duly got up and roamed the ship, to see if they could find anything interesting to pass time with. 'I' went to the library as he was very interested in books and decided that he would study to pass the time. The only downside was that at night they were locked in their room, for securities sake. Ned Land was getting increasingly frustrated at the thought of being on the ship for years.

This is the start of a great adventure, which basically spans every part of the ocean, from Ceylon, Red Sea, Arctic, Atlantic, the Med, and the Pacific. I would tell you more about this book, if they escape, do they get rich from it, does Nemo survive, what happens to the Nautilus but surely that would spoil it for you, wouldn't it!

All that I'll say is that, I thought this book was a superb read, it combined the adventure story, great descriptions, a good plot and how did the author ever think of talking about this way back in the 19th century is unbelievable. Go out now and at least get it from your local library because I assure you it will enthrall you for many a night. This book is very definitely open to all age groups. There is now bad language in it at all and the old English, although some words are difficult to understand adds
to the sense of being an, old classic adventure story, Enjoy it!

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