Book Review: "A Journey to the Centre of the Earth" by Jules Verne

SPOILER ALERT!!!

I thoroughly enjoyed the adventure of Jules Verne's "A Journey to the Centre of the Earth."

A very well-written book, told from the point of view of Henry, Professor Hardwigg's nephew. They embark on a journey which sees them enter the crater of Mount Sneffels in Iceland, roam around in the interior of the earth, before exiting out of another volcano crater in Italy.

The story revolves almost exclusively around three main characters: 1) Professor Hardwigg - mineralogist, obstinate, determined, maybe a little crazy but ultimately right; 2) Henry - the Professor's nephew, analytical, level-headed; 3) Hans, the Icelandic guide who accompanies the Professor and Henry on their journey. Hans is perfectly disciplined, reserved and an immaculate handyman.

The characters compliment each other nicely and the narrative and dialogue flows smoothly throughout the story.

The three characters endure a few fascinating encounters with different sorts of weather and environment conditions below the earth, along with huge plants and animals and seas. The most interesting part of the story for me also turned out to be the most frustrating. 

Professor Hardwigg and Henry discover a cemetery of human bones and see in the distance another HUMAN living in the interior of the earth. Disappointingly for the reader, they freaked out and ran away and nothing more was mentioned of this. It seems that Jules Verne had this immense idea and then kind of backed out of it, and didn't quite know what to do from henceforth.

After that encounter the story rapidly closed up right at the time when I was just getting in to it and expecting the three of them to find a way to the very centre of the earth.

One more thing that irritated me was their exit from underground to ground level. Henry kind of passed out as they were accelerating on a man-made raft balancing on rushing lava, so as he is the one telling the story, he wrote how he didn't remember anything after passing out until they were lying on the side of a volcano in Italy! Man, that frustrated me so bad!

But nevertheless, it was a great read, very worthwhile and I definitely recommend this classic if you haven't as yet opened up its pages and joined the great adventure it is.

Teaser Tuesday - National Geographic 125th Anniversary Collector's Edition

MizB holds a grand weekly event called "Teaser Tuesday" where participants share a couple of sentences from a current read to tempt you into reading that particular book.

Today I'm sharing something from a magazine instead of a book - National Geographic 125th Anniversary Collector's Edition with this dazzling unfolded front cover:

My teaser:

"Photographers use their cameras as tools of exploration, passports to inner sanctums, instruments for change. Their images are proof that photography matters - now more than ever."

Do you subscribe to National Geographic? Will you consider it?

Teaser Tuesday with Jules Verne

MizB hosts a pretty good book event called Teaser Tuesday. We simply choose a couple of sentences from our current read and tease you all into reading the book yourself! Let's hope this works, then . . . 

You really should pick up Jules Verne's "A Journey to the Centre of the Earth" and read it. Here's a teaser: 

"When I at last began to resign myself to the fact that no further aid was to be expected from man, and knowing that I was utterly powerless to do anything for my own salvation, I kneeled with earnest fervor and asked assistance from heaven."

Me with the subject of this week's Teaser Tuesday

A great teaser, don't you think? I'm relishing each page of this adventure. Click here to read my latest review of the book. 

Have I persuaded you to read it?!

Jules Verne provides a great adventure

It was way back in 1864 that Jules Verne's "A Journey to the Centre of the Earth" was published and made available for public reading. At almost 150 years old, this work has stood the test of time and continues to charm its readers, particularly me!

Professor Hardwigg and his nephew Harry, accompanied by an Icelandic guide, Hans, descend into the crater of Mount Sneffels where the real journey begins. An intriguing tale of survival and discovery ensues. 

This book is written from the point of view of Harry and mixes great fiction with scientific fact and a whole barrel of thrilling discovery, which even in this year of 2013, still resonates as remarkable.

I have several more chapters to finish this delightful novel!

Finally finished Inferno!

Just finished reading Dan Brown's "Inferno" (at long last!) after a stop-start adventure with his latest novel. Finished half of the book within the last week and it has got me back into reading again. (I always say that after finishing a Dan Brown novel)

The most stand-out thing for me was the 'villain' of the story, Bertrand Zobrist. He dies right at the start of the novel, but as the story goes deeper, he becomes less of a villain in my mind, and more of a hero, despite the somewhat controversial nature of his plans.

Basically Zobrist's theory says that in order to stop the uncontrollable growth of the human species and its destined extinction, there must be a huge cut to the population. Not seen as an act of killing, but rather an act of saving, Zobrist actually manages to carry out his plan successfully.

Yes, Robert Langdon and his 'accomplice', Sienna Brooks, run around Florence, Venice and Istanbul in vain, as Zobrist's plague was released to the world several days before the date they thought it would be poured out to the world.

Turns out that it wasn't a 'plague' after all, at least not one which kills. Bertrand Zobrist created a vector virus with his sharp intellect, which was way ahead of its time. This airborne virus was programmed to affect random people, roughly one-third of the world's population, making them sterile.

No-one would be killed, no-one would suffer, just 33% of the population would no longer be able to reproduce. Thus the population of humans would mercifully be lowered to a more sustainable number.

I actually guessed that this would be the outcome when Sienn Brooks announced that what he did was more dangerous than a plague. So I felt quite chuffed when in the next few chapters it was revealed exactly as I thought! :)

And so it turns out that the 'good guys' eventually listened to and embraced somewhat Bertrand Zobrist's ideas and that this culling of the population wasn't such a bad thing after all.

There is a fine line between 'good' and 'bad' and sometimes 'bad' is portrayed as 'bad' simply because we don't quite understand it yet. A very interesting read based on a very real problem we are encountering in our world today.