20,000 Leagues Under the Sea

First German book edition published by A. Hartleben , 1874

20,000 Leagues Under the Sea , French original title Vingt mille lieues sous les mers , is a 1869-1870 novel by the French writer Jules Verne with the captain Nemo as the main character. In this book, Verne anticipates the technical development of the submarine . Although submarines existed before the book was published, they were technically not yet well developed.

content

Captain Nemo records the height of the sun, illustration by the artists Alphonse de Neuville and Édouard Riou

Nemo's divers unearth the gold of sunken Spanish galleons

Fight against giant octopuses

The novel is supposedly an experience report by the French professor Pierre Aronnax, author of a work on "The secrets of the sea depths". In the years 1866 and 1867, mysterious ship accidents accumulated on all the world's oceans. The press speculates that a hitherto unknown sea monster or an “underwater vehicle with extraordinary mechanical power” capsized the ships. Aronnax suspects a gigantic narwhal as the cause. Because of his expertise as a marine scientist, the American government asked him in 1867 to join an expedition to clarify the matter. Aronnax, accompanied by his indifferent servant Conseil, sets sail on board the US frigate Abraham Lincoln .

After weeks of searching in the North Pacific, they spot the object in question. During the subsequent chase, Aronnax, Conseil and the Canadian harpooner Ned Land are washed into the open sea, but ultimately find solid ground beneath their feet on the surface of the supposed sea monster. It turns out that it was actually an iron-built submarine. After a while, a hatch opens, from which crew members of the vehicle step out and lock the three men in a cell. Later they are shown to the captain, who introduces himself as “Nemo” - Latin for “nobody”.

Over time, in conversations with the mysterious Nemo, Aronnax learns details about the technical capabilities of the submarine, the Nautilus , but hardly anything about her captain and crew. Nemo not only broke with humanity, but also with the earth and provides for himself and his team exclusively from the treasures of the sea. So he exploits submarine coal seams to meet the fuel needs of his electricity-powered ship, and the crew's provisions are made up exclusively of marine animals and plants. Nemo reveals little about his background - only in the second volume of the novel ( The mysterious island ) does he hint at his tragic fate: Fatherland, wife and children were taken from him by earthly powers, and so he turned his back on the world, to sail the world's oceans as avenging the disenfranchised. Since no one is allowed to find out his secret, the release of the three castaways is out of the question, and so they are forced to go on an underwater world trip on board the Nautilus .

They experience all kinds of adventures: They meet an Indian pearl diver, they recover the treasures of sunken Spanish galleons , take part in a burial in an underwater cemetery, hunt a dugong , drive through an undersea tunnel from the Red Sea into the Mediterranean Sea , experience a volcanic eruption on the seabed near the island of Santorini , fighting against a giant octopus and a shark seen in the Atlantic the ruins of the sunken Atlantis and are on board as captain Nemo and his Nautilus the first man to the South Pole reached - was not yet known, that the South Pole Earth is located on the land mass of the continent of Antarctica . During the trip they get into dangerous situations several times, from which they are rescued by the Nautilus. Jules Verne describes the victory of technology over nature - technology makes everything possible. However, in the narrated biography of Nemos and the plot and dialogues, he repeatedly implicitly points to the danger that technology without responsibility harbors.

Professor Aronnax gets into an inner conflict on the journey. On the one hand, as a scientist, he would like to stay on board the Nautilus for as long as possible and explore marine life together with Captain Nemo; on the other hand, Ned Land asked him to flee from the ship. Ned Land's aversion to Captain Nemo, which is not overcome by the fact that they save each other's lives in the course of the voyage, leads to the professor temporarily “sitting between the chairs”. This conflict is only resolved in the penultimate chapter of the second volume, when the professor and his companions witness how Captain Nemo sinks a ship in cold blood.

After this incident, however, Nemo is obviously unsettled by feelings of guilt and self-doubt, and his team also appears to be weakened or inattentive. The three prisoners succeed in a daring escape to the saving coast of Norway when the Nautilus gets caught in the vortex of the maelstrom .

Adaptations


World map with the route of the nautilus from Jules Verne's novel 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea

Stage processing

Based on the novel by Jules Verne, the Hamburg composer Jan Dvorák wrote a musical 20,000 miles under the sea , which had its world premiere on May 28, 2011 as a commissioned work by the Eisenach State Theater .

Film adaptations

20,000 Leagues Under the Sea was first made into a film by Georges Méliès in 1907 under the title Deux cents milles sous les mers ou le cauchemar du pêcheur .
The next film adaptation by Stuart Paton from 1916 combines the two Jules Verne novels ( 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea and The Mysterious Island ). This version is remarkable for its real underwater shots by John Ernest Williamson , which are among the earliest evidence of underwater film .
1954 was another film adaptation of Walt Disney ( 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea ) directed by Richard Fleischer . Captain Nemo was played by James Mason , Ned Land by Kirk Douglas , the Servant Conseil by Peter Lorre and Professor Aronnax by Paul Lukas .
Herbert Lom was Captain Nemo in the 1961 film Mysterious Island .
In 1969 Robert Ryan took on the role in the film Captain Nemo and the Underwater City (German title: Captain Nemo ).
In 1973 an Italian version of "The Mysterious Island" was created with the title L'isola misteriosa e il Capitano Nemo / La Isla misteriosa (German title: Ruler of a sunken world ) with Omar Sharif as Nemo.
Also in 1973 a cartoon was made by the Hanna-Barbera Cartoons, which was shown on December 19, 1982 on ZDF.
In 1974, a 78-part animated television series called The Undersea Adventures of Captain Nemo was produced in the United States .
Jules Verne's work also enjoyed great popularity in the Soviet Union , which led to the 1975 television film Kapitan Nemo (Капитан Немо).
The anime series The Power of the Magic Stone from 1990 is very much based on the plot of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea.
In the 1990s, two television films were made after 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea . In the 1997 two-part version, Captain Nemo was portrayed by Michael Caine .
In the comic book adaptation The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (2003) Captain Nemo was played by Naseeruddin Shah .
Based on the literary material, the low-budget film 30,000 Leagues Under the Sea was produced by The Asylum in 2007 .

