MobileRead Discussion: The Mysterious Island by Jules Verne (spoilers)

[pilotbob]

Originally Posted by WT Sharpe

Folks, how realistic do you feel it is that that six people with nothing but the clothes on their backs could be dropped on an island and create such an advanced civilization in three years' time? (This is a serious question; I'm asking.)

Not at all. There is no way that they would have survived in a Hurricane in a hot air ballon. It was fiction after all.

(imnsho) Even that... Hurricanes on the east coast travel from the SE tropics of the Atlantic and go taking a track usually Northeasterly from Florida towards New England. How they heck would a Hurricane Storm system have carried the from Virginia to the South Pacific. I'm pretty sure that wouldn't happen.

BOb

[anabelee]

Originally Posted by WT Sharpe

Folks, how realistic do you feel it is that that six people with nothing but the clothes on their backs could be dropped on an island and create such an advanced civilization in three years' time? (This is a serious question; I'm asking.)

It's fiction, of course. I think it's about the time the book was wrote. Civilization is some kind of prionity need in some authors, and Verne was one of them. Not only in this book, but in "Two year of holidays" (I don't know the name in english, I read it in spanish translation), or Tarzan, for example,

Spoiler:

where the poor boy, far away from civilization, learn alone to read!!

The need of make all around like home, I suppose, the industrial revolution, the need of justify the ethical principles... all this make Verne put this characters in an island but make them feel to transform it in a copy of their original civilization. and time doesn't matter, really.

Sorry about my mistakes in english, I'm not spoking it since a long time.

[yekim54]

Originally Posted by pilotbob

Hurricanes on the east coast travel from the SE tropics of the Atlantic and go taking a track usually Northeasterly from Florida towards New England. How they heck would a Hurricane Storm system have carried the from Virginia to the South Pacific. I'm pretty sure that wouldn't happen.

That's right. Although Jules Verne prided himself on getting the "science" right in his stories, I'm pretty sure the science of hurricanes was not well known when he wrote The Mysterious Island. The traveler's boarded the balloon on March 25. I doubt that a hurricane has ever formed in March. The historic hurricane tracks from 1851 - 2005 are shown in the attached figure. As BOb said, the pattern is clear ... they form in the southern Atlantic and after striking the U.S. coast, they move inland and veer to the northeast. Also, notice that none of the tracks crosses the equator into the southern hemisphere.

EDIT: I did some more checking and in March 1908 a category 2 hurricane did form in the Caribbean. But it stayed east of Puerto Rico and did not make landfall on the U.S. mainland.

[SneakySnake]

WE have late season cyclones here as late as April.

[BenG]

I don't know but "hurricane" may have been more loosely defined in the 19th century.

[pilotbob]

Originally Posted by BenG

I don't know but "hurricane" may have been more loosely defined in the 19th century.

Possible.... but hurricanes take the track they do because that is the general direction of the trade winds created by the coriolis affect.

BOb

[thinkpad]

Finally finished it, and part III was much better than the first two.

What got me confused was that I bought a whole bunch of Verne books bundled as one on Amazon. Now there's no logical separation of these books, one books start where another one finish, and no blank page in between. I couldn't see how far into the book I had come since the reference was for all 36 books and the percentage bar hardly moved at all, so I wouldn't recommend buying the bundle: "The Collected Works".

The book made me want to re-read 20 000 leagues under the sea again but I'll think I have to read something else in between.

[lene1949]

I am very embarrassed... I still haven't finished it, and have started reading the next books club book...

[thinkpad]

Originally Posted by lene1949

I am very embarrassed... I still haven't finished it, and have started reading the next books club book...

I don't blame you, I had to read it in small doses to be able to finish, and that certainly took it's time. It looks like next book club read will be more easy to finish: The Thirty-Nine Steps, I'm ready for a spy novel

[voodooblues]

I finished the Island. The first book I have read on my iPad. I enjoyed the book, not unlike most people the detail of the manufacturing got boring and made it hard to read at times. I found it interesting reading and discovering how they spoke in that time. Using words like communicate in a totally different context that we do not use anymore.

[thinkpad]

The thing I remember strongest from the book

Spoiler:

was Pencrofts strong craving for tobacco and how the other settlers came across a tobacco plant and how they secretly worked to make it into tobacco and presented the pipe filled with tobacco to Pencroft and later on how Master Jup the orang started smoking and got his own pipe

[TimeTraveler]

I found a drawing of a map of Lincoln Island that someone was so gracious to post on the internet. I found it quite helpful when I read the book last week.

http://jv.gilead.org.il/kravitz/disk/lincoln_island.jpg

[SneakySnake]

Originally Posted by lene1949

I am very embarrassed... I still haven't finished it, and have started reading the next books club book...

Now I don't feel so bad. I haven't finished it either. I put the 39 steps on my reader yesterday but felt too guilty to start reading it having left the island unfinished.

[WT Sharpe]

Originally Posted by SneakySnake

Now I don't feel so bad. I haven't finished it either. I put the 39 steps on my reader yesterday but felt too guilty to start reading it having left the island unfinished.

You can always finish it later.

[SneakySnake]

I bluddy finished it last night. Captain Nemo, explosions rubbish!

yay today I can start the 39 steps. Hey did anyone else notice that in the omnibus, if I read on my reader, 30 steps is first, but in the Calibre reader it is in a different order?