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Journey to the Center of the Earth

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A Journey to the Centre of the Earth
Book cover of the 1874 edition
AuthorJules Verne
Original titleVoyage au centre de la Terre
IllustratorÉdouard Riou
LanguageFrench
SeriesThe Extraordinary Voyages #3
GenreScience fiction, adventure novel
PublisherPierre-Jules Hetzel
Publication date
1864
Publication placeFrance
Published in English
1871
Media typePrint (Hardback)
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Preceded byThe Adventures of Captain Hatteras 
Followed byFrom the Earth to the Moon 

Journey to the Centre of the Earth (French: Voyage au centre de la Terre), also translated as A Journey to the Interior of the Earth, is a classic 1864 science fiction novel by Jules Verne. The story involves a German professor (Otto Lidenbrock in the original French,[1] Professor Von Hardwigg in the most common English translation[2]) who believes there are volcanic tubes going toward the center of the Earth. He, his nephew Axel, and their guide Hans encounter many adventures, including prehistoric animals and natural hazards, eventually coming to the surface again in southern Italy. The living organisms they meet reflect geological time; just as the rock layers become older and older the deeper they travel, the animals become more and more ancient the closer the characters approach the center. From a scientific point of view, this story has not aged quite as well as other Verne stories, since most of his ideas about what the interior of the Earth contains have since been proven wrong. However, a redeeming point to the story is Verne's own belief, told within the novel from the viewpoint of a character, that the inside of the Earth does indeed differ from that which the characters encounter. One of Verne's main ideas with his stories was also to educate the readers, and by placing the different extinct creatures the characters meet in their correct geological era, he is able to show how the world looked a long time ago, stretching from the ice age to the dinosaurs.

The book was inspired by Charles Lyell's Geological Evidences of the Antiquity of Man of 1863. By that time geologists had abandoned a literal biblical account of Earth's development and it was generally thought that the end of the last glacial period marked the first appearance of humanity, but Lyell drew on new findings to put the origin of human beings much further back in the deep geological past. Lyell's book also influenced Louis Figuier's 1867 second edition of La Terre avant le déluge which included dramatic illustrations of savage men and women wearing animal skins and wielding stone axes, in place of the Garden of Eden shown in the 1863 edition.[3]

Plot

The story begins on Sunday 24 May 1863, in the Lidenbrock house in Hamburg, with Professor Lidenbrock rushing home to peruse his latest purchase, an original runic manuscript of an Icelandic saga written by Snorri Sturluson. While looking through the book, Lidenbrock and his nephew Axel find a coded note written in runic script. (This is a first indication of Verne's love for cryptology. Coded, cryptic or incomplete messages as a plot device will continue to appear in many of his works and in each case Verne goes a long way to explain not only the code used but also the mechanisms used to retrieve the original text.) Lidenbrock and Axel translate the runic characters into Latin letters, revealing a message written in a seemingly bizarre code. Lidenbrock attempts a decipherment, deducing the message to be a kind of transposition cipher; but his results are as meaningless as the original.

Professor Lidenbrock decides to lock everyone in the house and force himself and the others (Axel, and the maid, Martha) to go without food until he cracks the code. Axel discovers the answer when fanning himself with the deciphered text: Lidenbrock's decipherment was correct, and only needs to be read backwards to reveal sentences written in rough Latin.[4] Axel decides to keep the secret hidden from Professor Lidenbrock, but after two days without food, he cannot stand the hunger and reveals the secret to his uncle. Lidenbrock translates the note, which is revealed to be a medieval note written by the (fictional) Icelandic alchemist Arne Saknussemm, who claims to have discovered a passage to the centre of the Earth via Snæfellsjökull in Iceland. The deciphered message reads:

The Runic cryptogram

In Snefflls [sic] Iokulis kraterem kem delibat umbra Skartaris Iulii intra kalendas deskende, audas uiator, te [sic] terrestre kentrum attinges. Kod feki. Arne Saknussemm.

In slightly better Latin, with errors amended:

In Sneffels Joculis craterem, quem delibat umbra Scartaris, Julii intra kalendas descende, audax viator, et terrestre centrum attinges; quod feci. Arne Saknussemm

which, when translated into English, reads:

Descend, bold traveler, into the crater of Snæfellsjökull, which the shadow of Scartaris touches (lit: tastes) before the Kalends of July, and you will attain the centre of the earth; which I have done. Arne Saknussemm

Snæfellsjökull.

Professor Lidenbrock is a man of astonishing impatience, and departs for Iceland immediately, taking his reluctant nephew with him. Axel repeatedly tries to reason with him, explaining his fears of descending into a volcano and putting forward various scientific theories as to why the journey is impossible, but fails to make Professor Lidenbrock see his point of view. After a rapid journey via Lübeck and Copenhagen, they arrive in Reykjavík, where the two procure the services of Hans Bjelke (a Danish-speaking Icelander eiderdown hunter) as their guide, and travel overland to the base of the volcano. In late June they reach the volcano, which has three craters. According to Saknussemm's message, the passage to the centre of the Earth is through the one crater that is touched by the shadow of a nearby mountain peak at noon. However, the text also states that this is only true during the last days of June. During the next few days, with July rapidly approaching, the weather is too cloudy for any shadows. Axel silently rejoices, hoping this will force his uncle to give up the project and return home. On the last day, though, the sun comes out and the mountain peak shows the correct crater to take.

File:Verne-stred-zeme2.jpg
The travelers discover a giant cave filled with prehistoric mushrooms.

