posted on 14 Aug 2024

Around the World in Eighty Days by Jules Verne

I’m willing to bet that Jules Verne’s Around the World in Eighty Days is one of those classic novels that most people think they know but hardly ever read – unless, maybe, you encountered it in abridged or comic-strip from in one of the older boy’s comics. It has a plot that’s easy to summarise: eccentric, rich, British man with a semi-comical foreign (French) side-kick, accepts a bet that he can travel around the world in eighty days. Breathless adventure ensues in a will-he, won’t-he make it kind of way and, given that he’s dealing with Victorian transport systems, can he beat the odds?

Verne is, of course, famous for what are commonly thought of as ‘adventure stories’ that cast the male Victorian heroes into unlikely scenarios and often incorporate a fascination with new, emerging technologies and even speculate on future developments that often teeter on the brink of science fiction. You will again be likely to be familiar with the very well-known titles like Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea or Journey to the Centre of the Earth, for example.

But, given that this is the first time I’ve read Around the World in Eighty Days, I really struggled to think of this as an adventure yarn. To be honest, it felt more to me like a modest comedy and if I had to find a single word to describe it, I’d say it was amiable. This is the kind of book that will ask very little of you on a quiet afternoon and you will be in the hands of a perfectly skilful author who is happy to take you on a journey with very little jeopardy.

It’s certainly not a spoiler for me to say the race against time feature of the book is really wholly bogus – you kind of know from the outset that Phileas Fogg is going to make it. After all, he’s an unflappable British upper-crust type with tons of money, so how could he not?

No, the pleasures in this book like in the gentle humour of the set pieces as they make their troubled way from continent to continent. Verne has created a significant comic character in the person of Passepartout – a Fench manservant taken on at the last minute to accompany Fogg on his journey and to generally be both fall-guy and occasional hero.

Verne’s smart enough to know that the story needs a little spice and so he also throws in a bit of romance in the shape of a damsel-in-distress who needs saving and who will eventually break down Fogg’s seeming emotional barriers. And there’s a sub-plot involving the pursuit of Fogg by a detective who believes that the secret of his wealth is that he is, in fact, a notorious bank-robber.

Given that the book was first published in the 1870s, you probably wont be surprised to discover that some of the social attitudes in the book might strike you as a little off-kilter. There’s plenty of non-malicious casual racism and sexism, a rather cavalier attitude towards drugs and lashings of xenophobia. But I think these will only disturb you if you’re determined to be disturbed by it because there’s nothing here that isn’t commonplace for its time and nothing seeking to deliberately offend.

You’ll easily find cheap paper and hardback copies to read and you’ll pay nothing more than a few pounds.

 

Terry Potter

August 2024