LANDSCAPES :
An island with many views : Forests, beaches, grotto,…and the sea, out of sight
STORY :
During the Sessession war in the USA, 3 prisoners escape in climbing into an airship. A storm comes, they send away all their possessions to help the airship to fly higher, in vain. In the end, they land by force on a desert island.
The book describes how the 3 men will cope with that situation without any tool to help them to survive. By chance they have with them an engineer, who will be a great help to organize their survival by building a mill, a bridge, an so on.
A while after their arrival on the island, some strange events will happen : Each time one of them is endangered, some kind of invisible power will save them .We learn in the end that this mysterious and kindly presence is the Captain Nemo, who has been living under the seas for 30 years…
TOPICS :
- The conquest of a new earth by the Man
- Nature is sometimes stronger than men
- Brotherhood, necessary to survive ( Verne, very optimistic, never talk about some fight between the 3 men…a little bit hard to believe in this kind of situation)
- The rational (Cyrus the engineer) opposed to the supernatural (Pencroft the dreamer)
- Efforts bring always a reward
- Science is powerful
- The notion of positivism : the Man has to question himself about how to do things and not on why doing things
CONTEXT :
Industrialization begins in Great Britain in 1770 with the steam machines. This technology arrives in France in 1820/1830, and the electricity arrives in 1870, 4 years before the writing of this book.
COMMENTS :
The style is very precise, fluent and visual. The intrigue is very well kept until the end, with many rebounces. As a result, I read the 800 pages in 9 days !
Verne lays the stress on the ability of the human kind to improve oneself whether in the skills fiels (the characters have learned may jobs to fit out their island), or in the behaviour aspect ( redemption of Ayrton and Captain Nemo)
The cover (silver and red) made by the french editor “Le livre de poche” is really wonderful, plus the original engravings inside. A short description of what will happen at the beginning of each chapter is a good idea to go always further in reading… and also if you want to read quicker in avoiding some pages…
In conclusion, a very pleasant reading. Of course, you can argue that the story has nothing to do with science fiction, which is not completely wrong… But I have not enough knowledge on how building a mill or a bridge to say the Jules Verne described some future technologies to build them ( maybe it is the case ????)
GLOBAL VALUATION :
1 – to Avoid
2 – Not really interesting
3 – It is worth reading
4 - Excellent
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