A Journey to the Centre of the Earth
by Jules Verne
read: 2012
Guardian 1000 Novels
Science fiction ages like no other genre of fiction. A realistic novel is frozen in its place in time, and even fantasy novels are divorced from reality to the extent they can't be subject to retroactive criticism. But humans are terrible at predicting the future, so any novel that attempts to do that is bound to fail. A Journey to the Centre of the Earth doesn't place itself in the future per se, but the exploration of the earth's interior, something that was poorly understood at the time and much better understood now, comes off as quaint at best and wildly unscientific at worst. Still, the story is interesting, and even if the interaction between the characters becomes repetitive (the narrator is a wuss! The uncle seems irrational but ends up being right! Hans has no expression!), it's a fun read.
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