Rating:3/5
Finished On:25th of December 2013
The mysterious island by Jules Verne
is an adventure novel published in 1884. It is said that it is based on the true story of Alexander Selkrik ,who survived alone for almost five years on an uninhabited island off the coast of Chile .
The book is set during the American civil war.
The book tells us the story of five prisoners of war that escape from a prison at Richmond and end up as castaways at an island. The prisoners are:
Cyrus Harding, an engineer in the union
army, his man servant Nebuchadnezzar aka Neb,
sailor
Pencroft, his ward Herbert Brown who was son of Pencroft's captain
and lastly the reporter
Gideon Spillet. These prisoners along
with the Top, dog of Cyrus escape from prison by employing a balloon.
These flyers are met with storms and after fighting the storms for a
few days eventually
they crash and land on a mysterious
island. Here the group then decides to colonize and make the island
habitable.What are the difficulties they face in this colonizing the
island, makes the rest of the content of the story. Apart from these
there is a presence of a mysterious entity on the Island which seems
to gaurd the interests of a group and help it in their trouble. Who
is this mysterious stranger and why is he helping the castaways??
Will the group would be able to survive in the island and what kinds
of difficulties await them?? These are the questions whose answers
you'll find when you'll read the book.
Now about how i felt about the book.
The story of book was a good one and the tinge of Mystery along with
the adventure of the castaways kept my interest in the book. The book
is divided into following three parts:
Dropped from the clouds
The Abandoned
The secret of the Island
Of all the three parts the first two
were average and i'd give them 2.5 stars. The last part 'The secret
of the Island' was great and very exciting to read and so for it 3.5
stars. Now in the first two parts the problem that i faced was not
the story but the technical information that was supplied with it. It
just marred the pace of the story and made it a little boring. I felt like i was reading a manual instead of a novel. but tue third part was amazing there were gun fights and finally the mystery of Island was unveiled. So the book at the end leaves a good taste in mouth.
Also there was this strange fact that
the engineer knew about every thing from metallurgy, to making fires,
to design boat and a lot of other things. This seemed a little far
fetched at least to me.
Of all the characters in the book i liked the Pencroft's character as it was funny and lend humor to the book. He was most of the times like a child and one cannot help laughing at his antics which were hilarious.
For eg:
"This fue, " said he,"or rather, this smoke is produced by nature alone. There is a sulphur spring there, which will cure our sore throats."
"Captain!", cried Pencroft."What a pity that i haven't got a cold!"
"Herbert," replied the sailor sententiously,"there is only one species of kangaroos to me, that is 'kangaroo on the spit' and it is just the one we haven't got this evening."
These are few of the various funny dialogues by him. The rest of the characters were okay.
Some Quotes from the book:
It is a great misfortune to be alone, my friends; and it must be believed that solitude can quickly destroy reason
Before all masters, necessity is the one most listened to, and who teaches the best
Better to put things at the worst at first," replied the engineer, "and reserve the best for a surprise
The book is in public domain and you can download the book from the following links:
FTC Disclosure: इस पोस्ट में एफिलिएट लिंक्स मौजूद हैं। अगर आप इन लिंक्स के माध्यम से खरीददारी करते हैं तो एक बुक जर्नल को उसके एवज में छोटा सा कमीशन मिलता है। आपको इसके लिए कोई अतिरिक्त शुल्क नहीं देना पड़ेगा। ये पैसा साइट के रखरखाव में काम आता है। This post may contain affiliate links. If you buy from these links Ek Book Journal receives a small percentage of your purchase as a commission. You are not charged extra for your purchase. This money is used in maintainence of the website.
