Reading Verne's Voyages Extraordinaires

[db105]

(11) Le Tour du monde en quatre-vingts jours (Around the World in Eighty Days, 1873) (1 volume) 67k words


Around the World in Eighty Days is one of Verne's best-known and most successful novels. Like Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, it features a journey around the world, although in this case it's not by submarine, but a more conventional trip, mainly by train and steam ship.


First read or reread?: First read for me, although I was very familiar with the plot from other media.


What is it about?: One night in the reform club, Phileas Fogg bets his companions that he can travel across the globe in just eighty days. Breaking the well-established routine of his daily life, he immediately sets off for Dover with his astonished valet Passepartout. Passing through exotic lands and dangerous locations, they seize whatever transportation is at hand—whether train or elephant—overcoming set-backs and always racing against the clock.


This story has been adapted many times, so it's likely that a lot of modern readers know how it ends. At least that was the case for me and anyone else in my generation in Spain, having grown-up with a very popular animated TV show that adapted the story.

One would think that the scope of this story, covering a trip around the world, would call for a longer novel, but it's only one volume (unlike Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, which was two volumes). That makes for a fast-paced story, and it works quite well here.

The one thing that strikes me about this story is how readable and entertaining it is. It doesn't have the scientific or speculative heft of other Verne novels. It's a very simple plot, mostly involving travel by public transportation, with some entertaining exceptions. But the pressure of the time limit easily maintains a high level of tension, and every element works smoothly to create an appealing story. Events move fast, and there is none of the info-dumps or didactic exposition that we can find in some works by the same author. This reads like a thriller.

Speaking of this, I had also noticed that in the previous one (The Fur Country) there are very few didactic passages. There are still interesting facts to learn in these novels, but they are integrated in the story in a natural manner. I have to wonder if this was due to the influence of Pierre-Jules Hetzel (Verne's editor), who wanted the writer to concentrate on the adventure elements at the expense of speculative content. Did that include getting rid of Verne's didactic asides? It will be interesting to see if this becomes a trend in the following novels.

In any case, this is a very timely story, written at a time when the development of public transportation, the building of transcontinental railroads in the United States and India, and the opening of the Suez channel had just made such a trip possible for tourists (rather than experienced adventurers) in a reasonable time. So, in spite of being a "simple adventure", it is also original. And of course, there's the dramatic turn of events at the end, which I'm not going to spoil if you don't know it already, but which is a very Vernian scientific twist that you wouldn't find in a conventional adventure novel. Once again, Verne writes a really good ending.

The main character are Phileas Fogg, the excentric British gentleman; Jean Passepartout, his new valet de chambre (again a French character); Detective Fix, the policeman who follows Fogg around the world believing him to be a bank thief; and Mrs. Aouda, a young Indian widow who was to be burned alive as is the custom of sati.

Fogg is a very phlematic person, almost never showing emotion, to the point that a goodreads reviewer calls him "an accurate portrayal of extreme autism". I had thought of him as reserved and undemonstrative rather than autistic, but I have to admit it would fit. The story is also, technically, a romance between him and Mrs. Aouda, but let's say that Verne focuses always on the adventure and not on character development, so don't expect it to read like a romance. However, Fogg is also portrayed as very gentlemanly and generous. Previous Verne novels like Five Weeks in a Balloon or Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Seas had featured extremely loyal servants. Here, the one who makes a great sacrifice out of loyalty to his servant is Fogg.

Passepartout, like is often the case for Verne's French characters, is the soul and comic relief of the group, even if he is not the main hero. He is given more depth thanks to his self-doubt and worries but, in general, his more cheerful and spontaneous personality makes a good contrast with Fogg. He also has his big heroic moment.

Detective Fix is a foil (and even sometimes reluctant ally) rather than a villain. This works just fine for this novel. Here this is all that is required as opponent, since the main opponent is the unyielding time limit.

Mrs. Aouda is a traditional damsel in distress, instead of an adventurer like Paulina Barnett from The Fur Country.

There's no hunting in this one, although as always you shouldn't expect modern sensitivities when portraying native cultures.

There are very good set pieces in this novel, taking place at different locations in the world. This is characteristic of Verne's novels, maybe in part as a result of their being serialized before publication as a book.


Enjoyment factor: Very high. So far it's the Verne novel with best pace. On the other hand, it's a bit slight when compared to other Verne novels, in terms of how much the author teaches the reader. It's very much an adventure thriller.


Next up: The Mysterious Island

[gmw]

For anyone interested in past discussions, the New Leaf Book Club read Around the World in Eighty Days last year - see here (beware, thread contains spoilers).

[pwalker8]

I'll leave this thread to it's intended purpose of reviewing each of Verne's books, but I would like to say that I've really been enjoying the various reviews. Thanks for doing all that work.

