Book . . . err, audiobook review—In Search of the Castaways; or, the Children of Captain Grant, by Jules Verne

I believe it was David Sedaris who said that if people who like books are called bookworms, then it logically follows that people who like books on tape are called tapeworms.

I am loathe to read two books at once, simply because it’s a reflection of my poor attention span, i.e., it’s like admitting to myself that I can’t finish one book before starting another. Though I make an exception for books on tape: the corporeal copy is for sitting at home and reading, and the book on tape is for when I’m out and about. The first book on tape I listened to was Mogworld, by Yahtzee, written by Yahtzee, read by Yahtzee, and I can’t imagine any other way to experience the book. An excellent listen. Don’t buy the book; buy the audiobook. It wouldn’t be the same without Yahtzee’s voice.

Audiobooks are great; it’s like reading, but you don’t feel like a lazy asshole. Imagine my initial joy when I found Librivox.org! The Project Gutenberg of audiobooks!

Unfortunately, there were two drawbacks to this discovery. Number one, when I started listening/reading to Mogworld, I found that my OCD extended to audiobooks as well. The “fifteen seconds back” option for audiobooks is a blessing and a curse. Number two, Librivox is free, and all the books are read by volunteers. Most often than not, the chapters are read by different people; some are good, but most are bad. And, Murphy’s Law kicking in, the good ones are the busy ones who don’t have time to volunteer their voices for audiobooks, and the bad ones are the ones who like to narrate the most. I guess you get what you pay for, but I will be more cautious in the future.

So, Jules Verne! You may know him as the author of such classics as Around the World in Eighty Days, A Journey to the Center of the Earth, and Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Seas, the last of which I read and thoroughly enjoyed. It’s probably one of the greatest adventure novels ever written, and Captain Nemo is an incredibly intriguing character. The only flaw in an otherwise perfect book are the lists upon lists of fish; but, really, if you ignore that, the book is flawless. The translation by William Butcher is amazing. It’s just a great overall book.

I found that Jules Verne wrote a sequel called The Mysterious Island which wraps up the events of the Nautilus after its mysterious fate. But, according to the Wikipedia page, it’s both a sequel to Leagues and another book, one I didn’t know, one that the North American Jules Verne Society doesn't have a page for—In Search of the Castaways; or, the Children of Captain Grant. Normally, I like to research about translations quite extensively before diving in, but there only appeared to be one translation in existence. Though I had no interest in the book, I wanted to read it just so I could read The Mysterious Island. I downloaded the audiobook and I spent a few weeks listening to it.

Premise: Lord Glenarvin, a Scottish nobleman, is aboard his yacht with his new wife on a pleasure cruise. A shark attacks the boat, and they kill it. They cut it open, and what’s this? A convenient plot device—I mean, a message in a bottle? Some Scotlanders are shipwrecked? They have been for the past two years? Well, it’s up to Lord Glenarvin, his cousin Major McNabbs, the castawayed captain’s two children whom they looked up as soon as they returned to Scotland, a pompus and pretentious French geographer who joined the expedition by accident, along with any other allies they might pick up along the way, to find the marooned Captain Grant at any cost!

Let me just say at first that the audiobook sucks. For the most part, the volunteers suck, and it’s quite unnecessary that they give that “disclaimer” at the beginning of every chapter. It’s so jarring to listen to different people between every chapter, and for every good narrator, there’s ten shitty ones. Would not recommend. You’re probably better off reading it.

THE GOOD

Jules Verne is a master of florid prose. The descriptions of the land and the environment are incredibly vivid. Though there are some descriptions of things that are irrelevant, though Verne’s obsession with flora and fauna are still there, it’s not obtrusive, and it’s quite relevant, all things considered. One moment occurs where the party encounters some cattle headers, and Verne describes in detail how they got there. He’s a master of historical and geographical trivia, which he shows through the character Jacques Paganel. It’s actually pretty interesting stuff.

Speaking of the party, the characters, for the most part, are fun to listen to, and they play off each other quite well. Each has his own personality, and each clashes with the rest. For a while, I thought that the banter between Paganel and McNabbs was thinly-veiled flirtation (one of Paganel’s first words are “But to-day, captain, it gives me great pleasure to begin my intercourse with you.”).

