Jules Verne, a taste for adventure

This article aims to explore the tension pervading Verne’s “taste” for adventure—a tension illustrated, for example, by the dialogue between Conseil and Ned Land about the dugong, a beast that would be “good to eat” that Conseil wants to spare “in the interest of science” and that Ned wants to hunt “for culinary reasons.” This conflict of interest allows us to understand the structuring of many Vernian narratives, in which the appetite for discovery also involves the consumption of what is discovered.