"The Mysterious Island" is a novel by Jules Verne first published by Hetzel in 1874. The original edition contained quite a few illustrations done by Jules Férat. My edition has quite a few of the illustrations but originally there were even more. The novel is linked by certain characters to two other novels by Verne, "Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea" and "In Search of the Castaways". I haven't read "In Search of the Castaways", but as for "Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea"and "The Mysterious Island" other than one character, they don't seem to have much in common. An early draft of the novel which was rejected by Verne's publisher was titled "Shipwrecked Family: Marooned With Uncle Robinson", I can't imagine why, the men stuck on this island aren't related in any way and there isn't an uncle anybody there. Verne was not only a novelist but also a poet and playwright, so I'm going to have to go on a search for a Verne poem when I'm done here. Unfortunately for now having typed the word playwright I am now distracted by the fact that the word is spelled with "wright" and not "write". That doesn't make sense to me. Another puzzling thing to me at this moment is that in 1886, Verne's favorite nephew, Gaston, attempted to murder him. He fired two shots from a pistol, hitting Verne's leg and giving him a limp for the rest of his life. Gaston turned out to be suffering from mental illness, and spent his life in a mental institution. What puzzles me is, yes I know he was suffering from mental illness, but why did he try to kill Verne? Was there a reason? It seems like there should have been. Anyway, I can't find one and I'm moving on to the story.The novel begins with the rather strange story of our five main characters escaping from Richmond Virginia during the Civil War. One of the first things I find strange is even though these men are being held as prisoners, they are free to walk about the city. Really? Captured Union soldiers were allowed to walk about the streets? That was nice of the south to let them do so, but brings up my second puzzling event. These five men - and a dog - decide to "escape" from Richmond, and they decide to do it in a hot air balloon. To me this seems like they just chose the most difficult way to escape from anywhere, especially since they can walk about freely. Why don't they just wait until dark and walk out? But I guess it wouldn't be much of a story if they just walked away, and we need to get them on a deserted island, and I suppose it wouldn't have been easy to steal a boat, although I don't see how it could have been harder than steal a balloon, but none of this matters because they did steal a balloon and they stole it during the worst storm ever or some such thing. While it doesn't make a lot of sense to go flying about in a balloon during the terrible storm of 1865, it did make sense in that no one was around to watch over the balloon. As for the storm:"Without doubt no one can forget the terrible northeast storm that burst forth during the equinox of that year when the barometer fell to seven hundred ten millimeters. It was a storm that lasted from the 18th to the 26th of March without letup. It ravaged America, Europe and Asia over a broad zone of eighteen hundred miles around a line oblique to the equator, from the thirty fifth north parallel to the fortieth south parallel. Towns overthrown, forests uprooted, shores devastated by the mountains of water which fell upon them as tidal waves, record bureaus counting hundreds of vessels thrown on the coast, entire territories leveled by the waterspouts which pulverized everything in their path, several thousand people crushed on land or swallowed by the sea, these were the marks of fury left behind by this formidable storm."So they fly away in a storm, and get caught in this storm, "displaced and turned round and round without sensing any of this rotation nor their horizontal movement", and finally they crash in the middle of nowhere in the storm. The middle of nowhere being a deserted island in the middle of the ocean. I would have had absolutely no idea what ocean but our main character Cyrus Smith (or Cyrus Harding depending on which translation you have), who knows just about everything says it's the Pacific so I'll take his word for it.Now that we're on the island I have a big problem with what happens next, not only does Cyrus know everything, but the rest of them can do just about anything, and rather quickly. Just on the first day they; crossed the channel from the islet to the