[db105]

(12) L'Île mystérieuse (The Mysterious Island, 1874-75) (3 volumes) 206K words


If we polled Verne's hardcore fans on which is his masterpiece, The Mysterious Island would probably get the most votes. It's also among his most popular novels, but not as much as the big three (Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas, Around the World in Eighty Days, and Journey to the Center of the Earth). However, it may be the most Vernian among his novels, for reasons I'll discuss in this review.


First read or reread?: This is a first read for me.


What is it about?: After hijacking a balloon from a Confederate camp, a band of five northern prisoners escapes the American Civil War in the middle of a storm. Seven thousand miles later, with a tattered balloon, they drop from the clouds onto an uncharted volcanic island in the Pacific. Through teamwork, scientific knowledge, engineering, and perseverance, they endeavour to build a colony from scratch. But this island of abundant resources has its secrets. The castaways discover they are not alone.


Verne is so good about writing epic adventures. This one is certainly epic, and has the extension for it, being one of Verne's longest novels (his others three-volume novels are In Search of the Castaways and Mathias Sandorf). It's also the first of his novels about the experience of a group of castaways (In Search of the Castaways, as its name indicates, was more about the efforts of the would-be rescuers).

Some Verne novels have a slow start, but this one starts in medias res. There is a lot of action and tension as the group of fugitives try to survive in their balloon inside a huge storm. They end up stranded in an unknown land, which turns out to be an island. So they becomes castaways, despite not having travelled by ship.

The stranded fugitives are:
Cyrus Smith, a high-ranking engineer in the Union Army. His extensive practical knowledge in chemistry, physics and many other fields make him the de facto leader of the group. He is highly respected by the others and his word carries a lot of weight.
Gédéon Spilett, a journalist and war reporter.
Pencroff, a sailor, gruff but well-meaning.
Harbert, a 15-year-old orphan whom Pencroff has taken under his care.
Nab, a former slave freed by his master Cyrus Smith, he remains faithful to him out of gratitude and admiration.

There are other characters who will have important roles to play, but let's not get into spoiler territory. As you know, most of Verne's characters are male, but in this book there are no female characters at all, as it takes place in an uninhabited island.

So we basically have Verne's first Robinsonade. His approach to the genre is very characteristic of him, with an optimistic, can-do attitude. The castaways do not think of themselves as such, but as settlers. Despite their lack of equipment, they seem able to make a good life for themselves in the island. They are conscientious, hard workers, and led by Cyrus Smith's genius, they build and fabricate many of the things their generous island doesn't provide directly.

The island, it has to be said, is very generous, providing a wealth of animal, plant and mineral resources. Too much diversity of resources, in fact. Sometimes, reading Verne's novels, I get the impression that he has done his research but puts too much of it in the same place. So the animals and vegetables are not out of place in those latitudes, but there are just too many of them within the same island ecology. That may indicate book knowledge but a lack of first-hand knowledge of these remote regions. However, Verne himself seems aware of it, when he has Pencroff say “Mr Smith, do you believe there are such things as castaways’ islands? (...) Well, I mean islands made especially for people to be shipwrecked upon, where the poor devils could always get along!”

Despite all the scientific optimism, another theme, also typical in Verne, is how human beings, no matter how resourceful, can sometimes be rendered helpless against the force of nature.

This is also a story about redemption, and about how humans need human company to maintain their sanity. Isolation is torture, but also can be the catharsis needed to purify one's soul.

I mentioned that this is the most Vernian novel, and I was thinking of two different things: One is the aforementioned optimism and the belief in civilization and scientific knowledge as a way to progress and improve life. The other is, of course, how steeped this story is in Verne's fictional universe. Characters from two of his major works (Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas and In Search of the Castaways) play a role here. You can read The Mysterious Island without having read any of the others, and you are given the necessary background when needed, but having read them can increase your enjoyment, providing some extra payoff.

Because of this, and also because its an epic and enjoyable adventure in its own right, it's no wonder that Verne's fans tend to be fond of this story.


Enjoyment Factor: Very high for a good part of the novel, including the beginning and the second half, but be warned: the pace is not always agile. There are no scientific info-dumps in the same way of Verne's first novels, but there are parts of this novel where the industrial efforts of the settlers are described, including for example details about the chemical processes that they use to obtain certain substances. Even though those parts of the story are directly related to the characters' actions, they can be slow and boring for readers not used to Verne's style. If that happens to you, my advice is to jump a few paragraphs ahead. You can still enjoy the story without knowing all the details of how they make sulfuric acid.


