Title: Journey to the Center of the Earth
Author: Jules Verne
Genre: Science Fiction
Published: 1867 (French), 1871 (English)
BookMarks
"as long as the heart beats, as long as body and soul keep together, I cannot admit that any creature endowed with a will has need to despair of life"
A professor encounters a book in runic. After decoding it finds it to be the story of a pathway to the center of the earth. He, alongwith his unconvinced nephew (the narrator) and an Icelandic guide go onto the path suggested, entering from a dormant volcano, encountering subterranean seas, prehistoric creatures, electromagnetic storms and finally being ejected out though a volcanic eruption in Italy!
The tale is fantastic, the narrator himself is cynical throwing accepted scientific beliefs but encountering something else underneath!
There are a few elements which stood out in this implausible tale
- A tendency to claim territory even below the earth by assigning it their own names!
- Hans getting paid at a fixed hour every Saturday, even though there was no actual use of that money where they were!
- The nephew who starts cynical but becomes more convinced as he proceeds which ultimately leads to the end of the journey.
- Never could figure out the logistics of the travel and how did they come out of a volcanic eruption unscathed!
- I could appreciate the geological aspects much more now than when I had read the story first time in school.
Previously on BookMarks: A Thousand Splendid Suns
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