I always feel like Jules Verne himself is a character - really the most interesting character - in any of his books (Barthes be damned). It's hard not to be fascinated by a guy living in Paris and writing a travelogue about a continent he hadn't visited, simply by doing research.

If the first half of the novel is an adventure introducing us to the Amazon basin, the second is a Poe, Gold Bug type cryptogram mystery. Both are fine examples of their respective genres, it is fun to get them both. But the first half is probably stronger than the second, if only for the descriptions of South American flora and fauna, and culture, by Verne. I guess I like it because the late 19th century is a very interesting time intellectually - in that there was so much left to discover, but there was such an optimism and even arrogance - which comes through in a lot of Verne's writing.