Before I finish, one comment about the translations: I'm reading this in Spanish, but if you read Verne in English you should be aware that many of the early English translations, although readable, have not been kind to Verne's work. For this novel, in Project Gutenberg you can find two translations from the 1870s: W. H. G. Kingston's classic translation, which is the one you can find in most cheap editions of the book, and a more obscure one by Stephen W. White. Both take liberties with the text, from changing names, to skipping passages, to making changes for ideological reasons. When available (check https://sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/verne_jules for a bibliography of translations), it is often worth looking for a modern translation. In this case we have good modern translations by Jordan Stump (Modern Library Classics) and Sidney Kravitz (Early Classics of Science Fiction). Both have cheap ebook editions too. As Stump says in his introduction, one shouldn't modernize Verne too much. He is very much a 19th century writer, and there's a certain formality, a certain stilted quality to his dialogue that is part of his charm. But one should treat him with respect and avoid being drab, because Verne never is.


Next up: The Survivors of the Chancellor

[db105]

(13) Le Chancellor (The Survivors of the Chancellor, 1875) (1 volume) 53K words


The 13th novel of the Voyages Extraordinaries deviates from the typical style of the series. Previous novels typically had an adventure plot with some some twists and turns, comical and serious elements, situations providing a pretext for scientific digressions. Overall, they are optimistic about what human spirit, knowledge and genius can accomplish. This one, however, is a darker tale, tinted with horror. Not supernatural horror, but the horror that can emerge when people are faced with privations and suffering.


First read or reread?: This is a first read for me.


What is it about?: Mr. Kazallon thought that booking passage on a cargo ship from Charleston to Liverpool would be a charming way to return to his English homeland. If he only knew! A crazed sea captain, a disaster in the hold, storms, oppressive heat, sharks, and starvation are just some of the many travails that beset both passengers and crew. Will any of them survive the wreck of the Chancellor?


The story is told in first person, in the form of diary entries written by J.R. Kazallon, one of the passengers aboard the Chancellor. This choice of format, and the fact that it is written in present tense give a feeling of immediacy to the story. It also means we have less dialogue, which is something I miss, since I enjoy the formality and politeness of Verne's dialogues, even if some readers may find them stilted.

In any case, beyond these stilistic choices, the novel differs in tone from previous entries in the series. In the previous novel (The Mysterious Island), for example, we had castaways who are masters of their own fate. They don't call themselves castaways, but settlers. Armed with their hard work and their knowledge, they hunt, fish and cultivate food, they build tools, and in general they make a reasonably good life for themselves.

In this story, on the other hand, nature is not generous, but cruel and unforgiving, a death trap. The characters go through indescriptible sufferings, and we find out what their human natures become when faced with such privations. Verne's style is completely recognizable, but the kind of story being told is something I would expect from Edgar Allan Poe more than from Verne. Of course, Verne himself was an admirer of Poe, and decades later would write a continuation of Poe's novel The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym.

The main characters are:
J.R. Kazallon, the narrator of the story
M. Letourneur, a French man, and his son André, a disabled young man. They are cultured, generous, and devoted to each other.
Mr. Kear, a wealthy and conceited American businessman, and his wife.
Miss Herbey, the young and abnegated lady's companion of Mrs. Kear, who has had a harsh life. Most of Verne's characters are male, but this one is a strong female character, although strong morally rather than physically.
William Falsten, an English engineer, who spends much of his time engrossed in his mental calculations.
John Ruby, a Welsh merchant whose sole goal in life seems to be the pursuit of profit.
John Silas Huntly, the captain of the Chancellor, whose strange behavior puts the ship in jeopardy.
Robert Curtis, the first mate on the Chancellor, an able seaman and leader.
And several other sailors and officials, some of them brave and loyal, some unreliable and dangerous.

The story is inspired in part by the events surrounding the wreck of the French frigate Méduse, which had taken place in 1816. Verne was particularly proud of this novel. He wrote to Hetzel, his editor, "So I will bring you a volume of frightening realism." The sales, however, were disappointing.

I would like to mention that this book has another very good ending, with a Vernian twist as dramatic as the one at the end of Around the World in Eighty Days. The kind of twist that only an author so knowledgeable about geography as Verne could devise.


Enjoyment factor: Very high. Verne usually does not focus on the psychology of the characters, but in this story the way the different characters deals with adversity and suffering is as important as the plot, or more, and I enjoyed that.


Next up: Michael Strogoff: The Courier of the Czar

[Pajamaman]

I may try L'Île mystérieuse. I was not aware of it as a very popular work.

As an aside, I cant relate to reading a huge opus as a challenge of sorts. But each to his own. Time is short. I pick only the best!

[db105]

Originally Posted by Pajamaman

I may try L'Île mystérieuse. I was not aware of it as a very popular work.

Yes, it's is popular. In the first post of the thread, at the end, I sort the novels according to the number of ratings in Goodreads, as a proxy for popularity. We have the big three well ahead in terms of popularity (Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Seas; Around the World in Eighty Days; Journey to the Center of the Earth), and The Mysterious Island is fourth after those, slightly ahead of books like From the Earth to the Moon, Five Weeks in a Balloon and In Search of the Castaways.