island, found a place to live - in a pile of huge rocks they name "The Chimneys", found fresh water, found their first food - mussels; followed the river (that's their fresh water) inland looking for food and fuel; built a raft; loaded it with wood; hunted in the woods; collected bird eggs for food, and made rope out of dried creepers; and that was all before 2pm. It also wasn't five of them working it was only two of them. One was washed away, the other two were looking for him. So that left two of them to accomplished all this in about eight hours. Sure they did. Wait until you see what they manage to do later once they find their missing member, that's Cyrus.One of the things I found just plain mean is the love of some of the castaways to kill things, a lot of things. I wouldn't mind if they killed animals to eat them, but they kill lots and lots at a time and I can't imagine how five men (yes, and a dog) could eat it all before it spoiled. It was strange:"At this moment a flock of small birds with a pretty plumage, with a long and sparkling tail, scattered themselves among the branches, spreading their weakly attached feathers which covered the ground with a fine down. Herbert picked up a few of these feathers and after having examined them: “These are ‘couroucous’,” he said. “I would prefer a guinea fowl or a grouse cock,” replied Pencroff, “but are they good to eat?” “They are good to eat and their flesh is even tender,” replied Herbert. “Besides, if I am not mistaken, it is easy to approach them and kill them with a stick.” The sailor and the lad glided among the grass arriving at the foot of a tree whose lower branches were covered with small birds. The couroucous were waiting for the passage of insects, which served as their nourishment. One could see their feathered feet strongly clenching the sprouts which served to support them. The hunters then straightened themselves up and moving their sticks like a scythe, they grazed entire rows of these couroucous who did not think of flying away and stupidly allowed themselves to be beaten. A hundred littered the ground when the others decided to fly."Why in the world did they kill a hundred of them? Who is going to eat them all? It's not like they have a refrigerator or freezer to keep them in, although Cyrus could probably have one built in a few hours if there was such a thing back then. They don't stop there with the killing spree that day either. Although for the next batch they use traps instead of clubs, but I'm moving on. The story stays interesting for awhile, even with the bird killings, then Cyrus finds a cave or cavern whatever, for them to live in that will be safer than the rocks on the beach, which would be fine until he enters the world of what looks like math which means I have no idea what he's talking about:"You remember what are the properties of two similar triangles?" "Yes," replied Herbert; "their homologous sides are proportional." "Well, my boy, I have just constructed two similar right-angled triangles; the first, the smallest, has for its sides the perpendicular pole, the distance which separates the little stick from the foot of the pole and my visual ray for hypothenuse; the second has for its sides the perpendicular cliff, the height of which we wish to measure, the distance which separates the little stick from the bottom of the cliff, and my visual ray also forms its hypothenuse, which proves to be prolongation of that of the first triangle." The engineer then took a flat stone which he had brought back from one of his previous excursions, a sort of slate, on which it was easy to trace figures with a sharp shell. He then proved the following proportions:— 15:500::10:x500 x 10 = 50005000 / 15 = 333.3From which it was proved that the granite cliff measured 333 feet in height." Now not only are we using words like homologous, hypothenuse, and prolongation (no I don't know what they mean) but then we have this paragraph that could be in another language for all I can tell:"Cyrus Smith then took the instrument which he had made the evening before, the space between its two legs giving the angular distance between the star Alpha and the horizon. He measured, very exactly, the opening of this angle on a circumference which he divided into 360 equal parts. Now, this angle by adding to it the twenty-seven degrees which separated Alpha from the Antarctic pole, and by reducing to the level of the sea the height of the cliff on which the observation had been made, was found to be fifty-three degrees. These fifty-three degrees being subtracted from