Hello all!
So today I begun to listen to the audiobook of Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne. (I'll call it Leagues from now on, just to save time)
I have heard of course a lot of good things about this book, and my first memory of hearing about Leagues was watching the film 'The Sphere' (1998 Directed by Barry Levinson) in which Samuel Jackson is reading the book throughout the film.
So this book begins that you hear of this great creature that many ships and sailors are spotting, of course people just think it a myth, until it damages a boat. The United states government calls on a French professor, (who at this point believes it is a giant Narwhal) to go with a ship to discover what this creature is, and to kill it.
It's interesting to me, maybe, it says something of the time this was written that killing it was the first thought of the people, not to capture it, or to study it but it actually kill the creature. Of course whaling is now banned as we want to preserve whales, so it is interesting to me, who lives in this time, that killing this creature for them is the only option as the creature has destroyed a fair few ships. It is also interesting to me that in the beginning when they are talking about the myth of the creature, they talk about being sceptical, having evidence to prove this creature, that it can not be properly tested by the official 'learned' people of the time. That in the time that this is set, evidence from a skilled professional is required so people do not just run away with their imaginations.
So they find the creature after searching for months in the wide seas, we are introduced to the Ned the Canadian who is a very skilled whaler but is hot headed and the professors faithful calm servant Conseil. They finally find the creature and attempt to follow it, it clearly has great speed in the water and when they finally catch it up to throw a harpoon and the shudder that this gives off makes the professor fall off the boat and into the sea.
At this point, I had to check the time on the audio, I was only half an hour in the story and the creature has been shown! This is a 10 hour long audiobook and they have already found the creature! I did not know what to expect now from this story at all, I know that this a book about a strange sea creature but I don't have a clue where this book is going and that is very exciting!
So the professor is in the water and it turns out his servant saw him fall in the sea and amazingly jumped in after his master to help! They swim together helping each other as they go along and Conseil calls out to the ship that they can vaguely see in the distance. They hear another mans voice and it turns out to be Ned. He explains that the harpoon not only did not pierce the creature, it was blunted by it as the creature was made from iron. They were all standing on this metal as it started to sink. Ned then shouts at the iron to stop sinking and it starts to rise up and a panel opens letting them in. The men who run the ship come to meet them but even though they try several languages they still do not understand and their own language is bizarre to the three men. Then after dinner and sleep, they get left for hours, in which Ned gets madder and madder until someone does finally come in and he throws himself at the man, who then starts speaking in French to the professor.
So that is where I stopped! I have so many questions in my head, what is this strange boat, that exceeds speeds of a normal boat, made of iron panels. Who are these people, what are they doing, what do they want with the professor, Ned and Conseil? Was there a creature in the first place? Or has it only just been this boat the whole time if so, what did destroy those ships?
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