Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea

By: Jules Verne

Narrated by: Peter Husmann

Length: 18 hrs and 41 mins

Publisher's summary

Jules Verne’s classic underwater tale.

A mysterious sea monster, theorized by some to be a giant narwhal, is sighted by ships of several nations; an ocean liner is also damaged by the creature. The United States government finally assembles an expedition to track down and destroy the menace. Professor Pierre Aronnax, a noted French marine biologist and narrator of the story, master harpoonist Ned Land, and Aronnax's faithful assistant Conseil join the expedition.

After much fruitless searching, the monster is found, and the ship charges into battle. During the fight, the ship's steering is damaged, and the three men are thrown overboard. They find themselves stranded on the "hide" of the creature, only to discover to their surprise that it is a large metal construct. They are quickly captured and brought inside the vessel, where they meet its enigmatic creator and commander, Captain Nemo.

Public Domain (P)2012 Trout Lake Media

Different From Memory

When I was a child, this book stood out as one of my favorites, and having picked up the audiobook for next to nothing, I was excited to return to such a fond part of my younger days. What I realized, was just how little I took away from the story so long ago.

What seems like half of the book is nothing more than the characters classifying every sea creature they come across, I don't know if I read the abridged version as a child or what, but I don't remember that at all. Needless to say, it bogs down the storytelling something fierce, no offense to the late Jules Verne, but good grief, I get it, your characters are smarter than the average Joe.

The story sprinkled around the endless classification is a wonderful tale, an adventure definitely worthy of admiration.

Jules Verne an outstanding tale of adventure

What did you love best about Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea?

The book is a classic. I love the detail and descriptive nature of this book. It paints a new picture in each chapter. The characters come to life in the telling of the tale.

Did Peter Husmann do a good job differentiating all the characters? How?

The voicing of the characters was a bit flat for my liking. If this version of the books was done by someone with a bit more voice depth I would likely buy it. The reading was well done at times I missed the character transitions and had to backup to get the current context.

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

This book due to it's descriptive nature was one that for me was better spread out over several days of listing. I kind of needed time to process the different scenes of travel thru out the book. I have seen many movie depictions of this book and they were all very different. When I listen to the book again I will likely not stop as much.

Great translation, so-so narration

I tried very hard to like this audiobook, because it uses the best public domain translation of Verne's masterpiece currently available: the first version of F. P. Walter's translation, which is available on Gutenberg and elsewhere. (Walter has since re-translated the book in a copyrighted anthology called "Amazing Journeys: Five Visionary Classics." This anthology is THE place to start if you're just getting interested in Verne. It's available from Amazon in both paper and Kindle versions and includes many illustrations from the original French editions.) Walter's translation is clear, accurate, and idiomatic.

Unfortunately, Peter Husmann's narration falls short on a couple of key points. First - and I admit this may be subjective - he sounds like he's outside the novel looking in, rather than "inhabiting" it. His tone is slightly condescending, as if he's talking down to the listener. He's reading the book out loud, not telling the story. It may be that this was a conscious choice aimed at making the book more accessible to younger readers, but I didn't enjoy it. (Playing it with Audible's 1.25x or even 1.5x option did help this a bit.)

He also mispronounces some of the names, Aronnax in particular. It's "Aaron-ax" - Husmann pronounces it "Aaron-no", as if it were spelled Aronnaux. I found this distracting. "Conseil" is also mispronounced - it should be con-SAY, not con-SAIL. (Understand that these are my American approximations of the French.)

I would love to see a different reader tackle Walter's translation - or, alternatively, to see Husmann have another try at this one: he's got a good, strong voice; can clearly distinguish between the different characters; and would benefit greatly from a more natural delivery. (Come to think of it, maybe what he was missing was a good director.) Doing this book is clearly a labor of love for Husmann: at the time I wrote this, the "list price" was less than $2.00.

Actually what I would REALLY love to see is someone tackling all five of the novels in the anthology: this one, "Journey to the Center of the Earth," "Around the World in 80 Days," "From the Earth to the Moon" and its sequel "Around the Moon." Verne is a wonderful writer, and so far the audio versions of his work have been kind of piecemeal.

Review of Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea

I thought the book was great and it had a lot more detail which I enjoyed a lot

Overly detailed?

Would you recommend this book to a friend? Why or why not?

No.
My friends would get bored reading this book.

Would you ever listen to anything by Jules Verne again?

I am not sure.

What do you think the narrator could have done better?

The narrator was alright

Could you see Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea being made into a movie or a TV series? Who should the stars be?

I would love to see a TV show about it! I bet Netflix could make a pretty good one about it!
There is an older movie about it. I watched it as a kid but haven't seen it in year. The movie was the reason why I picked this book to listen to. Having listened to the book I would like to track down the movie and what it again just to compare the two.

Any additional comments?

I did not realize what I was getting into when starting this book.
The story itself is good, but the overly detail explanations of the classification of the fish they saw seemed to send me to the doldrums. I think that I might be able to pass a biology class on classifications after having read this book.
You can tell that the author was very passionate in being as detailed and precise as they could be, while I have respect for that quality, it slowed the book down for me and made it hard to stay engaged.

Great Adventure!

Worth the time and an excellent story to listen to while driving.
Only cons were minor. The narrator had a funny slur every once and a while, either like he had been drinking or the words were just hard to get out clearly. He also rushed through the long descriprive lists of animals observed by the professor a little too hastily for my taste. And he pronounced several latin/scientific words incorrectly. I wasn't crazy about the terrible gruff voice he used for Ned or the wimpy voice he used to portray Conseil, otherwise he did fine.

Can drone on at times but a true classic

Although it drags on at points (I don't need the classification of every underwater creature), the author does a wonderful job of painting an amazing underwater scene with vivid descriptions. With interesting characters and a modern writing style that many classic books lack '20,000 leagues' is a must read for every book worm.

Mr. Husman does a great job bringing the characters to life!

don't miss this book

one of my favorite books by an incredibly intelligent author, translates beautifully into English from French

Okay but for the “French”

I found it exceedingly distracting that the narrator- supposedly French - kept mispronouncing basic French names and places. I am not French, nor do I speak the language, yet even I know how to pronounce Consail, Provence, and Nantes! His voices were great, but as Professor Pierre Aronnax, he should have at least been able to pronounce his own name correctly.

A good tale, especially if you are into fish.

This classic tale holds together even through the advances in technology in the 140-odd years since it was written. The various movies based on this book differ in many ways from the original story. The characters are believable and likable. Jules Vern describes his world under the sea in a way that puts you right there in the Nautilus with the Characters.

While it did drag in spots, this story held my interest all the way through it. However when it ended, I was ready for it to be over.

The only downside to this book is that over the course of the book Verne describes many varieties of ocean life and biology in great detail. If you are really into marine life, you may find this level of detail fascinating. For me it was interesting at first, but toward the end of the story, it got kind of old.

Still it is worth a listen.