[db105]

(54) L'Invasion de la mer (Invasion of the Sea, 1905) (1 volume) 53K words


The 54th Extraordinary Voyage is the last one published in Jules Verne's lifetime. It takes us to the Sahara desert, mostly in Tunisia. Eight more novels would be published posthumously in the series, for a total of sixty-two, but this is the last one where the author had the opportunity to review the print proofs and make the final corrections.


First read or reread?: First read for me.


What is it about?: Captain Hardigan and other members of the French forces in Tunisia accompany an engineer named de Schaller on a survey of the abandoned plans and works of Captain Roudaire. Schaller works for a company planning to resurrect Roudaire's plan to flood a lower portion of the Sahara Desert, creating an inland sea with the objective of opening up the interior of North Africa to trade and improving the climate for agriculture. However, the party is attacked by members of a Tuareg tribe opposed to the plan, whose leader Hadjar had recently escaped the custody of the French.


Apart from the sentimental consideration of being the last Verne novel published during the author's life, "Invasion of the Sea" is among the least-known Extraordinary Voyages. It was published in English for the first time in 2001.

Nevertheless, it's not completely without interest. I found the premise fascinating, being based on a project that was seriously considered in real life, but that I had never read about till now. The idea was opening a channel from the Mediterranean to flood certain areas in the Sahara Desert that lie below the sea level. The goal was to create an inland sea that would bring humid air, rain, and agriculture deep into the desert, also opening up the region to trade. The project was contemplated seriously, but the French government withdrew its support when it was discovered that, due to errors in the surveys, the area that was below sea level was smaller than previously thought. However, the idea has not been completely abandoned, and in fact in the 21st century it is still being considered.

The novel, a rather short one, starts promisingly, with an action-filled first chapter describing the daring escape of a Tuareg leader from a French military prison. Unfortunately, right after that the pace of the story becomes glacial, as we accompany a French survey expedition to examine the remains of the works already done to dig the channel that would flood parts of the desert. After several dull and uneventful chapters, the pace picks up again for the last part of the novel, detailing the fights between the French expedition and the Tuareg tribe, and the surprising ending.

In addition to the pacing problems, the characters here are rather lackluster. Even though it starts in a promising manner with the escape of the Tuareg leader, the novel mostly follows the French expedition. Verne tries to make the most important characters distinctive, but he is less successful than usual. (It's true that Verne's novel are not character-focused, but at his best he can create compelling characters like Phileas Fogg or Captain Nemo).

Besides the adventure story, which falters for a good part of the novel but picks up steam at the end, the interest here is in the idea of the Sahara Sea project. It's such an ambitious engineering project. It's also an illustration of the colonial mentality that a foreign power would take it upon itself to do something so radical. It's true that compensations are mentioned for the few native farmers who would be affected, but presumably it's the French who would decide how much those compensations would be. In any case, unlike what a modern novel would do, Verne presents the natives opposed to the project as the bad guys (on the grounds that they are basically outlaws whose livelihood comes from assaulting trading caravans), and the French engineer and soldiers as the good guys.

The book also shows the warier attitude towards technology of Verne's later years, with the dangers of the ambitious project not being as under control as the engineers believe, and it also shows certain environmental concerns, not in the modern sense, but about the scarcity of food that the project seeks to address.

All in all, an interesting read, even though as an adventure it's below Verne's usual standards.


Enjoyment factor: Not among Verne's best novels, as a good chunk of the novel is kind of dull, although it improves later. The premise is certainly interesting, and I get the feeling that Verne would have made better use of this material if he had been in his prime. It's a fast read, being rather short.


Next up: The Lighthouse at the End of the World