It's also one of Verne's longest (3 volumes, so around 200k words). It's not the one with best pacing, but it has several things to recommend it. I think Verne fans enjoy that it features characters from two other Verne novels, which is quite unusual in his work.

As an aside, I cant relate to reading a huge opus as a challenge of sorts. But each to his own. Time is short. I pick only the best!

It's not something I normally do, but I felt like it. As you say, to each their own... Of course, if I stop enjoying it, I will ditch the project. This is not a job.

I'm interested to see what happens when I get to the second half of the series, when his style becomes less optimistic and his best-known works are behind. We'll see.

[Pajamaman]

200k is little long for schedule!

Originally Posted by db105

I'm interested to see what happens when I get to the second half of the series, when his style becomes less optimistic and his best-known works are behind. We'll see.

Yes, that will be interesting. I follow with interest.

If you fancy a change, I've just started With Lawrence in Arabia by Lowell Thomas. It has a lot of that Victorian gentleman theme that you say you like. It is the book that popularized the Lawrence legend, and is apparently a bit exaggerated It's written by a man who knew him. I've read the first page or so, and it reads well, looks good. Not sure how your English is. Might be able to find a Spanish version somewhere.

In contrast, I started Howard Carter's The Discovery of Tutankhamen's Tomb, again the first work to popularize the whole thing, and in contrast, I find it dry and unengaging.

[db105]

(14) Michel Strogoff (Michael Strogoff: The Courier of the Czar, 1876) (2 volumes) 111K words


The 14th novel of the Voyages Extraordinaries is an old favorite from my childhood. This one is also a straightforward adventure story, with no science fiction elements, but a good and dramatic one. I'm not alone in my appreciation: Literary critic Leonard S. Davidow wrote, "Jules Verne has written no better book than this, in fact it is deservedly ranked as one of the most thrilling tales ever written." Perhaps a bit hyperbolic, but it has always seemed to me that, because of his eye-catching role as a SF precursor, people tend to overlook that Verne was also an excellent adventure writer, in his 19th-century style.

It's worth mentioning again that the science lectures that we got in some of his first novels, the ones that were part of the flavor of his writing but could also interrupt the pace of the story, have been absent for a while at this point. Maybe it's because we have had several adventure stories with no speculative elements. The next novel after this one will be a good opportunity to test whether this change in style is permanent, because Off on a Comet is 100% science fiction.

We'll see, but for the moment let's come back to Michael Strogoff's adventures in Siberia. I'm reading this in 2022, shortly after the invasion of Ukraine, so perhaps cheering for a Russian hero is bad timing, but I figure that 19th century Russians are not to blame for Putin's crimes.


First read or reread?: This one is a reread for me. I read it as a kid and loved it.


What is it about?: Tartars invaders led by the Emir of Bokhara, with the encouragement and help of Russian traitor Ivan Ogareff, are overrunning Siberia. The Russian garrisons and cities in their path do not have the strength to stop them. In Moscow, the Czar is marshalling the forces of the vast empire for a counter-attack. However, he must get a message of vital importance to his brother the Arch Duke who is currently in Irkutsk, the capital of Eastern Siberia, warning him of a plot to assassinate him and betray the city into the invaders' hands. Since telegraph communications are cut, the Czar calls upon his best courier, Captain Michael Strogoff, to secretly get the message pass the Siberian frontier and across thousands of miles filled with natural obstacles and fierce invaders.


After a novel told in first person, we go back to Verne's normal third person narration. This is a 2-volume novel and, even though the start of the story is comparatively sedate, it has a good pace. We'll follow Michael Strogoff as he is entrusted with his mission and travels through the European part of Russia while the country prepares for a war. The real dangers, however, will start once he reaches the Ural Mountains that mark the border with Siberia. Despite the setting, do not expect a snow-filled tale like Captain Hatteras or The Fur Country. This one takes place in the summer.

I think Verne finds a good balance here between the travelogue and the menace of enemy agents. Verne did not know Siberia in person, but for background descriptions he documented himself by reading travellers' accounts and he even sent a copy of the manuscript to the Russian writer Ivan Turgenev, for comments about the accuracy. The maps provided with the novel are very useful to follow the characters' progress.

Apart from Michael Strogoff, who is relentless in his fulfilment of his mission, we get some strong female characters, which is not always the case in Verne's novels. Not strong physically, but strong in spirit. We have Nadia, Michael's traveling companion, who is trying to get to Irkutsk to reunite with his exiled father. She looks like a damsel in distress but proves to have an iron will. There's Marfa, Michael's mother, exemplary in her determination not to betray his son's mission. On the villain's side, we have Sangarre, the Bohemian spy working for Ivan Ogareff.

For comic relief, we have the two Western journalists who are also traveling through Siberia, covering the invasion: Harry Blount, the English journalist for the Daily Telegraph, and Alcide Jolivet, French correspondent for his "cousin Madeleine" (the jocular term he uses so as not to reveal the name of the newspaper with which he corresponds). The contrasting personalities of the two journalists, their rivalry (although they'll eventually become friends) and their sometimes wildly divergent perspectives provide the humor.

