Translator uncredited
291 pages
Published 1864 (English translation published 1965)
Read from June 30 to July 2
Rating: 1.5 out of 5
* Denotes a reread
I had hoped for better, revisiting this book.
When I read Five Weeks in a Balloon back in 2015, I learned that Jules Verne had been substantially more racist than I’d picked up on as a child. Journey to the Center of the Earth had been a formative book for me; more importantly, I remembered it as a fun paleontological adventure tale without much opportunity for unhinged racism. I must have read a bowdlerized translation, however, because before his characters even leave the house on Köningstrasse, Verne found ways to be casually racist.
Another adult realization: what an abusive piece of shit the character Otto Lidenbrock is. He verbally and psychologically abuses his nephew and his servant, and subjects them to starvation when he’s fixated on something. The saddest thing to me is to observe how much I normalized all this as a child. With an abusive parent of my own, I didn't even register Professor Lidenbrock’s behavior when I was a kid; that was just what adults were like in my world. Oof.
The story is nothing more than a standard boy’s-life adventure run through a filter of primitive early geoscience. Once the party climbs Sneffels and begins their interminable descent, my nostalgia took over, and I had a decent enough time. Nonetheless, by just about any measure, this isn't quality literature. Verne’s style hews closer to fictional travel guide than to trifles like plot or characterization.
Coming back to the topic of different translations: I can’t be sure, but I think the translation I read as a kid was far better than this one. The prose is amateurish, overly formal, lacking in fluency and flow. Perhaps it’s closer to how Verne wrote in the original French; it does feel an awful lot like antique writing for children.
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