Podcast Review: “Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea” (book/movie) Jules Verne - Richard Fleischer (Kirk Douglas) - Rod Hardy (Michael Caine)

By envelope_tide

Captain Nemo’s whole slow climb up to the surface (so to speak) makes the story feel like it has some real pull. It’s got that Victorian travel-book vibe, but in a very early sci-fi kind of way. I know a lot of people get annoyed by the lists. And yeah… the nonstop listing of sea plants and sea creatures, with classifications and all the commas, can be a lot. Verne does throw in some genuinely cool descriptions sometimes, but sometimes it’s more like “we saw this, then this, then this,” and then moving right along. I’ll admit I definitely zoned out over them at times. Still, I caught myself looking up a bunch of the weird stuff online, and then of course falling into endless video rabbit holes just to see what they’re actually like. I’m pretty sure Verne would’ve loved that effect—because even when some descriptions weren’t quite right (assuming he was working with what people knew back then), it still made me want to learn. It felt like he opened up the sea for me, and I could actually go verify things instead of it just being a made-up world. The characters were another thing I liked. Aronnax can seem “flat” to the casual reader, but he’s basically a real professor type—he gets dragged into the science adventure and can’t help himself. Then you’ve got the Canadian harpooner as the action/common-sense foil, and Conceil floating in between as the agreeable sidekick. They kind of match their roles, but you can still feel them changing slowly. And Land? His grumpy attitude totally fits, and it’s almost like when everything goes wrong, his bitterness and gut instincts are the thing Aronnax has to hold onto. Even Conceil seems to shift a bit, especially with the whole bond/awkward dynamic with Land, like he thinks the professor is going to drift off too far. And Captain Nemo—he’s the most interesting, not really flat at all. At first he’s this unstoppable force with principles, even though he’s kind of kept in the background for a good chunk of the book. When he does show up, it’s usually with a lot of swagger, and he doesn’t really mess up. But the moments where Verne lets you peek into Nemo’s head are kind of unsettling in a good way. Those little “nuggets” make him feel darker than he lets on. The Nemo side of the story itself also works really well. I also can’t not mention how far ahead of his time Verne was—submarines, tasers, and those breathing ideas that weren’t a thing yet. That’s the good “great science fiction” stuff, where you can tell the imagination is pushing past what was possible back then. The adventure is solid too. It’s not just “cool science,” there’s actual tension: sometimes it’s man vs beast, sometimes it’s man vs nature, and sometimes it’s that slow man vs man conflict between Nemo and his unwelcome guests. Some of those moments get pretty intense, and they keep building as the story goes. There’s also a bit of a progressive angle in how characters talk about things like over-fishing. Of course, this is a story about seamen, so the fishing still happens a lot—which makes it feel a little conflicting, but also kind of realistic? Like it’s not totally black-and-white. The oceans themselves basically feel alive. The descriptions of flora and fauna are great, and stuff like the Gulf Stream helps you understand how the ecosystems fit together, which is genuinely awesome. It’s like Verne makes the sea both alien and familiar at the same time. My only real hang-up: this is a translation, and it sounds like some English versions cut out big chunks of the original. That makes me wonder what I’m missing. Even with that, I still enjoyed it a lot—not only as a product of its time, but because the undersea adventure genuinely made me want to learn more about the oceans. Podcast plug: If you like my reviews, this book (and the movie) came up in a discussion on my podcast “No Deodorant In Outer Space” — available on iTunes or here: https://nodeodorantinouterspace.wordpress.com/2015/02/01/review-twenty-thousand-leagues-under-the-sea-bookmovie-jules-verne-richard-fleischer-kirk-douglas-rod-hardy-michael-caine/