After descending into this crater, the three travelers set off into the bowels of the Earth, encountering many strange phenomena and great dangers, including a chamber filled with combustible gas, and steep-sided wells around the "path". After taking a wrong turn, they run out of water and Axel almost dies, but Hans taps into a neighboring subterranean river. Lidenbrock and Axel name the resulting stream the "Hansbach" in his honor and the three are saved. At another point, Axel becomes separated from the others and is lost several miles from them. Luckily, a strange acoustic phenomenon allows him to communicate with them from some miles away, and they are soon reunited. After descending many miles, following the course of the Hansbach, they reach an unimaginably vast cavern. This underground world is lit by electrically charged gas at the ceiling, and is filled with a very deep subterranean ocean, surrounded by a rocky coastline covered in petrified trees and giant mushrooms. The travelers build a raft out of trees and set sail. The Professor names this sea as the Lidenbrock Sea. Whilst on the water, they see several prehistoric creatures such as an Ichthyosaurus, which fights with a Plesiosaurus. After the battle between the monsters, the party comes across an island with a huge geyser, which Lidenbrock names "Axel Island". A lightning storm again threatens to destroy the raft and its passengers, but instead throws them onto the coastline. This part of the coast, Axel discovers, is alive with prehistoric plant and animal life forms, including giant insects and a herd of mastodons. On a beach covered with bones, Axel discovers an oversized human skull. Axel and Lidenbrock venture some way into the prehistoric forest, where Professor Lidenbrock points out, in a shaky voice, a prehistoric human, more than twelve feet in height, leaning against a tree and watching a herd of mastodons. Axel cannot be sure if he has really seen the man or not, and he and Professor Lidenbrock debate whether or not a proto-human civilization actually exists so far underground. The three wonder if the creature is a man-like ape, or an ape-like man. The sighting of the creature is considered the scariest part of the story, and the explorers decide that it is better not to alert it to their presence as they fear it may be hostile.

The travelers continue to explore the coastline, and find a passageway marked by Saknussemm as the way ahead. However, it is blocked by what appears to be a recent cave-in and the three despair at being unable to hack their way through the granite wall. The adventurers proceed to blast the rock with gun cotton and paddle out to sea to escape the blast, but the explosion is larger than they expected and they are swept away as the sea rushes into the large open gap in the ground. After spending hours being swept along at lightning speeds by the water, the raft ends up inside a large chimney filling with water and magma. Terrified, the three are rushed upwards, through stifling heat, and are ejected onto the surface from a side-vent of a volcano. When they regain consciousness, they discover that they have been thrown out of Stromboli, at the southern tip of Italy. They return to Hamburg to great acclaim - Professor Lidenbrock is hailed as one of the great scientists of history, Axel marries his sweetheart Gräuben, and Hans eventually returns to his peaceful life in Iceland. The Professor has some regret that their journey was cut short.

At the very end of the book, Axel and Lidenbrock realize why their compass was behaving strangely after their journey on the raft. They realize that the needle was pointing the wrong way after being struck by an electric fireball which nearly destroyed the wooden raft.

Notes

Wikisource has original text related to this article:
  • The 1871 English language edition published by Griffith and Farran (named Journey to the Centre of the Earth at Project Gutenberg) is an abridged and altered translation. It changes the Professor's name to Hardwigg, Axel's name to Harry (or Henry) Lawson, and Grauben's name to Gretchen. It omits some chapters, and rewrites portions of and adds portions to others. The Redactor's note by Norm Wolcott, at Project Gutenberg, claims that this translation is the most popularly reprinted one, despite the flaws. The 1877 translation by Ward, Lock, & Co., Ltd., translated by Frederick Amadeus Malleson, is more faithful, though it too has some slight rewrites (according to the Redactor at its Project Gutenberg page, where its title is translated as Journey to the Interior of the Earth).
  • The 1877 translation by Ward, Lock, & Co., Ltd., translated by Frederick Amadeus Malleson was adapted by AD Classic Books' 2008 edition of Journey to the Centre of the Earth. In this edit by A.R. Roumanis, antiquated writing and out of date sayings were replaced which makes this the most modernized version available.
  • The novel frequently uses the device of the Professor explaining or arguing scientific matters with Axel, in order to communicate scientific facts on which the world-view is based. In the midst of their descent, this role reverses at one point, as Axel points out strata to the Professor as another example of the same story-telling method. Many things postulated in the novel are now known to be incorrect, including the temperature of space being 40 degrees Fahrenheit, and volcanoes erupting due to a reaction between water and chemicals in the Earth's crust.

Adaptations

Film

Television

Theater

  • A stage version of Journey to the Center of the Earth, written by Gerald Fitzgerald and directed by Steven-Shayle Rhodes, was produced at Pegasus Theater in Dallas, Texas in 2000.

Other

Allusions/references from other works

Further reading

Debus, Allen (July 2007), "Re-Framing the Science in Jules Verne's Journey to the Center of the Earth", Science Fiction Studies, vol. 33, no. 3, pp. 405–20.

References

  1. ^ Project Gutenberg, Voyage au centre de la terre
  2. ^ Project Gutenberg, Voyage au centre de la terre, English
  3. ^ Browne 2002, pp. 130, 218, 515.
  4. ^ To produce the cipher, the text is written backwards, and then each letter and punctuation mark is placed in a separate cell of a 7x3 matrix, going row by row. When each cell is filled with the first 21 letters, the 22nd letter is placed in the first cell, and so again through the matrix repeatedly until the message is complete. To decipher, one copies out the first letter of each cell, then the second, and so forth, and finally the resulting message is read backwards.
French Wikisource has original text related to this article:
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