As I said, there's no speculative element here, but Verne is Verne. He does have one of his usual dramatic twists, and a scientific phenomenon (the Leidenfrost effect) plays a role. As is often the case with Verne's novels, there's a climactic ending.


Enjoyment factor: Very high. Pacing is good, and the suffering and determination of the title character makes for a dramatic adventure.


Next up: Off on a Comet

[db105]

(15) Hector Servadac (Off on a Comet, 1877) (2 volumes) 120K words


The 15th novel of the Voyages Extraordinaries is a return to the science fiction genre, with a premise that is more outlandish than anything Verne had written before.


First read or reread?: This is a first read for me.


What is it about?: French officer Hector Servadac and a group of characters of different nationalities must face the consequences of a catastrophe that forces them to travel through the vast spaces of the solar system. The action takes place in the Mediterranean, part of which is torn from the Earth into space by the glancing collision of a comet.


Verne, of course, had written science fiction before. Sometimes it was something low-key like a vehicle that did not yet exist in his time. Sometimes it's something more fantastic, like a trip to the Moon inside a projectile shot by a cannon or a journey through vast cave systems kilometres under the surface of the Earth. But even in those cases I had found it easy to suspend disbelief because Verne always made it sound plausible, not too far removed from reality, at least with the science that was known at the time. He wrote stories that were fantastic but somewhat grounded. In his old age Verne commented that H. G. Wells, another pioneer of scientific fiction who was born 38 years after Verne, used more fantastic premises, like a time machine, but he (Verne) preferred to ground his stories in current understanding of what's scientifically possible. Kind of a familiar debate in modern science fiction, too.

In the case of this novel, however, I had a hard time suspending disbelief, and it bothered me. The premise is completely out-there: a comet tearing off a piece of Earth's surface, which is somehow transplanted to the comet without destroying the structures on it, without killing the people on it and with enough air to breathe...

Verne and his editor Hetzel, who were not idiots, were perfectly aware of how far they had gone this time from any semblance of scientific verisimilitude. This is from the preface that Hetzel wrote for this story:

In one way "Off on a Comet" shows a marked contrast to Verne's earlier books. Not only does it invade a region of remotest space, but the author here abandons his usual scrupulously scientific attitude and gives his fancy freer rein. In order that he may escort us through the depths of immeasurable space, to show us what astronomy really knows of conditions there and upon the other planets, Verne asks us to accept a situation which is in a sense self-contradictory. The earth and a comet are brought twice into collision without mankind in general, or even our astronomers, becoming conscious of the fact. Moreover several people from widely scattered places are carried off by the comet and returned uninjured. Yet further, the comet snatches and carries away with it for the convenience of its travelers, both air and water. Little, useful tracts of earth are picked up and, as it were, turned over and clapped down right side up again upon the comet's surface. Even ships pass uninjured through, this remarkable somersault. These events all belong to the realm of fairyland.

If the situation were reproduced in actuality, if ever a comet should come into collision with the earth, we can conceive two scientifically possible results. If the comet were of such attenuation, such almost infinitesimal mass as some of these celestial wanderers seem to be, we can imagine our earth self-protective and possibly unharmed. If, on the other hand, the comet had even a hundredth part of the size and solidity and weight which Verne confers upon his monster so as to give his travelers a home―in that case the collision would be unspeakably disastrous—especially to the unlucky individuals who occupied the exact point of contact.

But once granted the initial and the closing extravagance, the departure and return of his diameters, the alpha and omega of his tale, how closely the author clings to facts between! How closely he follows, and imparts to his readers, the scientific probabilities of the universe beyond our earth, the actual knowledge so hard won by our astronomers! Other authors who, since Verne, have told of trips through the planetary and stellar universe have given free rein to fancy, to dreams of what might be found. Verne has endeavored to impart only what is known to exist.

I think that mentioning fairyland is a honest assessment. The beginning of the novel has a distinct fairy-tale atmosphere. Verne has fun having the characters, still without knowledge of what has happened, explore the bizarre changes in gravity, in the length of the day and so on.

After having exhausted that topic, the novel becomes a more normal adventure story as the characters (all of them male except for a little girl) explore their new surroundings and attempt to ensure their immediate survival. Afterwards we get to a more speculative part, where the characters get to witness close-hand some of the planets of the solar system.

In fact, in the second volume of the novel, we get some of those popular science info-dumps that were present in Verne's first novels. These info-dumps had mostly disappear in Verne's adventure stories, but here they come back and, for example, a whole chapter is devoted to describing science's current knowledge of comets. Current for 1877, of course: a fair amount of this novel's science is wrong with today's understanding. For example, Verne believed the theory that the lowest temperature that could be reached in space was around -60 degrees Celcius (we now know that absolute zero is around -273 Celsius). Nevertheless, these passages have a certain charm for me. Others may differ, but they can always skip them if needed.

