captaind's Full Review: Jules Verne - From the Earth to the Moon: Level 4
After a brief biography of author Jules Verne and an introduction by Greg Benford, which focuses on Verne’s incredible imagination, the things he got right about space travel , the things he got wrong, and the intriguing prospect of one of his main ideas - which was wrong - actually being used by NASA in the future, we come to the story itself. From the Earth to the Moon (or in its original French, “De la Terre à la Lune“) is essentially a story about 5 men - 4 of them founder members of the Baltimore Gun Club. These men obsessed with huge artillery (the club was described by Verne as “an assemblage of Angels of Death who at the same time with thoroughly decent men”) and rather saddened at the end of the Civil War and its resultant impact on the munitions market - particularly the end of research in creating ever bigger and more powerful guns. With efforts to get America to declare war on everyone from Mexico to England failing, the club descended into gloom and despair. Until, that is, Mr Barbicone - president of the Gun Club - made an announcement that there was a new goal for them to reach, involving the creation of the biggest, most powerful cannon to ever be made. The project was no less grand than the incredible idea of launching a projectile all the way to the moon!
Written in 1865, this book was far ahead of its time - the first unmanned lunar landing was by the Soviet Union in 1959 (Luna 2), the first manned landing (if you don’t believe all the hoax accusations) was by the USA in 1969 (Apollo 11). Because of Verne’s obsession with going into great detail, much of it does in fact seem out of date, but as Benford’s introduction sys it’s the wonder and imagination of Verne that make his books still enjoyable and intriguing today. With this book particularly he lets his humour run riot, particularly in the form of J.T.Maston, whose own cannon spectacularly broke the record of kills in a single shot - albeit by unfortunately exploding itself and taking over 300 bystanders with it… (How the eternal enthusiast Maston was not right there to be caught in the explosion is not actually explained!!) His impulsive, infectious humour and ability to speak before thinking put him in sharp contrast to Barbicane, the President of the Gun Club, who always seems to be in control and know the answers before he asks the questions. However, there are some things that even he hadn’t taken into account…
Add into the mix an enormous amount of detail, international conflict, a personal enemy of Barbicane (an armour designer, naturally), and a dashing French daredevil into the story and fill it with wit and wonder, and you have a marvellous book. It is perhaps inevitable that ending when it does leads somewhat to a sense of anticlimax (Verne wrote a sequel, “Around the Moon”, which deals with what happens next…) It’s a very funny book in many places, and an extraordinary book in other ways. It does get a little too bogged down in detail at times (as most of Verne’s books do!), and some of the ideas the characters have - they seem convinced there will be people living on the moon, for instance - seem a bit too outlandish from today’s point of view - but then we know a lot more about that sort of thing than Verne’s could have, and he knew (or guessed) a lot more than vast majority of the world’s population at that time. If you’ve read and liked any of Jules Verne’s books before, I’m sure you’ll enjoy this one greatly as well. If you’re a newbie to Verne, you should enjoy this - and because of the humour, even those who may have found some of his other books a little unwieldy may well find that they like this one more. It’s not my favourite book from the French author (“Around the World in Eighty Days” will probably always remain my personal favourite), but it’s not all that far off. I’ll definitely be reading the sequel at some time…
This old-time favorite is now written in a way that makes it easier for the children to understand. Each chapter also has a vocabulary list and focus ...More at Christianbook.com
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