Saturday, March 1, 2014

20,000 Miles Under the Sea-#3

20,000 Miles Under the Sea
Jules Verne
212/279
Science Fiction, Classic

  A cultural norm, present in the book but not present or very rarely present in today's world, is privacy and while in the late 1800's you could construct a submarine and sail the world without having anyone know, today you can't log in to your computer without a government agency knowing. Prof. Aronnax enjoys traveling the world and discovering its many beauties and it doesn't matter to him in which way he does it, by cruise ship or by submarine. If we transported Prof. Aronnax to 2014 he would be very shocked by modern travel, we have airplanes that go faster than the speed of light, unsinkable boats, cars that go over 250 mph, back in his time there were only ships and hot air balloons. He would embrace the internet because that is the absolute best place to study on, he has access to every book ever written by mankind and millions of articles on any subject he wants, as an author this would be heaven on Earth for him. A cultural norm present in the story and in 2014 is harpooning, the book starts of with a harpooning expedition to kill a great narwhal, today it is slowly being outlawed but it still exists in international waters where there is no law. 

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