This novel by French SF writer Jules Verne was first
published in 1864, and is regarded as a classic of the genre. I probably read
it as a young lad – it was the kind of book I devoured – but could recall
nothing about it, so I decided to rectify this lapse in my memory. I was prompted to do so by the fact that the
well-known 1959 film version (there have been several others) was recently
shown on UK TV, so I took the opportunity to compare them.
Readers of this blog who have only seen a screen version of Journey to the Centre of the Earth may
be surprised to discover that the main characters of the book are in fact
German: Professor Liedenbrock is the leader and driving force of the
expedition, although the story is told in the first person by his nephew and
assistant Axel. It begins in their shared home in Hamburg (which, technically
speaking, was at that time an independent sovereign state of the German
Confederation – Germany did not become a nation state until 1871). The
professor discovers an old book by a legendary Icelandic explorer which includes
a coded message giving directions to the centre of the Earth. Without wishing
to give too much away (although the book title provides a clue!) the professor,
Axel and Icelandic guide and assistant Hans Bjelke manage to find the route,
following natural tunnels in a dormant volcano. It will be a long time, and
only after many adventures, that they see the sky again.
This and other SF novels by Verne were best-sellers in their
day (and have remained in print ever since) but were more than just entertainment.
Verne was an enthusiast for the scientific developments of the time, and was
writing in the aftermath of fundamental discoveries. Geology was a new science,
with an understanding of the great age of the Earth, and the identification of
geological periods, having largely taken place in 1820-1850; while Charles
Darwin's sensational On the Origin of
Species was published in 1859.
Verne's aim was to educate as well as entertain, so the story is packed
with references to geological ages, fossils the development of life, and other
scientific matters. While there were still considerable errors and
uncertainties in the scientific understanding of some aspects of geology
(without which this plot would have been impossible – particularly concerning
an ongoing debate about the temperature deep in the Earth) Verne did his best
to ensure that his story reflected current scientific thinking; I was in fact
surprised at the detail and accuracy of much of the science in the book.
That does not mean that the story is just a large infodump.
Verne was a skilled story-teller and draws the reader into the tale. His
account of the journey from Hamburg to Iceland and his description of life
among the Icelanders makes a fascinating historical travelogue in its own right;
in fact, this is so convincing that he must either have visited the country, or
had access to an extremely detailed source. There is room for character
development too, despite the modest length of 184 pages: the professor is
impatient and irascible, keen to press on regardless of the difficulties and
dangers. Axel, on the other hand, is a timid and fearful young man who only
wants to marry his sweetheart and live a peaceful life in Hamburg, and is
appalled to be dragged into the adventure. The nearest to a hero is the
impassive and imperturbable Hans, who saves the expedition from disaster on
several occasions. There is also room for the occasional spark of dry humour,
for instance when Axel qualifies his uncle's enthusiasm for old and rare books:
"…but no old book had any value in
his eyes unless it had the virtue of being nowhere else to be found or, at any
rate, of being illegible."
One incidental source of amusement in my edition (Wordsworth Classics) is the occasional
footnotes by the (unnamed) person who translated the story from French to
English. These point to various inconsistences in the text, e.g. concerning
conversions from metric to imperial. There is a particular problem with Verne's
use of "leagues" to measure distance. The normal English custom
(assumed by the translator) was that a league = 3 miles, but I note from Wiki
that the measurement meant different things in different parts of Europe, and
could be anything between 2.4 and 4.6 miles, which presumably added to the
translator's confusion. It is worth mentioning that there are several different
translations into English, of varying quality. These are discussed at http://jv.gilead.org.il/evans/VerneTrans(article).html
To most modern readers, Journey
to the Centre of the Earth stands alone in its plot, but it the idea was
not original. As mentioned in my review of Science
Fiction: A Literary History posted on this blog in January 2018; "there was a separate sub-section of
"hollow earth" stories about adventures underground – Jules Verne's Journey to the Centre of the Earth was
really a late revival of this". It was also about the last time that
such a plot could have been used with any pretence of scientific credibility,
before the Earth's structure and temperatures deep underground were understood.
Verne's story has certainly
gripped the public imagination ever since, with other stories being influenced
by it (most notably, Arthur Conan Doyle's The
Lost World, which was itself the inspiration for the Jurassic Park film series) and Edgar Rice Burroughs' Pellucidar stories. It has also
received a number of screen treatments, the best known being a Hollywood epic
which emerged in 1959.
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The 1959 film is a widescreen spectacular in glowing colour, nearly 2¼
hours long, and was a financial success. The basic plot remains the same, with
various alterations and additions to appeal to a wider (and specifically US)
audience. The principal characters become Scottish instead of German; the young
man in the expedition (played by Pat Boone) is bold rather than a wimp, and is
keen to take part; there are not just one, but two, rival explorers trying to
beat the professor (James Mason) to the entrance of the underground world, with
murder and other shenanigans resulting; the expeditionary group is expanded to
include an attractive woman (Arlene Dahl), and a pet duck (uncredited) for
comical effect. And the film makers could not resist chucking Atlantis into the
mix.
Missing from the film is the
richly detailed information about Iceland, and much of the detail about science
in general and geology in particular. Together with the inherent lack of a
viewpoint character, these changes soften the focus of the story. However, the
result is probably more family-pleasing entertainment than a straightforward
following of the text would have been. For myself, I would be much more
interested in reading the book again than watching the film.
According to Wiki, other screen versions include a 1993 TV
movie, a 1999 TV miniseries, and a 2008 release in versions for both TV and the
cinema which has led to sequels based on other Verne stories. I have no
information about any of those, so comments would be welcome!
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