A Journey to the Center of the Earth

A fast, interesting read with an unsatisfying conclusion.

As I mentioned in my first introductory post, I live in Madrid, Spain. I’ve been here for a total of almost 6 years and intend to stay for the foreseeable future. I love it. I truly do. But I miss Borders. I miss having row upon row upon row of newly released titles in English. But I make do. One way I make do is by reading some of the classics. This was one of those times.

I saw Journey to the Center of the Earth on the shelf and thought it would be a good read. In all truth I figured that since Jules Verne was the favorite author of one of my favorite fictional movie characters of all time (Doc from Back to the Future, who goes on to name his two boys Jules and Verne), his books were probably good enough for me too. I also love to travel. My dream was always to travel out (as in to outer space) but going in (to the center of the earth) seemed interesting too. So I picked it up. Plus it was a special pocket edition and rang it at just 9€ (most of the English-language paperbacks here set me back 13-14€).

I enjoyed the book up until the last 10% or so. I actually started to get worried as I saw how few pages remained and thought that so much was left to do… I seriously wonder if perhaps Jules Verne just wanted to finish the book up and move on. Admittedly it was his first book. I’d like to read another of his to see if he improves. Perhaps Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas.

The book was an extremely fast read. I finished it off over 4 days, probably with a total of about 5 hours or so of actual reading (done almost exclusively on the metro to and from work). Each day when I reached my stop I would invariably continue reading even as I climbed the escalators and would only close the book when I hit street level (and couldn’t continue on without bumping into someone). Being the nerdy engineer that I am it had me searching online for info about the scientific theories mentioned in the book. In my book (pun intended) any book that makes me want to know more is heading in the right direction.

I’d say it’s a good vacation book, but since you’d possibly finish it off in one long afternoon pool-side, perhaps it’s best for a relaxing weekend.

Likes

• Fast-paced
• Short chapters = lots of stopping points; perfect for commute-reading
• Made me feel claustrophobic; I’m not really at all so the fact that I actually felt a bit of anxiety over the descent into Earth is a pretty good indicator of the skill with which Jules Verne wrote

Dislikes

• Long-winded descriptions about rocks
• Chapter titles give away the upcoming action
• Horribly unsatisfying ending