Despite the outdated science, it is fair to say that once we get pass the fantastic premise, we are back to Verne's rational way of thinking. After the fairy-tale beginning the novel gets closer to Verne's normal way of mixing adventure and speculative content.

It is often said that Verne was an optimistic believer in progress and science, but that in the latest part of his life he got more disenchanted and had a more pessimistic view of human progress. This view is partly true, of course, but I wonder how much of it was due to Hetzel's influence. The editor had a lot of power over Verne's work. He had rejected the novel Paris in the Twentieth Century, which Verne wrote before any of the Extraordinary Voyages and was only published almost a century after his death. In that novel, Verne painted a grim, dystopian view of a technological future civilization which, in Hetzel's opinion, had limited commercial appeal. Hetzel, instead, accepted Five Weeks in a Balloon, and encouraged Verne to write more novels in that style. Hetzel encouraged Verne to write more adventure and less speculative fiction, so I imagine he was less than pleased with this novel's premise. Maybe Hetzel's commercial instinct was right, because Off in a Comet was less successful than previous Verne novels in terms of sales. After Hetzel died, he would be succeeded by his son, who gave Verne more freedom, which may in part explain why his latest works are less optimistic.

Coming back to this novel, Verne's correspondence with Hetzel tells us that his original intention was to kill all the characters, which may be why he named his hero Hector Servadac (Servadac, read backwards, is "cadavres", the French word for "corpses"). Hetzel, however, demanded a less tragic ending, which resulted in more outlandishness in the final part of the novel, but also in a scene with a lot of visual impact.

I should probably mention that there is a character in the novel who is a Jewish merchant depicted as extremely greedy and miserly. He is used as comic relief. Obviously Verne, born two centuries ago, did not have a modern sensitivity about racial stereotyping. We have seen that in his depiction of indigenous cultures in some of his novels. I think the lack of modern sensitivities is to be expected in a novel written in this period. In this case, however, even at that time it caused a letter of complaint from the chief rabbi of Paris to Hetzel and Verne. The editor and the author co-signed a reply indicating they had had no intention of offending anyone, and promising to make corrections in the next edition. Hetzel took care of making those corrections, which amounted to removing mentions of the character being Jewish, which was not much of an improvement since it was still obvious (and many translations were from the first edition before that change was made). In the rest of Verne's work, at least, there was not another case of stereotyped portrayal of a Jewish character.


Enjoyment factor: Not among my favorite Verne novels. The premise is too outlandish for my taste. I don't think that it fits well with Verne's rational way of developing his plots. On the other hand, it does have interesting elements once you get pass that, and it's still entertaining to read. Modern readers have to make allowances for the limitations in the knowledge of cosmology at the time. But it's a very early example of a novel about the exploration of the solar system, at a time when the only precedents made no attempt to look at it from a scientific point of view.


Next up: The Child of the Cavern, aka The Underground City

[JSWolf]

@db105 have you gotten a hold of the complete version of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea from BAEN?

[db105]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

@db105 have you gotten a hold of the complete version of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea from BAEN?

No, I have investigated the Spanish editions I'm reading and I have found out that it's a complete versión for all the books except for The Barsac Mission, which for some reason is an abridged edition. So I will find a complete version of that one, and for the rest I'm fine with the version I have.

[db105]

(16) Les Indes noires (The Child of the Cavern, aka The Underground City, 1877) (1 volume) 56K words


The sixteenth Extraordinary Voyage does not really involve much voyaging. Its original title is "Les indes noires" (literally "The Black Indies"), which makes reference to the Scottish coal region, as rich in natural resources as the Indies. It's the second Verne novel (after Journey to the Center of the Earth) to be set mostly underground.


First read or reread?: This is a first read for me.


What is it about?: Receiving a letter from an old colleague, mining engineer James Starr sets off for the old Aberfoyle mine, thought to have been mined out ten years earlier. Starr finds the former mine overseer Simon Ford and his family living in a cottage deep inside the abandoned mine. The Fords claim they have discovered a new, large vein of coal. However, unexplained happenings and accidents start to occur around the main characters. Is it the work of goblins and firemaidens, or is there someone interested in keeping the mine closed?


This is a low-key adventure when compared to other Verne novels. In that sense, it reminded me of The Floating City, although I felt The Floating City was more solid as a novel.

Even though it involves some underground exploring, this novel is a mystery more than an adventure story or a tale of exploration. There is also a romantic element, which is not Verne's forte, since he is always more focused on the plot than on the character's feelings and internal life.

One element I enjoyed is the vivid descriptions of Scotland, tying the various locations to Walter Scott's novels. Verne's knowledge of the region was not the result of his reading, like in most of his novels, but of a trip he had made to Scotland years earlier, his first trip abroad. Verne loved Scotland and Walter Scott, and it shows.