ninety degrees—the distance from the pole to the equator—there remained thirty-seven degrees. Cyrus Smith concluded, therefore, that Lincoln Island was situated on the thirty-seventh degree of the southern latitude, or taking into consideration through the imperfection of the performance, an error of five degrees, that it must be situated between the thirty-fifth and the fortieth parallel." I absolutely agree with everything Cyrus said in the above paragraph, since I will never make sense out of it I may as well agree. As I already said Cyrus can do just about anything and one of the first things he does is built a kiln, or tell the others how to. It involved water and sand and clay, and forming it all into brick shapes, then letting it dry for days and days until they had, well - bricks. Then they just built a kiln. After that they made every kind of pottery you could ever think of, then they built a forge. Cyrus had found iron ore, along with just about every other animal, vegetable or mineral on earth, and they turn it into iron, steel and pig iron. I never understood how, but here it is:"Iron ore is usually found in combination with oxygen or sulphur. And it was so in this instance, as of the two specimens brought back by Cyrus Smith one was magnetic iron, and the other pyrites or sulphuret of iron. Of these, it was the first kind, the magnetic ore, or oxide of iron, which must be reduced by coal, that is to say, freed from the oxygen, in order to obtain the pure metal. This reduction is performed by submitting the ore to a great heat, either by the Catalonian method, which has the advantage of producing the metal at one operation, or by means of blast furnaces which first smelt the ore, and then the iron, carrying off the 3 or 4 per cent of coal combined with it.""But in order to be in its most serviceable state, iron must be turned into steel. Now steel, which is a combination of iron and carbon, is made in two ways: first from cast iron, by decarburetting the molten metal, which gives natural or puddled steel; and, second, by the method of cementation, which consists in carburetting malleable iron."Now if we ever want to make steel or iron we know how. And we learn how to make much more than this, thanks to Cyrus we now have a boat, another boat, a raft, gunpowder, a compass, dynamite, glass, bellows, an elevator, sulfuric acid, a windmill, a telegraph, and I'm probably something. And there was this part where Cyrus tells us that thanks to Harbert finding a grain of wheat in his pocket we will have eight hundred grains in the first harvest, which they will replant and at second harvest we will have 640,000 grains, by third harvest we will have 5 hundred twelve million and so on. How he knows this I can't imagine and I am not trying to find out. But eventually they can make bread, lots of bread. The novel is certainly interesting, even fun to read if you can get past the descriptions of how to build kilns and such things. There are monkey invasions, and boat launchings, treks through the jungle, a volcano, trained apes, lots of adventuring things. Oh, it has it share of mysteries too, I guess it should or Verne would have given it a different name. Go ahead and read it, anyone better at math and science than I am should enjoy it more than I did, and like I said, I had fun. After the beatings that is. I'll still give it three stars.
Mi ha divertito scoprire che nel 1895, quando Edmondo De Amicis si recò ad Amiens per intervistare Jules Verne, molti italiani dubitavano che l'autore dei "viaggi straordinari" esistesse realmente. È un'impressione frequente, quando si pensa ai più prolifici e popolari romanzieri francesi dell'ottocento, ma nel caso di Verne sembra ancora più suggestiva: come credere all'esistenza di un uomo capace di immaginare tanto, e di legare un ciclo di oltre cinquanta romanzi al progresso scientifico e industriale della sua epoca? Io, che non ho mai smesso di leggere questi "libri per ragazzi" e di rivalutarli secondo le mie età, conservo un punto di vista da adulto irrimediabilmente immaturo; così, di tanto in tanto, ho bisogno di tuffarmi in un romanzo come L'isola misteriosa.Jules Verne, nella sua migliore e più prevedibile tradizione, inizia il racconto con un pallone aerostatico in difficoltà, che precipita a causa di una tempesta su un'isola sconosciuta in mezzo all'oceano Pacifico. I suoi passeggeri sono cinque americani, che con quel mezzo così pittoresco hanno tentato la fuga dall'assedio di Richmond, durante la guerra di secessione. Rappresentano, credo, l'ideale umano di Verne: tutti abilissimi, colti, curiosi, sempre ottimisti. L'ingegnere Cyrus Smith è riverito dai compagni come un profeta; il giovanissimo Harbert, appassionato e saccente naturalista, è la promessa del futuro: non manca mai di illustrare agli altri le caratteristiche delle piante e degli animali presenti sull'isola, rimarcandone soprattutto - secondo un gusto perfettamente ottocentesco - l'eventuale utilità per l'uomo. Dopo pochi capitoli, la parola "naufraghi" viene sostituita da "coloni": Verne promuove così i progressi della loro piccola civiltà.