The Readers Review: Literature from 1714 to 1910 discussion

The Mysterious Island
Week 5 (July 22 - 23) Part 3, Chapters 12 - 20

This is the last week we'll spend with our castaway friends.

1) This week we start off with a miracle, at least it must seem so to our castaways. Ayrton is found when the others descend on the corral looking for the convicts. Ayrton has questions about how he arrived at the corral and the castaways have questions about is captivity. Are you relieved that Ayrton is found? Do you think his presence adds significantly to the story?

2) Our castaways find that Mount Franklin begins to smoke. When you read this did you feel it was a race against time to get a new boat built (after the convicts destroyed the original boat)? Did it feel ominous to you? Will they have enough time?

3) Mystery solved. The castaways meet Captain Nemo who has been their benefactor, nothing supernatural. The castaways met Nemo and all are overwhelmingly appreciative of everything he's done for them. How did you feel about this? Why, do you think, Nemo has not made his presence known earlier?

4) The volcano erupts. The island and the boat are lost and the men are stranded on what amounts to be a rock. Miraculous they are rescued by Captian Grant's ship, the Duncan. What did you think of the conclusion to the book?

5) What did you think of the book overall?

I liked the book overall, but it wasn't one of my favorites.

I was mostly joking when I said I was expecting them to find the pirates' bodies and was surprised when they actually did.

I'd forgotten that this was part of the Captain Nemo series, and I don't know much about him, so I was surprised that he was their benefactor. Some of the Captain Nemo parts seemed to drag for me, but they may have been important to people who had read other books in the series and were interested in him.

I didn't expect the island to go down with their boat. If they weren't able to fulfill their dream of eventually returning to the island, I figured they'd at least finish their boat and end up with a Noah's Ark situation with a lot of the animals who wouldn't have been able to escape. Poor Jup!

I liked the story overall, but I'm also glad to be finished with it. My only other Verne novel read was Journey to the Center of the Earth, and I had much the same reaction to it. Of course, that may be because I thought it would be like the 1959 movie which I really enjoyed as a child.
I was glad that Ayrton was alive and very surprised that the pirates were found dead so close by the corral. It added to the mystery of who was watching over the islanders. Since I have not read any of the Captain Nemo books, I was surprised to learn that he was the mysterious force on the island. The devastation of the volcano was shocking, but not even for an instant did I think the castaways would die. The arrival of the Duncan was both convenient and predictable, coming only days before they succumbed to hunger and exposure on the rock. I'm glad Top was saved but really sorry about poor Jup. I had wondered how Verne would settle the problem of either casting Jup out after he had been domesticated or bringing him to civilization where it might not be possible to keep him safe. I guess killing him of in one sentence was the best solution, but it wasn't one I liked.

I agree with Nancy about Joop's fate. That Verne chose to handle it in the most convenient way was indicative of one of the book's weaknesses to me. Even the ending seemed more convenient than thought out. A Lincoln Island recreated in Iowa? I've been to and through Iowa often and, while I am all in favor of doing something to improve the looks of that state, it didn't strike me as a practical finale. I'd say that Iowa would make sense for its cheap land but one thing Iowa does have is rich farmland that, at least in this century, is not that cheap.

Overall I enjoyed the reading experience. However, I thought Verne's storytelling, while very imaginative was fairly hackneyed in its execution. Creative ideas but with character depictions and plotting elements felt pulpy. His ever-praising of the survivor's skills made the story more like a 'boy's adventure' story than I had anticipated.

I actually thought some of his better writing was when Verne was describing the processes the survivor's used to maintain their existence. However, while I appreciated the explanations, as had been pointed out, these process descriptions often slowed down the narrative flow and released any dramatic tension.