Book review: Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea

Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne was on my reading list for last summer, and I never got to it. I have some friends who've been telling me I need to read Jules Verne for a while now, so I went looking for it again and have just finished it. In a nutshell: his prose is gorgeous, but I think I need to read more of his books to appreciate his stories.

It honestly took me a while to get into this one. The book is basically a travelogue, and, since the main character is a marine biologist, there were exhaustive descriptions of all the fish and molluscs that live in the various seas (since 20,000 leagues is distance, not depth). The thing that kept bringing me back was the writing. Most books I've read that were originally written in French are somehow extra-beautiful. It makes me want to learn more than the dozen or so phrases I remember from less than a year of high school French.

There's more to it than I just described, though. The plot thickens the closer you get to the end. As we go on, more is revealed (or more questions are raised) about the mysterious Captain Nemo. I personally became more attached as I went along to the narrator, Dr. Aronnax, and his two companions, Ned Land and Conseil. And sometimes, the wonder and beauty of the ocean that Verne describes is really astonishing.

So, it's not thick on plot, but still thick on motivations. The writing is lovely, the characters are deftly portrayed, moments of humor and moments of drama are played thoroughly and well. If you've got time to take a bite out of something really worth chewing over, you might want to pick up Verne.

Phantom of the Opera review

The Phantom is a heck of a lot creepier than in the movie. Just sayin'.

As a theater person, I was particularly interested in Gaston Leroux's The Phantom of the Opera. Though I don't love the movie musical, one thing it impressed me with was a deep sense of the theatrical. I was interested to find that they didn't add that in. They took it straight from the book.

If you want to read more classics, but don't have time for really thick or dense books, I'd recommend this one. It's short and has enough thrill to keep you going, even with ornate details and the overwrought setup. (I mean that in the best way. It really works for the tone he's going for.) It also has an element I can't describe as anything other than Frenchness.

Things I liked: fast pace, overtones of horror that fit really well with the theatrical scenery, the way side plots got worked in, the Paris opera house, Christine, the Persian. Though he doesn't spend a lot of time forming their characters, Leroux gives us a vivid sense of what they're like. I was more impressed with Christine than I thought I'd be.

Things I didn't like: Raoul. I've always thought he was a bit wimpy, and though Leroux takes pains to tell us that he's brave, we get no sense of what he's like other than obsessed with Christine to the point of selfishness. Kind of creepy.

But not as creepy as the Phantom.