20,000 Leagues

So I've never read the famous Jules Verne novel, nor have I seen the more commonly experienced Disney film, and so much of my knowledge of this important piece of science fiction is composed entirely of hear say and speculation. In an attempt to correct this serious oversight, I finally began to read the novel earlier this month, and here are a few of the wildly mistaken assumptions I had made about the story.

1. First, I thought Nemo's submarine would descend to actually be 20,000 Leagues beneath the surface of the ocean. This would likely put the submarine actually in the Earth's crust. The 20,000 Leagues spoken of in the novel's title are 20,000 leagues at Professor Aronnax (our erstwhile narrator) travels with Captain Nemo while under the sea.

2. Second, I always imagined 20,000 Leagues as a sort of Moby Dick under the waves, with a giant squid replacing the whale. After 80 percent of the book, there's just no particularly antagontistic giant squid*. The closest part of the tale so far to a classic hunt across the seas is the opening, where Professor Aronnax and the American military hunt Captain Nemo's sub, which they suspect to be some sort of super-whale.

3. I am amzed by the volume of text taken up in a blow-by-blow recounting of the animal and vegetable species encountered by our erstwhile professor, their classifications, scientific names, and physical characteristics. If my memory worked any better than a pasta sieve, I would now know more about the (speculative?) flora and fauna of the Ocean floor than I would ever have any need to. As is, I have a much easier time classifying the many types of sea creatures I do know of now, and could probably explain to you the difference between a seal and a sea lion (really, appears to be all about the teeth vs. tusks).

4. Finally, the book's central story is almost exclusively about Captain Nemo, who he is, and why he does what he does - this is the mystery served to the reader, wrapped around a travelogue of the Ocean. The key plot point that has been on tap since the first section is: when will Aronnax and his companions escape? And since one can tell from the makeup of the novel that once they do, it will be all over, I have become a reader rooting hard against the (theoretical) protagonist characters of the novel.

This final point is, actually, the aspect of the book I am enjoying the most. Verne positions the narrator as a man who is trapped, and who sees his companions wisdom when they speak of escape fro Nemo's wonderful ship, but who is drawn by the knowledge and wonder available to him to ignore his better senses and reason. Verne carefully puts the reader in the exact same situation, and thereby makes a passive and potentially uninteresting narrator someone the reader can connect with in a deep way, and whose struggles carry a great deal of meaning. Reminded me of all the fun things you can do with a narrator, other than just making him or her unreliable.

*POST UPDATE - I totally ran into the giant squid once I hit the last tenth of the novel. The point still stands, but the giant, evil quid (devilfish) is totally in the novel.