Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne
A mysterious beast is attacking ships from all over the world. The famous oceanographer Pierre Aronnax believes that the beast is a gigantic narwhal. You know, a sea animal with a damn sword in its head. It is not a big thing.
So, Aronnax is invited on a special mission by the United States Secretary of the Navy to board the USS Abraham Lincoln and begin hunting this sea creature. After weeks of searching, the ship finally finds the beast, but he's simply no match for it.
Aronnax is thrown overboard when the monster charges into the ship, prompting his servant Conseil to go after him. The two fight to get back aboard the Lincoln, only to end up on the deck of another ship.
Not everything is going well on the new boat. A group of men throws Aronnax, Conseil, and Ned Land, a Canadian harpooner, into a cell below deck. Shortly after, they are visited by their crazy captain, who reveals that he can speak all the languages they speak - French, German, English, and Latin - although he pretended not to at first. Weirdo.
So we know very little about this guy calling himself Captain Nemo, but he says he already knows who Aronnax and his men are ... which is very creepy, considering this whole story takes place in those pre-Facebook days. How did he know ?! Anyway, Nemo tells the boys that he has "broken with humanity" and lives a secret life under the sea. Spiffy, huh?
Not really. Nemo's break with normal people means that our three main types will never be able to return to earth. Nemo says that they will have freedom aboard his ship, the Nautilus, except for the fact that he could lock them up again at any time ... which doesn't sound like freedom to us.
Nemo then announces that he will take the Aronnax, Conseil, and Ned on a voyage across the seas of the world. And boy do they travel. They hunt in the underwater forests of Crespo Island and visit Vanikoro, the site of two famous shipwrecks.
One of his expeditions is interrupted by cannibals. They travel across the Indian Ocean and visit a pearl bed, where Nemo saves a pearl diver from a shark, and then has to be saved himself, by Ned.
The crew then visit wrecked Spanish galleons carrying tons of gold, where Nemo solves his cash flow problems. Nemo even takes Aronnax on an expedition to see the lost city of Atlantis before heading to the South Pole. After some trouble, Nemo miraculously manages to plant his own flag at the Pole. (Something similar to what Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin would do later on the moon.)
And adventure, adventure, adventure, blah blah blah. Finally, while sailing to the north of England, Nemo himself becomes the target of revenge; is attacked by an unknown ship. Aronnax is horrified when Nemo sinks this ship to take revenge on those people who, according to Nemo, took his family and his country.
Finally, the Nautilus drifts aimlessly until it meets ... dun dun dun ... the Maelstrom. Don't worry, it's just a gigantic deadly vortex of water. As the Nautilus enters this vortex, Aronnax, Ned, and Conseil manage to abandon ship. They wake up in a cabin on a remote Norwegian island.
There, our first-person narrator, Aronnax, ends up recounting his wild and wild journey. But it hardly answers all of our questions. Or even most of them. He still doesn't know Nemo's country of origin or the backstory in general, or even if he survived the Maelstrom.
But, in trying to see the bright side of life, Aronnax hopes that Nemo would survive. And if Nemo survived, expect Nemo to be a changed man. Aronnax likes to imagine that Nemo will leave his vengeful ways behind and, you know, smile more.
