Scan barcode
A review by lynch626
The Mysterious Island by Jules Verne
4.0
I liked this book better than Journey to the Center or the Earth, but still not quite as much as 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. In both, however, I do love how Verne explains conditions around the book characters in such precise scientific detail. It makes you think that if you were in their situation, you could easily replicate their means of survival.
It did seem strange to me though, that at the beginning of the Mysterious Island, the group gets stranded there and, rather than coming up with a plan of how to escape, they seemed satisfied with their situation and started improving the conditions on their Island, later dubbed Lincoln Island after Abraham Lincoln. As the settlers go about building shelter, staying safe, securing enough food, and surveying their island, mysteriously things start happening. I made of list of these as I was reading (*below), and when Harding recounts them to the group later in the story, I realized I had listed them all... plus a few extras that seemed strange to me but evidently not so for the colonists. (Where in the world to monkeys and snow foxes exist in the same habitat?...). In the end, the crew finds out that it is actually Captain Nemo who has been their mysterious benefactor. I loved this twist, as it brought 20,000 leagues full circle for me - I'm only glad I read that book before I got to The Mysterious Island.
*Mysterious island list of mysterious things
-Harding turns up in a cave .25 miles inland after the crash landing on Lincoln Island (Top finds him and leads the other settlers to where he is)
-Top barking down the well at Granite House, but no one is there
-Top caught by a Dugang in the lake and Dugang is killed some some unknown force
-strange array of plants and animals on island (horses, arctic fox, monkeys, puma)
-lead shot found in a bird the settlers snared
-monkeys takeover and then flee from Granite House
-find treasure chest with guns, ammo, other useful items
-boat is cut loose to sea but washes up to settlers at just the right time for them to catch it
-Eirton says that he did not write the SOS note in the bottle that the settlers found washed up to Lincoln Island w the coordinates of Tabor Island
-Spolette, Pencroft & Herbert see a fire on Prospect heights to guide them back in from their trip to Tabor Island. ...but Captain Harding did not light any fire.
It did seem strange to me though, that at the beginning of the Mysterious Island, the group gets stranded there and, rather than coming up with a plan of how to escape, they seemed satisfied with their situation and started improving the conditions on their Island, later dubbed Lincoln Island after Abraham Lincoln. As the settlers go about building shelter, staying safe, securing enough food, and surveying their island, mysteriously things start happening. I made of list of these as I was reading (*below), and when Harding recounts them to the group later in the story, I realized I had listed them all... plus a few extras that seemed strange to me but evidently not so for the colonists. (Where in the world to monkeys and snow foxes exist in the same habitat?...). In the end, the crew finds out that it is actually Captain Nemo who has been their mysterious benefactor. I loved this twist, as it brought 20,000 leagues full circle for me - I'm only glad I read that book before I got to The Mysterious Island.
*Mysterious island list of mysterious things
-Harding turns up in a cave .25 miles inland after the crash landing on Lincoln Island (Top finds him and leads the other settlers to where he is)
-Top barking down the well at Granite House, but no one is there
-Top caught by a Dugang in the lake and Dugang is killed some some unknown force
-strange array of plants and animals on island (horses, arctic fox, monkeys, puma)
-lead shot found in a bird the settlers snared
-monkeys takeover and then flee from Granite House
-find treasure chest with guns, ammo, other useful items
-boat is cut loose to sea but washes up to settlers at just the right time for them to catch it
-Eirton says that he did not write the SOS note in the bottle that the settlers found washed up to Lincoln Island w the coordinates of Tabor Island
-Spolette, Pencroft & Herbert see a fire on Prospect heights to guide them back in from their trip to Tabor Island. ...but Captain Harding did not light any fire.