Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea

"I think that a lot of people like myself who have become involved in the world of science, started our enthusiasms not through scientific texts, but through works of the imagination. Jules Verne was a master of tales of action and adventure. I remember loving Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea as a youngster. Yet re-reading it recently, I was struck not just by its dynamic plot, but also by how much science he smuggled in. In this romance, there is much description of different kinds of animals and plants of the sea, and their taxonomic classification. The various mysterious animals, such as the giant squid and whales, come to the foreground of the work in a wonderful way. It would be a mistake to think that this work simply reflects nineteenth-century attitudes of exploitation. For example, there’s a scene in which Captain Nemo tells off Ned Land, the brave but gung-ho sailor who likes to hunt for pleasure. Nemo tells him that there may be other ways of looking at the world. It’s surprisingly prescient in a number of ways. Of course, much of the science in Verne’s romances is not accurate. Journey to the Centre of the Earth is a good example: its subterranean worlds are completely implausible. But the kind of geology that he put in—the volcanoes, the battles of the ancient monsters, ichthyosaur, plesiosaur, and so on—did its job, which was to catch the imagination. Once you’ve caught the imagination, then more subtle work can take over from there."