(Il carattere industrioso dei naufraghi mi ha aiutato a comprendere l'interesse di Perec per questo libro. Ho comprato la mia copia, per una di quelle strane e spaventose coincidenze letterarie, insieme a La vita istruzioni per l'uso, e leggendo quest'ultimo ho trovato numerosi riferimenti a L'isola misteriosa, che sono stato costretto a saltare per evitare di rovinarmi questa lettura.)Il gusto così antiquato per la celebrazione dell'umanità passa presto in secondo piano, e nella narrazione si inseriscono elementi più interessanti e moderni. Verne sembra riflettere sulla società del suo tempo e sui limiti di quel progresso scientifico e tecnologico al quale doveva la sua stessa fortuna letteraria. La sua isola ha diverse dimensioni: è molto più di un rifugio per naufraghi.Prima di tutto, sull'isola non manca nulla: inverni glaciali, estati torride; deserti sabbiosi e foreste; spiagge e scogliere; animali di ogni specie, corsi d'acqua dolce, alberi altissimi e meravigliosi, grotte, un vulcano. Gli stessi coloni fanno un'osservazione non da poco, valutando i loro progressi: nessun naufrago, nella realtà, potrebbe mai trovare un'isola così. Sull'isola Lincoln - come la battezzano subito, da bravi americani - tutto sembra creato apposta per agevolarli. Diventa presto evidente che i loro ringraziamenti diretti alla Provvidenza sono raccolti dallo stesso Verne, l'autore, e l'isola non è che una mappa della sua immaginazione, ovvero di tutto ciò di cui ha bisogno per esprimere il suo pensiero. Questa breccia nella finzione letteraria è elegantissima e trasforma Verne nell'unico, autentico protagonista della trama, e l'isola con i suoi misteri in un'espressione della sua mente, piena di meraviglie naturali o artificiali, ma anche limitata da misteri inconoscibili, insondabili, irrazionali. In modo altrettanto simbolico, l'isola ha una forma minacciosa, che ricorda quella di un animale feroce; si presenta accogliente o inospitale a seconda del punto in cui si approda; le sue coordinate, determinate in modo approssimativo dai coloni, la collocano a una distanza sufficiente da qualsiasi terra civilizzata perché nessuno possa tentare la fuga, né sperare in una nave di passaggio. Si intravede l'espressione di una misantropia e di una distanza dalla società ben note ai lettori di Verne, i cui personaggi sono spesso portati alla fuga e all'isolamento. Questo carattere "antisociale" non si limita a pochi elementi simbolici, ma è parte della trama: i coloni sviluppano, nel loro nuovo piccolo mondo, una società indipendente e priva di gerarchie; vogliono trovare un mezzo per tornare al loro paese natale, ma ripensano con tristezza alla guerra civile, e sognano di fondare sull'isola una vera colonia per vivere lì il resto dei loro giorni, lontano dalla vita pubblica.Il secondo punto importante è rappresentato dai limiti della ragione umana: le imprese dei coloni appaiono, dopo un po', talmente perfette e varie da sconfinare nell'assurdo. Costruiscono senza difficoltà dighe, ponti, navi, mulini a vento, ascensori, stalle, telegrafi elettrici, recinti, strumenti, armi ed esplosivi: ma qualcosa sfugge sempre alle loro capacità di controllo e di interpretazione. Questo segreto, che rappresenta forse l'elemento più affascinante del romanzo, verrà svelato soltanto nel finale; ma le infinite risorse della natura avranno sempre la meglio sulle capacità tecniche dell'uomo. Dopotutto, lo stesso arrivo dei cinque naufraghi sull'isola è dovuto a un fallimento della tecnica; una debolezza di una di quelle invenzioni che in altri romanzi di Verne vengono presentate con entusiasmo, senza paure o incertezze.Qualcosa poi, negli avvenimenti dell'ultima parte del libro, rivela l'amore dell'autore per la libertà, e la diffidenza nei confronti delle leggi umane: questo romanzo rappresenta, forse, un tentativo di far conoscere ai più giovani questo ideale che, pur non essendo in alcun modo assimilabile all'anarchia, sembra tuttavia distante da quel che allora veniva proposto come modello di civiltà e di moralità. Gli ultimi