The enthusiasm for living underground, illuminated by electric lights, was an interesting element, although I can't say it converted me. It looks like a miserable way to live. Verne, I suppose, placed too much trust on electric illumination as a substitute of natural lighting. Being more familiar with electric lights, I know they do the job, of course, but they can't really replace the sun, at least for me. Maybe it's just that, unlike the Ford family, I don't have miner's blood running through my veins.

My main objection is that the central plot, although intriguing, does not end up offering any of those twists or memorable moments that many other Verne stories have. The whole thing gets solved in a relatively inconspicuous manner. There might have been a more thrilling story to be told with this material.


Enjoyment factor: This was pleasant to read and not without interest, but it's a minor Verne work. The pace is fine (these one-volume Verne novels are quite short, you don't have time to get bored). As a romance it is not convincing. I liked the descriptions of the setting and the mystery was intriguing, although the resolution is somewhat lackluster.


Next up: Dick Sand, A Captain at Fifteen

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(17) Un capitaine de quinze ans (Dick Sand, A Captain at Fifteen, 1878) (2 volumes) 121K words


The seventeenth Extraordinary Voyage is the third time the series takes us to Africa, after Five Weeks in a Balloon and The Adventures of Three Englishmen and Three Russians in South Africa. This epic adventure is also the first of four Extraordinary Voyages to have a boy as the main character (the others will be Two Years' Vacation, Foundling Mick and Travel Scholarships).


First read or reread?: This one is a reread for me. I read it as a kid and loved it.


What is it about?: In 1873, an undermanned whaling ship headed to San Francisco rescues five African American people and a dog, survivors from the wreck of another ship. After a whaling accident kills the captain and the rest of the crew, Dick Sand, a fifteen-year-old sailor, becomes the only remaining person on board with sailing knowledge. This will be the start of an long quest for survival.


Verne is most famous for his scientific fiction and the fabulous vehicles he imagined, but I deeply appreciate his work as an adventure writer. I think it's fair to say that, for Verne, both facets were part of the same whole. Even his straightforward adventures are for him a chance to tell stories exploring the limits of the scientific knowledge of his time. It's just that geography is one of the sciences he most often features. For us it's a given that the geography of our planet is completely known, but during the 19th century, when Verne was writing, vast parts of the Earth remained unknown to western civilization, and exploration was a way of expanding human knowledge.

This novel, in two volumes, has two distinct parts. The first is an adventure on the ocean and the second on African lands. This provides a good sampling of Verne's abilities as an adventure writer, and he is in good form here. Intrigue, betrayals, revenge... this story has it all. The ordeal the characters go through can be described as epic, with the human suffering depicted at certain parts surpassing what Verne had described in The Survivors of the Chancellor.

It is of course a coming of age story, with the young title character having to deal with a responsibility beyond his years, but it's also a denunciation of slavery, with Verne graphically depicting the horrors of a practice that had recently been outlawed in most European countries but was still going on, with countless people being killed or enslaved in Africa and sold to some western colonies or to muslim countries.

Verne's documentation, as usual, is extensive. Since Five Weeks in a Balloon was published, there had been new explorations of Africa, and Verne makes use of them and also informs his readers about them. The African part of the novel offers a number of those Vernian info dumps about explorers that some readers may find tiresome but that I kind of enjoy. If you have read Five Weeks in a Balloon you have a good idea of what to expect in that regard. Verne's descriptions of the landscape are also vivid, the product of his readings of the accounts of Livingstone's, Stanley's and Cameron's voyages.

As in Five Weeks in a Balloon, Verne's depiction of native cultures includes some sensationalism. Cannibalism and savagery, although they happened and were described in the explorers' accounts, are mentioned in his novels more often than it's really warranted; I don't know if that reflects the contemporary understanding of Africa or whether it is creative license to spice up the adventures (it's a bit similar to the overabundance of volcanos in his novels). Verne's Victorian view on the superiority of western civilization is balanced by his humanistic views on slavery, an institution which he very unambiguously condemns. His African American characters in this novel can be considered by modern readers as a bit Uncle-Tom-like, accepting of their lower-class social status, but at the same time they are depicted as brave and compassionate, and one of them, the giant Hercules, at times steals the show as the main hero of the story.

One of the characters, "Cousin" Benedict, reminded me of Paganel from In Search of the Castaways, a story that also began at sea and ended on land. Benedict is another absent-minded scientist, in this case an entomologist. In Benedict's case, however, his absent-mindedness is taken to the point that he's barely functioning as a human being, making him a character who has to be looked after like a child. I wonder if this is foretelling the less positive view of scientists that Verne's novels would feature in later years.


Enjoyment factor: Very high. This is one of the Verne novels that I read as a kid. I loved it then and I really enjoyed the reread. The pace is good, although in the second half we are treated to some info-dumps about African explorations. It's a very complete adventure, both at sea and on land, with brave heroes and really evil villains.


