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(38) Claudius Bombarnac (Claudius Bombarnac, aka The Adventures of a Special Correspondent, 1892) (1 volume) 70K words


The 38th Extraordinary Voyage takes us back to Asia, crossing the whole length of it like we had done in "Michael Strogoff: The Courier of the Czar", although that was more to the north through Siberia, and also in "Cesar Cascabel", which took place even further north near the arctic circle. This time we go through the Russian Turkestan and China. The complete trip is done by train, which is a first, although that means of transportation had been used extensively in "Around the World in Eighty Days".


First read or reread?: First read for me.


What is it about?: Claudius Bombarnac, a reporter, is assigned by a French newspaper to cover the travels of the recently inaugurated Grand Transasiatic Railway which runs between Uzun Ada, by the coast of the Caspian Sea, to Peking, China, by the coast of the Pacific Ocean. Accompanying him on this journey is an interesting collection of characters, including one who is trying to beat the round the world record and another who is a stowaway hidden within the luggage. Claudius hopes one of them will become the hero of his piece, so his story won't be just a boring travelogue. He is not disappointed when a special car guarded by troops is added to the train, said to be carrying the remains of a great Mandarin. Before the journey is over, Claudius will find his hero.


So this is another travel story. As always with Verne's books, I enjoy following the characters' progress on the map provided.

During Verne's live, the world was getting smaller. The unexplored regions were shrinking and public transportation was improving. This was reflected in "Around the World in Eighty Days", where a trip that until then would have been much longer and difficult is done using public transportation, placing it within the reach of tourists rather than explorers or adventurers. From that book, progress continued, and here Verne's characters travel using a newly inaugurated railroad line that had not existed at the time of Phileas Fogg's travel around the world. In fact, in real life, several travelers inspired by Verne's story had comfortably bested the eighty days deadline. Here, one of Claudius Bombarnac's travel mates is a caricature of Phileas Fogg, a bad-tempered German baron who is attempting to break the record for a trip around the world.

The trouble with having the whole journey done by train is that this fits better a travelogue than an adventure story. And in fact, between the first half and the first two thirds of the novel feel like a travelogue. The story is told in the first person by the titular character, a reporter. He addresses the reader in a very colloquial manner, reminding me in that sense of "The Flight to France". We are given the character's impressions about his travel mates and the incidents of the trip, along with descriptions of the landscape and the cities where they make stops. The saving grace here is that the first person narrative is quite readable and Claudius' travel mates are a colorful bunch, but some readers will be bored by these descriptions.

Since this is still a Verne novel, things do speed up eventually and, by the time the trip finishes, the characters have gone through an adventure and Claudius Bombarnac has found the hero for his story.

The novel will work better for readers who appreciate a travelogue and who are entertained by the social satire and the contrasting characters of the travelers. I was amused by how Verne's national prejudices are reflected in the way the characters are depicted. Verne liked the Russians, and Major Noltitz, an experienced Russian army doctor, is an agreeable companion. The same can't be said of Sir Francis Trevellyan, one of the British representatives, who is a superscilious snob who barely deigns to exchange a word with his companions. Or about Baron Weissschnitzerdörfer, the irascible German whose list of travels is longer than his name and who is used as the comic relief of the story. We have Fulk Ephrinell, the American sales broker who has a rather unromantic romance with Mrs. Horacia Bluett, a British businesswoman with a similarly practical way of thinking; Kinko, the young Romanian stowaway who travels hidden within a luggage box because he has no money but hopes to reunite with his girlfriend who works as a milliner in Peking; Adolphe and Caroline Caterna, a happily married couple of French actors who reminded me of Mr. and Mrs. Cascabel from "Cesar Cascabel"; Pan-Chao, the young and fun-loving Chinese student who is returning home accompanied by his sedate and elderly chaperone; Popof, the Russian train conductor who is the only member of the staff who will make the whole trip with the travelers; Faruskiar, a proud and enigmatic Mongol lord...


Enjoyment factor: I enjoyed it, but I found the first part a bit uneventful, particularly when it came to describing the cities where they stop. Because of that, it's not the Verne book I would recommend to someone who is not already a fan of the writer. However, Verne can be relied on to include a good adventure story, even when it takes it a while to get moving. Even during the slow part, I just like the way he tells a story, and the idiosyncratic characters worked for me. It was interesting traveling through this part of the world, seeing it from the eyes of a 19th century writer.


Next up: Foundling Mick