He wrote several works that dealt with travel in some way: Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea about Captain Nemo and his submarine; Five Weeks in a Balloon; Around the World in 80 Days, in which the hero Phileas Fogg travels by means of every type of vehicle available in the 19th c.; From the Earth to the Moon; the very strangeOff on a Comet, in which some 40 people of different nationalities find themselves tooling around the solar system on a comet for 2 years, and the book I read this time around, A Journey to the Center of the Earth. Verne wrote so many novels in which travel was key that his series of books are called, as a group, Voyages Extraordinaires.
Verne is sometimes credited as being a guy ahead of his time, a man who could envision the future, and affect the shape that future took. People point to Captain Nemo’s submarine in 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, or to Robur’s flying machine in Robur the Conqueror andMaster of the World, but there was already talk of submarines before Nemo appeared, and of flying machines before Robur makes the scene. In fact, one can almost think of Nemo’s sub and Robur’s flying machine as something like a special railway car under the sea or in the air. Still, Verne does present, in an engaging style, stories about what would still have been fantastic, if not quite unheard of, ideas in his day.
Though most adventures and action books these days rely on shoot outs and car chases to keep the reader interested, Jules Verne manages to grip us using old fashioned mystery and suspense. It is also clear that he did heaps of research before writing this book. The imagination he put into it along with his knowledge of science makes compelling reading.
The epic adventure begins when enthusiastic geologist Professor Otto Liedenbrock discovers old documents, which he believes are instructions on getting to the center of the earth. Along with his whiz-kid nephew, Axel Liedenbrock he discovers the key to the document, and finds the location of the crater. They pack any and every survival equipment they can find, but will it be enough for the perilous journey ahead?
Along with estimable, quiet, Icelandic guide Hans, Otto and Axel embark on a fantastical and dangerous journey down volcanic tubes and volcano craters. The journey is not for the faint-hearted – who knows what creatures lurk down there? Will their supplies last? How will they get back up to the surface? Will they ever get back up to the surface? They must find their way through a maze and an endless sea, as well as many other obstacles before they can find their way to the heart of the earth.
This book takes a little while to get going, but when it does, it becomes one you cannot put down. And when we complete the reading we realise that we are not in a dream and the film too.
By
James Abraham
No:23
0 comments:
Post a Comment