My last post was pretty lazy—I just copied and pasted my whole diary entry, and even though I've done a few things lately that I wanted to write about, I felt like it would all get repetitive and boring. So I took inspiration from how social media stories work and copied that idea straight onto my blog. From now on I'll post stories instead of everyday life updates.

Lately I've been focusing on going to the gym and starting to learn Japanese. Everything is still just getting started, so I don't have much to say yet—but one thing I've been at for a while now is reading books. I've actually read a fair number of books before, but I never wrote a review, partly because I wasn't sure I'd remember the content well enough to review it accurately, and partly because I didn't know what scope I even wanted for a review. But you only figure that out by starting, so today I decided to write about a book I just finished: Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne.

As someone who likes exploring new things, I decided to seek out and read classic literature. Honestly, at first it was pretty boring for me—but not growing as a person felt even more depressing. The first book I finished was To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, but I'll write about that one separately later. Back to the main point: this time Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea is my first pick, for two reasons. One, I just finished it last week. Two, there isn't that much to write about... Just a heads-up: I'm going to spoil the whole book. This review is like a movie recap—I go through everything I read, thought, and liked—so think twice before reading on if you still want to read the book.

As an adventure and science-fiction novel, just from the title I imagined three-headed, six-tentacled sea monsters, or hundred-meter-long water beasts. In reality, the book isn't that over the top. The only truly sci-fi element I noticed was Captain Nemo's ridiculously overpowered submarine, the Nautilus. Even though the electric generator had only been invented by Faraday in 1831, Jules Verne used electricity to power the entire submarine—I think that shows the author had a real eye for the future. On top of that, the submarine is pretty badass: it has windows looking out to the sea, something modern submarines still can't really do or can only do in a very limited way. But those windows create a magical, wondrous atmosphere—who wouldn't want to watch whales swimming by? As for the main plot, the book is about an undersea adventure with Professor Aronnax, his assistant Conseil, and the whale hunter Ned Land aboard Captain Nemo's submarine. That's basically it—nothing too deep or emotionally moving, just an adventure across the world's oceans.

The journey is long. Twenty thousand leagues is about 37,000 km (with one league roughly equal to 1.6 km). From what I remember, the top speed was a little over 40 knots; at 1.852 km per nautical mile, that's about 74 km/h. I don't remember exactly how many oceans they crossed, but it was roughly most of the planet.

The story starts with rumors spreading about a giant sea monster, fueled by many newspaper reports of shipwrecks off the coast of France, where Professor Aronnax and his assistant Conseil live after working in the Arctic. Because there were so many stories about the sea monster, Western governments joined forces to hunt it down. Professor Aronnax, a marine researcher, was invited along, together with the Canadian whale hunter Ned Land, who has absurdly good harpoon-throwing skills. After a few months at sea, they encounter the monster in Japanese waters. Ned Land throws his harpoon, but it simply can't pierce the creature's "iron" skin. Their ship bumps lightly into the professor's vessel, and all three—the professor, the assistant, and the hunter—fall into the sea and are rescued by Captain Nemo of the submarine. Otherwise they'd be going home twice a month, I guess.

Once aboard, Captain Nemo is very cautious and locks up Aronnax and the others, revealing nothing about his identity or his crew, who communicate in their own language. Everything about Nemo is kept secret, though we do learn that he's human, speaks French well enough to talk with Professor Aronnax, is very rich—he says he could pay off France's national debt in one go—and especially hates humanity and never wants to set foot on land again. After being held for a while, Nemo and Professor Aronnax talk, and the result is that the professor and the other two will stay on the ship for life, because Nemo doesn't want anyone to know about the Nautilus. They strongly disagree, but there's no way to fight back.

Once they get used to life on board, Professor Aronnax really loves the Nautilus—it's a one-of-a-kind feat of human engineering, and he gets to see the ocean up close from beneath the surface. As a marine scientist, this is basically the greatest dream come true. The first event I remember is Nemo taking the three of them diving and visiting an underwater island that Nemo claims for himself—and nobody can dispute it... Everything under the sea is probably beautiful, though I don't remember much beyond seaweed or some kind of underwater plants swaying in the water. Later they dodge a shark ambush and the trip ends. My review definitely can't capture the detail or appeal of the actual story, but try to stay objective—don't skip a good book just because of me...

After that first underwater walk, the professor is hooked—whenever he's invited, he goes. Conseil, as the professor's assistant, doesn't have too many problems living on the Nautilus. But for Ned Land, a hunter by nature, life on a submarine is torture, and that's the biggest reason the trio later tries to escape. Once, when the ship gets stuck on a reef, the professor's group is allowed onto a deserted island to hunt animals and gather fruit. On the last day things get wild when they attract a group of natives who surround the Nautilus. But the ship has electric cables on the outside for protection; when activated, they deliver a nasty shock and the natives run off... well, honestly I wanted it to be a bit bloodier, but it seems Captain Nemo still has a lot of humanity left in him.

