(49) Les Histoires de Jean-Marie Cabidoulin (The Sea Serpent, 1901) (1 volume) 51K words


The 49th Extraordinary Voyage takes us on a whaling campaign, both in the South Pacific near New Zealand and in the North Pacific near Alaska and Kamchatka. Previous novels in the series taking place at sea include "The Adventures of Captain Hatteras", "A Floating City", "The Survivors of the Chancellor", and "An Antarctic Mystery".


First read or reread?: First read for me.


What is it about?: The Saint-Enoch was a French whaler ship commanded by Captain Bourcart, with a crew of around thirty people. The start of their campaign was delayed because they were missing a cooper and a ship doctor. A doctor was found, but for a cooper they had no other option than convincing old Jean-Marie Cabidoulin to come out of retirement. Captain Bourcart was reluctant because Cabidoulin, although a good professional, was pessimistic by nature, always foreseeing the worst and telling his shipmates the most terrible stories about the ocean and its monsters (the original title translates as "The Stories of Jean-Marie Cabidoulin"). At last, the ship was able to leave Le Havre bound for the Pacific Ocean. Their campaign was sometimes successful, sometimes dismal. More and more mysterious events occurred: Natural phenomena or the sea monster that Cabidoulin was always prophesizing?


This is a good example of minor Verne novel: not as thrilling as his best works, but nevertheless a pleasant read and not lacking in elements of interest.

In the beginning, when the cranky and eccentric Cabidoulin was introduced, I thought that this was going to be one of those Extraordinary Voyages with humorous elements, but that turned out not to be the case, since the emphasis was not on his idiosyncrasies.

The book is mostly the opportunity to follow a whaling campaign from the beginning to the end. Many modern readers may consider whaling as a cruel practice, but from the point of view of Verne's contemporaries it was just a tough and daring way to make a living, involving sea trips that lasted several years and dangerous combats between powerful cetaceans and small boats full of sailors and harpooners.

It is another rather short novel, and most of it is devoted to showing us the day to day life on board a whaling ship, how they went from on place to the other, always in search of whales, and often coming in contact with the same ships who are involved in their own campaigns, both colleagues and rivals.

Although it did not happen often, sometimes several whaling ships in the same area would compete for the same prey, and it could lead to a lot of tension and even violence.

This slice-of-life adventure element is spiced up with the rivalry between the French ship and an English whaler which refused to salute them (Verne shows his Anglophobic tendency by depicting them as conceited and rude), and which they will meet several times in the course of a couple of years.

Another plot thread is the increasing number of clues about the possible presence of a large sea creature. Verne plays a "will they, or won't they?" game (will they eventually meet the sea monster that Cabidoulin is always expecting, I mean). The signs are there, but they could perhaps be explained more easily as unusual but natural phenomena.

Although the subject of a whaling campaign is interesting, for most of the book the adventure is low-key, being an unexceptional trip, until the last part of the novel, when events speed up and there's a lot of danger. Like in "The Village in the Treetops", one could say the ending is... well, maybe not abrupt in this case, but at least faster than it might have been.


Enjoyment factor: Another short, fast read. I found it enjoyable, without being one of my favorite Vernes. These novels from the last few years of Verne's life have a reputation for being less eventful, but I am still finding them very readable and always with elements of interest, even if sometimes it takes them a while to get to the most thrilling parts.


Next up: The Kip Brothers


See all my Verne reviews here: https://www.sffworld.com/forum/threads/reading-vernes-voyages-extraordinaires.58... ( )