Journey to the Center of the Earth by Jules Verne

Title: Journey to the Center of the Earth

Author: Jules Verne

Pages: 280

Finished: September 14, 2017

First Sentence: Looking back to all that has occurred to me since that eventful day, I am scarcely able to believe in the reality of my adventures.

Summary: Axle's uncle, Professor Lindenbrock, discovers an old Icelandic manuscript that mentions there's a path to get to the center of the Earth. Lindenbrock is more than happy to follow the hint to Iceland where he and his nephew hire a guide and do, indeed, journey as far into the earth as they can get, though the journey is not without it's perils.

Thoughts: I can safely say I wasn't a huge fan. First of all, the names in my translation were all different. The nephew was Harry. The uncle Hardwigg.  I didn't even realize the names were different until I googled the book to find the uncle's name and found a completely different name than I had been reading.

As I summed up to my parents during our book discussion: the uncle's a pompous ass, the nephew a wet blanket, and the book is full of out of date and bad science. the book wasn't particularly interesting. Every time a new part of their journey started, I though, "Oh good. Here it's going to get interesting." And every time I was disappointed and bored. Perhaps I had a bad translation, or perhaps something about this novel doesn't hold up for me. In terms of classics, this is definitely on the snore end of the spectrum.

I was a bit surprised too because I remember really enjoying Around the World in 80 Days. But then, I guess not every book by every author is going to be a winner.

Read for Back to the Classics Book in Translation.