20,000 Leagues Under the Sea Tough-o-Meter

(6) Tree Line

Cut through all the fish stuff and the scientific mumbo jumbo and we've got a rousing, straight-up adventure story here, right? Not so fast. Aronnax asks himself a lot of questions, and he doesn't give us a whole lotta answers. As a result, we're left with a lot of thinking to do. We have to analyze the motivations behind Nemo's actions, puzzle over his origins, and, in the end, make our own judgments as to what this book is really about. And that's never easy.