Title: Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea
Author: Jules Verne
Series: Word Cloud Classics
Rating Out of 5: 4 (Really good read!)
My Bookshelves: Classics, Oceans, Science fiction
Dates read: 31st May – 3rd June 2019
Pace: Slow
Format: Novel
Publisher: Word Cloud Classics
Year: 1870
5th sentence, 74th page: I was in ecstasies with the vivacity of their movements and the beauty of their forms.

French naturalist Dr. Aronnax embarks on an expedition to hunt down a sea monster, only to discover instead the Nautilus, a remarkable submarine built by the enigmatic Captain Nemo. Together Nemo and Aronnax explore the underwater marvels, undergo a transcendent experience amongst the ruins of Atlantis, and plant a black flag at the South Pole. But Nemo’s mission is one of revenge-and his methods coldly efficient.

This is one of those stories that you can read again and again and find something new and fun each and ever time. This first read I mostly just got an overall impression of amazing writing, in depth characterisation and vivid settings. Ones that I just couldn’t get out of my mind’s eye even after I turned the final page of the book.

There are some classics that are tedious in the extreme. Don’t get me wrong, you can understand why they’re a classic. But, they’re just long-winded and difficult to read. Verne still has a convoluted and beautiful way with words, but there is something so much more accessible about the way he uses them and twists the world around him. Something about the journey that you are swept away on that makes it really hard to look away. And, even though I absolutely know that I didn’t pick up on every small detail of the storyline, I still loved every moment. Every beautiful, meandering stop along the adventure.

One of the aspects of this writing that I loved the most was the fact that each chapter was its own adventure. There was a strong connection with what happened in the preceding section, but it functioned incredibly well by itself as well. It meant that although I found the novel hard to put down because of the amazingly talented writing, there were also pauses in which it felt feasible and logical to put aside to act like a real adult…

<- The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

The Age of Innocence ->

Image source: Amazon