People find being in zero gravity an exhilarating experience. No wonder so many people go for bungee jumping and the less adventurous to amusement park rides. It is a feeling of absolute freedom as well as a scary feeling. There is a similar zero gravity feeling in life also. Like how we spend most of our physical life bound to the ground by the physical force of gravity, our social life is spent bound by the social forces that bind us to organizations and social structures. At the age of four it starts – a school, then college, then a workplace. Your very identity is defined by these organizations that you feel an identity crisis when you are finally rid of these organization at the time of your retirement. Usually one has a spell of excitement when one is out of one such organization and not yet moved on to the next. I had such an experience when I had finished my schooling and yet to join college. I had finished my board exams and all my college entrance exams. Still two months remained for results. Meantime I was unattached and totally free. During that time I would head for the local library after lunch and be there till dinner time. It was during this time that I happened to read my first science fiction – ‘20,000 Leagues Under The Sea’ by Jules Verne.
You can read the rest of this article here on my blog dedicated to science fiction
You can read the rest of this article here on my blog dedicated to science fiction
4 comments:
I pretty much agree with your assessment of the work of Verne. It's pretty single dimensional literature, though it deserves kudos for pioneering aspects of the sci-fi genre. I'm interested in your conception of Nemo as a superhero...he is something of a tyrant vigilante which applies to some superheros...but he can be conceived as an anti-hero or even a villain...I'm not sure which take on it I'd subscribe to, so I'm just interested in knowing the reasons for your 'hero worship.'
Thanks for your comment, Stan. Well interesting comment. Definition of hero and villian kind of depends on the individual. My definition of hero would be someone who is in full control of all situations. He is rarely perturbed. And he commands his crew by the sheer force of his chatacter And Nemo is some kind of a Robin Hood - steals from the rich and gives to the poor. The benovelent role Jules Verne gives Nemo in mystery island indicates Jules Verne also meant him to be more a hero than a villian. I had taken a course I took on appreciation of science fiction in whihc I was supposed to write a final paper on technology in science fiction taking any book of your choice. I got so carried away in my review of '20000 leagues under the sea' that half the paper I wrote about Nemo and ended up with a poor grade for being out of context.
jules verne is my forever favourite fantasy (?) writer.
i have read his books so many times. twenty thousand leagues is a dream in words. what a story!
Good to know, Trisha. He is indeed a wonderful writer.
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