After that comes a rather strange episode: Captain Nemo panics and begs Professor Aronnax to save a sailor on board. Sadly, the man is too badly injured in the head and can't be saved. And so we get an underwater funeral, surrounded by coral reefs in green, red, purple, and yellow, with a group carrying a coffin and placing it on the seabed along with a farewell to the unfortunate sailor. Honestly, I also want to ask where that coffin came from—if they've got a few dozen coffins stocked on the ship, I think the Nautilus itself is basically one giant coffin.

Next is part two of the novel, opening with a pearl-hunting trip. Captain Nemo secretly cultivates a pearl weighing over a hundred kilograms, if I remember correctly. I also learned about pearl divers—people who dive more than ten meters underwater to harvest pearls. Many suffer ear damage, burst eardrums, or skin diseases from diving for hours on end. One pearl sells for a fortune, but the divers only get a few cents per oyster with a pearl; if there's no pearl, they get nothing. Back to Nemo and the crew: after collecting some pearls, they spot a diver on the seabed searching for pearls while being chased by an eight-meter shark. Boss Nemo, being humane, charges in to fight the fish with a dagger about as long as the fruit knife at my house. The captain is insanely cool—he climbs onto the shark's back and slices a long gash into it—but the shark doesn't go down that easily, and the tables turn; Nemo is in danger of being counterattacked. In that nail-biting moment, Ned Land, with his experience killing fish for a living, plays the hero and saves Nemo. Luckily nobody dies; the diver even gets a life-changing pile of pearls from Nemo, showing that Nemo has a lot of compassion, not a little.

Next comes the crossing of the Red Sea and a secret tunnel to get from the Red Sea to the Mediterranean—this tunnel was probably invented by the author; otherwise how would he know about it? We also learn that Nemo knows many shipwreck sites, and those wrecks hold a lot of gold and silver treasure, which Nemo salvages and trades with people on land. A bit further on we reach the Atlantic, where Nemo leads everyone to visit the mythical ruins of the underwater city of Atlantis. With ancient architecture in ruins, volcanic scenery, and dark colors on the seabed—I honestly think it probably wouldn't look as beautiful as I'd hoped, more like a desolate, eerie scene with monsters lurking...

Then comes Captain Nemo's dumbest move: he decides to steer the ship toward the South Pole, where the Nautilus becomes a giant coffin—and that's not a joke... While traveling under the Antarctic ice, things go smoothly until the ship hits an iceberg on the seabed and gets stuck. After finally breaking free of the iceberg, they realize they're trapped in an ice tunnel. Air is running low, and Nemo has to find a way to surface to replenish oxygen. The temperature is so cold that the surface freezes into very thick ice; after a long search, Captain Nemo decides to ram straight through about six meters of ice. Fortunately that wasn't the depth where everyone on the Nautilus would have to stay behind—everyone is still breathing evenly after reaching the surface. Realizing he played too big a fool, Captain Nemo decides to return to the Atlantic, and he's not much better off when he gets there...

As soon as they arrive, he runs into a giant squid swarm. In normal theory, ten squids shouldn't be able to do much to the ship, but this one is dirty buffed with sharp teeth, clings to the ship, and can damage it. With a professional approach, Nemo and the crew go out to get some squid meat for dinner—but no squid meat in sight; instead they find a sailor being dragged to the bottom with cries for help as desperate as when I miss a deadline. After that Nemo falls into depression because he couldn't protect everyone on board; he locks himself in his room, and the Nautilus becomes a ghost ship with nobody active on deck. And that's when Ned Land decides to escape. Conveniently, a warship appears on the surface, and Nemo reacts with extreme hatred toward it. He decides to destroy the ship and succeeds, sinking it with all its sailors. One detail after the destruction: Nemo holds a photo of himself, a woman, and two children. From what I've looked up, that's his family, and they were killed—but that's backstory and I haven't read it yet. After that, Professor Aronnax, Conseil, and Ned Land escape from the Nautilus before Captain Nemo and the ship plunge into a giant Maelstrom whirlpool.

And the story of Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea ends with the uncertain fate of Captain Nemo and the Nautilus. Personally, I think the book has decent adventure value for the 1870s and a strong vision of a modern submarine. As for humanistic values, they're not reflected much—or at least I didn't feel them while reading. Captain Nemo and his crew are too mysterious; though some kindness shows through, not a lot. Maybe I'll dig a little deeper into the events in the story, but with an objective eye, this story isn't especially remarkable. Still, that's my own objective view, and I have no problem hearing other people's takes. I hope this post gives you some sense of Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea. Note that I wrote this for fun and didn't proofread the prose; maybe I'll polish it later, but I've got a lot going on right now and can't focus too much on this. Thanks for reading—hope you have a good day.