The Mysterious Island

Location & Checkout Length	Call Number	Checkout Length	Item Status
Downtown 2nd Floor 4-week checkout	Fiction / Verne, Jules	4-week checkout	Due 05-09-2024

Now repackaged--the classic fable of men facing the forces of nature. Armed with only courage and ingenuity, five Union prisoners escape the siege of Richmond, Virginia, in a hot-air balloon. Swept off course by a raging storm, they land on the shores of an uncharted island. Reissue.

COMMUNITY REVIEWS

My Favorite Verne Book submitted by Jan Wolter on June 17, 2013, 9:39pm I was given a copy of this book as a boy, read it and enjoyed it many times, and recently read it aloud to my own kids, who also enjoyed it.

Five men escape from a Confederate prison camp by climbing aboard a balloon. They are caught in an immense storm which deposits them without gear on an uninhabited island in the south pacific, where they need to find a way to survive. Which they do, ingeniously rebuilding a fully functional civilization out of nothing but intelligence and hard work.

Well, OK, there are flaws in this books. Lots. I always wondered why they failed to notice that their colony suffered from a complete and utter lack of women. Their island seems to have a variety of mineral and biological resources that is hard to explain by any plausible geological history. The book is also rather racist and classist by modern standards, though much less so than many books from that era. There is an embarrassing wealth of "deus ex machina" stuff going on, but the final revelation justifies it with a fun twist. And then the book ends with remarkable abruptness, a literal "bang."

There are many English translations, which vary significantly. Abridged editions are not necessarily to be shunned. It's a book that can stand a bit of abridgement. But reading it in English feels right, because it is an oddly American book, for a book by a Frenchman.

But I just love this book for it's basic attitude toward life. Here we are, marooned in a hopeless situation, so let's put our minds to it and get to work, and there is nothing we can't do. A practical, educated man can solve any problem. It's such an optimistic book with such faith in mankind.