Actually, come to think of it, it’s really only Paganel. This character had me laughing all the way to the end. His entrance is humorous, and his intonations have that stereotypical Frenchness that I can’t help but laugh at. If I didn’t know any better, I would’ve thought that he was a character written by an Englishman who was making fun of the French; it’s good to see Jules Verne harbors no antipathy to the stereotypes of his native country. Paganel brings to the group his usefulness and his entertaining quirks, and he’s just overall a great character to listen to.

It has a great climax, and it had me on my seat until the end (that is, the part from where they got captured by the savages, to the end of the book). The descriptions of the savages were very visceral, horrifying, and real; it actually made me fear for the fates of the characters, making me wonder what would happen, made me bite my fingernails in apprehension and terror. And I would be lying if I said I wasn’t touched and close to tears at the end. I don’t want to say any more than that, for fear of giving spoilers; but, really, this is a courtesy on my part only, and you have no right to complain if you receive spoilers when reading a review of a one hundred and forty year old novel.

THE BAD

There's a reason why Verne is not known for this novel and a reason why the novel has faded into obscurity. The book, for the most part, is kind of . . . shit. I’ve already said my complaints with the Librivox recordings, but that doesn’t have anything to do with the book, really.

To begin with, all the women are awful characters. They’re whiny, they contribute nothing to the group, and the men always have to make concessions to them (e.g., carry them across rivers; having to fit out a wagon, because god forbid they should have to walk!). They are such useless characters that you wonder why Verne thought it necessary to include them in the first place. You could argue that this was just the nineteenth century view of women, but The Count of Monte Cristo never had women actually hinder the plot, and Les Misérables has Eponiné standing up to a street gang without batting an eyelash. My only guess is that Verne’s editor, whom I’m told was very hindering to Verne and his work, thought the novel was too much of a sausage-fest and wanted some women to “increase the audience.” As it stands, they are absolutely useless characters; I hated them, and I hated their whining.

The characters, for the most part, are all forgettable. All you can say about Lord Glenarvin is that he's the hero; all you can say about Major McNabbs is he's the gruff military stereotype; all you can say about Mary Grant is that she's the flimsy love interest for John Mangles, the latter being the yacht's captain is all you can say about him. And, actually, the relationship between John Mangles and Mary Grant probably would be considered morally objectionable in our day (she's sixteen, and he's thirty)—you so silly, Victorian era.

And the plot in general is . . . well, it’s not bad in the strictest sense of the word; it’s just . . . shallow. It’s just a typical adventure story. It involves walks across desert plains, fights with wolves, pirates, savages . . . boring, tired stuff. A lot of it is just walking, and I found my mind straying; the book was not able to engross me until the end.

It’s just that I expected a bit more from Jules Verne; this guy was writing about electric-powered submarines in a world when man barely understood how coal worked. Yes, Leagues is the sequel to this book, and Castaways is vastly inferior to it, but still—to go from Leagues to Castaways was a massive disappointment.

There’s really not much to say. The plot is extremely generic: set out to the land, walk across it, encounter hazards of nature, make mistakes, pirates, good-doers, evil-dooers, etc. In fact, the entire first two books of the novel are useless to the plot, and you could probably start at book three without missing much.

CONCLUSIONS

The book is so damn forgettable. Jacques Paganel was great—but that's really just about it. If you’re interested in Jules Verne, you will not want to start with this novel. I recommend Leagues. If you’re a diehard adventure-story fan, or if you want something to read on the beach, something stupid, something that doesn’t require any brain power to read, you may like it; but, in my opinion, there are so many better adventure stories out there. But, it’s free to read and to listen.

And I’m not sorry I listened to it. I have all the context for The Mysterious Island now, so that’s good.

Oh, what was that song? It hit me while I was in the bathroom:

It’s the theme song to Penn and Teller: Bullshit!. Why I thought it had to do with spies, why I thought it was a cartoon, I’ll never know. My brain is such an asshole.

But doesn’t matter. It was killing me, and I’m so glad I know what it is now. I can rest easy. I can get back to life.

Comments

[Kimberly Chou]

excellent! i also like Jules Verne very much.