capitoli e le ultime parole sono dedicate a un fuorilegge, glorificato come un eroe: elemento tutt'altro che irrilevante in un romanzo d'avventura per ragazzi, scritto otto anni prima della piccola rivoluzione "amorale" compiuta da Stevenson con i pirati dell'Isola del tesoro. L'isola come mezzo d'introspezione, di dialogo con la propria solitudine e quella altrui, di analisi della società e delle sue colpe: un argomento non banale, che nel novecento ha trovato nuove e ricchissime espressioni, come L'invenzione di Morel di Adolfo Bioy Casares.Per concludere, devo riflettere su questi ultimi elementi e sulla mia vita di lettore: il mio primo libro fu una bellissima edizione illustrata di 20000 leghe sotto i mari; lo ricordo con molta nostalgia ed emozione. Questo romanzo appartiene allo stesso ciclo, ne conclude le vicende, e mi ha aiutato a comprendere fino in fondo quanto quelle atmosfere abbiano influenzato la formazione del mio carattere, nel bene e nel male. Ormai non c'è modo di rimediare, e penso ancora con invidia, meraviglia e ammirazione alla vita del capitano Nemo nel suo mondo sottomarino: circondato dal silenzio, eternamente malinconico nel ripensare ai suoi affetti e alle sue sconfitte, geloso della sua identità e del suo anonimato. Così, questa lettura ha avuto per me un'importanza di tipo affettivo. Forse io, a differenza dei coloni di Verne, per timore o per un'imperdonabile distrazione non ho mai esplorato fino in fondo la mia isola. Non so se rappresento un pericolo per le altre specie che la abitano, né se sia giusto temerle; non so neppure se sono l'unico naufrago: forse altri sono sull'isola e si nascondono, oppure l'unico a nascondersi sono io.
What do You think about The Mysterious Island (2004)?
This is a story about the artist – not his art. The plot is practically nonexistent, contrived purely so Jules Verne can demonstrate his extensive scientific knowledge.Four men are air-balloon wrecked on an uncharted, uninhabited island in the pacific ocean. The island has every vegetable, animal, and mineral resource to be found anywhere else in the world. The four castaways, who never once disagree with each other or say a cross word, colonize the island with nothing more than their knowledge,
—James Field
Don't get me wrong, I liked The Mysterious Island. However, it objectively did not age well.First of all, it was one of Verne's "educational" novels, and that shows with lots and lots of exposition that doesn't add anything to the actual story - and much of it isn't even relevant anymore (the theories for the formation of continents, or the nature of the moon are beyond dated).The second problem is that the story is just choke full of "coincidences", which do not even all make sense if you consider the explanation at the end. There is really no plot except for the characters' progress in making the island more habitable, and said "coincidences" and the titular mystery. To modern sensibilities, this is just not good enough for a high rating.Also as importantly, there is pretty much no character growth or progression either.There are a few more minor problems, such as the "revelation" at the end itself, but let's not nitpick too much.If you can ignore these issues, and/or just want to read the classic for its own sake, you'll do fine. The Mysterious Island also works acceptably as a "shipwreck" story. It is still worthwhile reading, but it's not spectacular.
—Nils Jeppe
This book was recommended by the 2012 Book Lover's Page-A-Day Calendar. Entry was for January 2, 2012.Wow.Let me start by saying that I'm already pretty familiar with the work of Jules Verne, having gotten pretty well addicted to an abridged children's version of Around The World in 80 Days back when I was eight or nine years old. Since then, I've read the actual unabridged version and have read both 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea and A Journey To The Center of The Earth more times than I can count. I am, without question, a tremendous fan of the novels of that era and can rank Jules Verne up there with my favorites. With that said, I was not expecting to be so utterly blown away by The Mysterious Island. More than a couple of reviewers on this site have given this book bad reviews, citing it as unrealistic, laughable, or wordy. Well, those people are haters. It’s a novel from the 1800’s—of course it’s wordy! It’s a novel about desert island survival—of course it’s unrealistic! Stop hating, folks! The Mysterious Island is a masterwork by a master writer. I guarantee I will be reading this one again.
—Aaron
