The World Beyond the Hill: Science Fiction and the Quest for Transcendence by Alexei Panshin, Cory Panshin Page B
Authors: Alexei Panshin, Cory Panshin
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20,000 Leagues Under the Sea is a model presentation of domesticated science-beyond-science:
“Before going any further, Professor, I must explain a few things,” said Captain Nemo. “So please listen.”
After a few minutes of silence, he said: “There is one source of power which is obedient and rapid, easy and pliable, and which reigns supreme aboard my ship. It does everything. It gives me light, heat and is the soul of all my machinery. This source is electricity.”
“Electricity!” I cried, somewhat surprised.
“Yes, Monsieur.”
“But Captain, the great speed with which your ship can move would seem to have little to do with electric power. Until now, its dynamic force has remained very limited and able to produce no more than a very small amount of energy!”
“Professor,” answered Captain Nemo, “my electricity is not the usual kind, but I hope you will permit me not to go into it further.” 75
And there you are. First, a promise of complete explanation. A trumpet blast, then the pronouncement: “Electricity!” followed by the proviso (not of the usual kind)—and a quick duck behind “I hope you will permit me not to go into it further.”
Arronax can’t help wondering:
There was a mystery behind all this, but I did not want to ask too many questions. How could electricity be made to produce such power? Where did this almost limitless force originate? Was it in some high tension developed by a new kind of coil? Was there something about its transmission that an unknown system of levers could increase infinitely? 76
But there is no way of knowing exactly, nor any assurance that we ever shall:
“Captain,” I said, “I can only admire what you’ve done. You have obviously discovered something which other men will one day find out: the true dynamic force of electricity.”
“I’m not so sure they will find it,” Captain Nemo answered coldly. 77
In 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, the undersea realm is the World Beyond the Hill. It is not only a source of electrical power, it is Nemo’s garden, providing him with every necessity of life. One last time, Verne probed into the World Beyond the Hill, hoping still (and fearing) to confront the mysteries of the Abyss.
The first suggestions of mystery that they encounter are muted. Together, Arronax and Nemo brood for an hour over the ruins of Atlantis—which, like those hypothetical ruins sighted on the Moon in Around the Moon, are unthreatening because they are safely dead. The Nautilus dives under the great ice barrier that guards the South Pole—but this time what is discovered is neither a Symmes Hole nor a volcano crater, living or dead, but merely a stark peak of volcanic rock.
Although his companions are anxious to escape, Arronax is fascinated by the adventure. He distracts himself from the strangeness and peril of his situation in the typical Verneian manner—by constantly enumerating the species of fish that can be seen from the windows of the Nautilus as they travel from ocean to ocean.
At last, however, Nemo can no longer keep his passionate Romantic nature contained. He sinks a warship and heads north at an enormous rate of speed. It is only then that Arronax finally admits the region of novelty and wonder that he finds himself in:
It seemed as if night and day, as happens in polar regions, no longer followed each other in their normal order. I felt myself entering a strange world in which Edgar Allan Poe would have felt at home. Any moment I expected to see, like the fabulous Gordon Pym, “a shrouded human figure, very far larger in its proportions than any dweller among men, lying athwart a cataract which bars all access to the North Pole.” 78
The last phrase in this quotation, of course, is an interpolation by Verne. But this is not the last evocation of Poe in 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea . Nemo’s destination is the Maelstrom near the Lofoten Islands off Norway, a great sea whirlpool which was the
“Before going any further, Professor, I must explain a few things,” said Captain Nemo. “So please listen.”
After a few minutes of silence, he said: “There is one source of power which is obedient and rapid, easy and pliable, and which reigns supreme aboard my ship. It does everything. It gives me light, heat and is the soul of all my machinery. This source is electricity.”
“Electricity!” I cried, somewhat surprised.
“Yes, Monsieur.”
“But Captain, the great speed with which your ship can move would seem to have little to do with electric power. Until now, its dynamic force has remained very limited and able to produce no more than a very small amount of energy!”
“Professor,” answered Captain Nemo, “my electricity is not the usual kind, but I hope you will permit me not to go into it further.” 75
And there you are. First, a promise of complete explanation. A trumpet blast, then the pronouncement: “Electricity!” followed by the proviso (not of the usual kind)—and a quick duck behind “I hope you will permit me not to go into it further.”
Arronax can’t help wondering:
There was a mystery behind all this, but I did not want to ask too many questions. How could electricity be made to produce such power? Where did this almost limitless force originate? Was it in some high tension developed by a new kind of coil? Was there something about its transmission that an unknown system of levers could increase infinitely? 76
But there is no way of knowing exactly, nor any assurance that we ever shall:
“Captain,” I said, “I can only admire what you’ve done. You have obviously discovered something which other men will one day find out: the true dynamic force of electricity.”
“I’m not so sure they will find it,” Captain Nemo answered coldly. 77
In 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, the undersea realm is the World Beyond the Hill. It is not only a source of electrical power, it is Nemo’s garden, providing him with every necessity of life. One last time, Verne probed into the World Beyond the Hill, hoping still (and fearing) to confront the mysteries of the Abyss.
The first suggestions of mystery that they encounter are muted. Together, Arronax and Nemo brood for an hour over the ruins of Atlantis—which, like those hypothetical ruins sighted on the Moon in Around the Moon, are unthreatening because they are safely dead. The Nautilus dives under the great ice barrier that guards the South Pole—but this time what is discovered is neither a Symmes Hole nor a volcano crater, living or dead, but merely a stark peak of volcanic rock.
Although his companions are anxious to escape, Arronax is fascinated by the adventure. He distracts himself from the strangeness and peril of his situation in the typical Verneian manner—by constantly enumerating the species of fish that can be seen from the windows of the Nautilus as they travel from ocean to ocean.
At last, however, Nemo can no longer keep his passionate Romantic nature contained. He sinks a warship and heads north at an enormous rate of speed. It is only then that Arronax finally admits the region of novelty and wonder that he finds himself in:
It seemed as if night and day, as happens in polar regions, no longer followed each other in their normal order. I felt myself entering a strange world in which Edgar Allan Poe would have felt at home. Any moment I expected to see, like the fabulous Gordon Pym, “a shrouded human figure, very far larger in its proportions than any dweller among men, lying athwart a cataract which bars all access to the North Pole.” 78
The last phrase in this quotation, of course, is an interpolation by Verne. But this is not the last evocation of Poe in 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea . Nemo’s destination is the Maelstrom near the Lofoten Islands off Norway, a great sea whirlpool which was the
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