Radio plays

Maritime 1970:
- Editing and direction: Kurt Vethake .
- Speaker: Eberhard Krug (Nemo) , Moritz Milar (Aronnax) , Peter Schiff (Conseil) , Arthur Binder (Land) .
Europe 1977:
- Editing: HG Francis .
- Director: Heikedine Körting .
- Speaker: Horst Frank (Nemo) , Richard Lauffen (Aronnax) , Hans Hessling (Conseil) , Heinz Trixner (Land) .
MDR / Radio Bremen 2003:
- Processing: Helmut Peschina .
- Music: Pierre Oser .
- Director: Walter Adler .
- Speaker: Ernst Jacobi (Nemo) , Gottfried John (Aronnax) , Hermann Lause (Conseil) , Peter Gavajda (Land) .

Horror Cabinet 118 & 119, 2016: With Jürgen Thormann , Uli Krohm , Dietmar Wunder , Julian Tennstedt , Hans Bayer , Marc Gruppe and Sascha von Zambelly , ISBN 978-3-7857-5384-2

such as

1957, directed by ??, publisher: Leipzig Blindenhörbuch ( audio book )
1969. Director: Ruth Scheerbarth, Publisher: Perl ( radio play )
1975, director: Ruth Scheerbarth, publisher: Auditon (radio play)
1975, director: Peter Folken, publisher: PEG (radio play)
197x, director: Manfred Jenning , publisher: Disneyland Records (radio play)
1992, director: Mat Willies, publisher: Junior (radio play)
1995, director: Hans Eckardt, publisher: Bibliothek der Jugendklassiker (audio book)
2000, directed by ??, publisher: Disky (radio play)
2008, German version: Holger Teschke , director: Götz Naleppa , speakers: Otto Mellies , Matthias Habich , Stephan Kaminski , Martin Engler , Deutschlandradio Kultur 2008.

Audio books

2009: Jules Verne : 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea ( Audible exclusive, read by Jürgen Kluckert ), Audible Studios
2009: 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (read by Werner Wawruschka ), Ueberreuter Verlag GmbH, ISBN 978-3800080489

2012: 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (retold in modern German by Gabi Müller, read by David Nathan ), OHRKA eV, http://www.ohrka.de/hoeren/tierisch-spannend/20000-meilen-unter-dem-meer/

2015: Literature Read Science Fiction: 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea , Runkersraith Verlag, ISBN 978-3945504079

Others

The indication “20,000 miles” in the title refers to the metric French leuge ( lieue ), which is not in use today and measures four kilometers of today's standard. An exact translation would be "80,000 km under the seas". The amount does not represent a diving depth, but a distance covered under water, i.e. in the sense of a 20,000 miles long journey below sea level, which corresponds to about twice the circumference of the earth (also known to Jules Verne) and thus gives the title a deeper meaning. The greatest depth given in the book is four miles, i.e. 16 km, which would be 5 km deeper than the Challenger Deep .
The figure of Professor Aronnax is supposed to represent Jules Verne himself, which is proven by the illustrations in the original book or reprint.
Initially it was planned that Captain Nemo should come from Poland and not from India.
Captain Nemo's real name is Prince Dakkar .
The Cretan uprising (1866–1869), supported by Nemo, is indirectly mentioned. On its way, the Nautilus stops near Crete and delivers gold to the Greek rebels.
The US Navy named a number of ships after the novel by Verne, u. a. the world's first nuclear powered submarine, the USS Nautilus (SSN-571) , which was the first vehicle to dive under the North Pole.

literature

expenditure

Twenty thousand miles under the sea. 2 volumes. German by Peter Laneus. Diogenes, Zurich 1976, ISBN 978-3-257-20244-1 (Volume 1), ISBN 978-3-257-20245-8 (Volume 2).
20,000 leagues under the seas . German by Martin Schoske. Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1997, ISBN 3-596-13376-9 .
20,000 leagues under the seas . German by Volker Dehs . Artemis & Winkler, Düsseldorf 2007, ISBN 978-3-538-06308-2 .
20,000 leagues under the seas . Comic by Ramón de la Fuente, German by Theo Reubel-Ciani . Classicomics # 7, Schwager and Steinlein Verlag, Nuremberg 1977.

Secondary literature

Till R. Kuhnle: Captain Nemo or the myth of the 19th century . In other words: The trauma of progress. Four studies on the pathogenesis of literary discourses , Stauffenburg, Tübingen 2005, ISBN 3-86057-162-1 , pp. 24–82.
Heinrich Pleticha (ed.): Jules Verne manual . Deutscher Bücherbund / Bertelsmann, Stuttgart / Munich 1992, ISBN 3-568-79245-1 .
Volker Dehs and Ralf Junkerjürgen: Jules Verne . Voices and interpretations of his work. Fantastic Library Wetzlar, Wetzlar 2005.
Volker Dehs : Jules Verne . Jules Verne. A critical biography. Artemis & Winkler, Düsseldorf 2005, ISBN 3-538-07208-6 .