Next up: The Begum's Millions

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(18) Les Cinq Cents Millions de la Bégum (The Begum's Millions, 1879) (1 volume) 54K words


The eighteenth Extraordinary Voyage is considered by some Verne scholars as the start of the second part of his career, marked by a more cautionary, pessimistic outlook about progress and occasionally featuring evil scientists and politics. It's not a clean change of style, in any case. The next books will be traditional adventures, and there are a good number of Verne novels to come that fit well with the optimistic, exploratory adventures of his early works.


First read or reread?: This is a first read for me.


What is it about?: Two men inherited a vast fortune as descendants of a French soldier who settled in India and married the immensely rich widow of a native prince – the begum of the title. One of the inheritors is a French physician, Dr. Sarrasin, who has long been concerned with the unsanitary conditions of European cities. He uses the money to establish a utopian model city constructed and maintained with public health as its government's primary concern. The other is a German scientist Prof. Schultze, a militarist and racist. Though having a French grandmother, he is convinced of the superiority of the "Saxon" (i.e., German) over the "Latin" (primarily, the French), which he believes will lead to the eventual destruction of the latter by the former. Schultze had published many articles "proving" the superiority of the German race. Schultze decides to make his own utopia—a city devoted to the production of ever more powerful and destructive weapons—and vows to destroy Sarrasin's city.


This is both an utopic and dystopic novel, contrasting the two cities, the well-ordered, health-focused France-Ville, and the industrial, totalitarian nightmare of Stahlstadt ("Steel City"). I read it as a political fable, since one cannot take seriously the idea that the US would have allowed the two millionaires the temporary right to establish sovereign cities within their territory, no matter how much they were willing to pay. Also, France-Ville is very idealized (there's no crime in it). But these details are not the focus of the novel, and we accept the unlikely premise in order to set the conflict and the contrast between the two mindsets.

Verne was clearly bitter about the Franco-Prussian War of 1870, which had resulted in the defeat of France, the unification of Germany and the establishment of the Second Reich. Germany's industrialization was more advanced than France's, which is reflected in the industrial nature of Stahlstadt. It can't be a coincidence that the novel's hero, Marcel Bruckmann, a protégé of Dr. Sarrasin who infiltrates Stahlstadt as a spy, is from Alsace, a region of France with a blend of French and German culture which had been taken by Germany after the war.

This bitterness, which had not been present in Verne's earlier work (see for example the German heroes in Journey to the Center of the Earth) results in the depiction of Prof. Schultze as an unflattering caricature of German people, complete with his racist belief in the supremacy of the German race and his exaggerated fondness for Frankfurter sausages and sauerkraut. (The anti-racist message of the novel is perhaps undermined by how the Chinese migrant workers who help build France-Ville are sent away when the city is completed but, as I have mentioned in other reviews, Verne, while enlightened and forward-thinking in some ways, was not free from the European prejudices of his time). One could say that the caricature of the German is heavy-handed, but I have to admit that in hindsight the novel can be a bit uncanny as an anticipation of World War II, with the supremacist ideology, the chemical weapons of mass destruction, the totalitarian state where people are identified with numbers...

Other elements of anticipation are the use of teleconferences for meetings, the creation of an artificial satellite that is (accidentally) put into orbit, or the long range siege gun that brings to mind the Paris Gun that Germany would use to bombard Paris during World War I.

In the first chapters Verne displays some of his sense of humor in his depiction of the rapacious lawyers who handle the inheritance or the way the attendants to a scientific meeting change their attitude towards Dr. Sarrasin when they learn about his newfound wealth.

I enjoyed that instead of boring the reader by insisting too much on the depiction of the political contrast between the two cities, Verne keeps things moving with the story of the spy who infiltrates Stahlstadt. However, the resolution of the story, while satisfactory, was kind of anticlimactic, in the sense that it is achieved without the heroes actually having to do anything. This is a very short novel, and maybe Verne could have extended it to set up a better ending.

It is worth mentioning that the original English translation of this novel (the one you can find for free or cheap in different places) is reputed to be particularly awful. The official translator, W. H. G. Kingston, was dying and his wife, who understandably had other things on her mind, did the translation. If you want to read the novel in English, the advice is to seek the 2005 translation by Stanford Luce.


Enjoyment factor: I have to confess that my love for Verne comes from his more optimistic adventure and exploration stories. I prefer to travel with my imagination in a balloon with Dr. Fergusson, Kennedy and Joe, discovering the source of the Nile, instead of getting into the awful, polluted Stahlstadt. Nevertheless this was an enjoyable read, with more elements to analyse than the average exploration adventure and with a reasonable pace, the fortunate result of Verne not forgetting to have a plot. The ending was lackluster, though.


Next up: Tribulations of a Chinaman in China