20,000 Leagues Under the Sea

(c) 1870 by Jules Verne

A thousand years ago, when I was a sprightly young lad beaming with hope and optimism whose only desire was to lay in the warm summer grass with a gnarled science fiction paperback in my hands, I read this book.

If memory serves correct, which it often doesn’t, I purchased it from “The Bookmobile,” the ungainly cylindrical vaguely Space-Race-y RV that pulled up to our school every May. We’d be allowed twenty minutes inside it, in groups of three or four, to peruse the stacks and stacks of books, much like vinyl record aficionados do in specialty record stores today. I must’ve bought a half-dozen books during my grammar school career from the Bookmobile, but 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea was the only one I sort of remember.

As a kid I was into Verne. Journey to the Center of the Earth was one of my all-time favorites, and I rarely missed it when it graced the ABC 4:30 Movie. I own it on DVD today, though it never became a rave with the little ones. I also own the DVD for 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, also not a hit with my girls. But I enjoyed it, though I recall suffering a vague sense of unease watching it with my parents as a boy in the mid-70s.

Both movies starred James Mason; ergo I associate Jules Verne with James Mason. Mason, by the way, has the Platonic Form of the Greatest Speaking Voice in the Ever. I could listen to him for hours. Every audiobook ever made should have been narrated by him. When I finished my reread of 20,000 Leagues yesterday, it was like parting with an old friend, for James Mason had narrated the book to me in my head.

Seriously, as a reread it was somewhat flat, but enjoyable nonetheless. This may have something to do with Verne being subject to 19th century authorial mores and such, it may have something to do with the whims of translators’ translations, or a combination of both. I read the novel Journey to the Center of the Earth ten or twelve years ago and it was horrible. There’s a website out there which reviews each of the numerous translations of every Verne novel; I guess with Journey I got a bad egg. 20,000 Leagues, at least the translation I read, was a page-turner, though it did not drive up the adrenaline as a 21st-century technothriller might.

I much appreciated the dry humor, such as this exchange:

“Well,” said Conseil, with the most serious air in the world, “I remember perfectly to have seen a large vessel drawn under the waves by a cephalopod’s [squid’s] arm.”

“You saw that?” said the Canadian.

“Yes, Ned.”

“With your own eyes?”

“With my own eyes.”

“Where, pray, might that be?”

“At St. Malo,” answered Conseil.

“In the port?” said Ned ironically.

“No; in a church,” replied Conseil.

“In a church!” cried the Canadian.

“Yes, friend Ned. In a picture representing the poulp [squid] in question.”

Innocent, and funny. Twenty years ago I read the slim From the Earth to the Moon, and it was legitimately laugh out loud funny.

I’d read Verne again. Maybe Around the World in Eighty Days, or The Mysterious Island, or Master of the World. Dunno. But I’ll read him again.

Verdict on 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea – Solid B+.