Around the World in Eighty Days

When I was younger I was somewhat precocious about the books that I read.  I was a snob.  I still am if I’m honest with myself.  I started reading adult fiction when I was about 13 or 14 and never really looked back.  All this meant that I effectively missed out on a hell of a lot of classic literature that’s been re-appropriated for a younger audience.  So, until now, I’ve never actually read any Jules Verne.  I mean, when you’re a pretentious teenager, it’s much cooler to read The Inferno or The Bell Jar than it is a quaint little adventure now more closely associated with ten year-old boys than its original adult audience.

All of this sounds dismissive.  I don’t mean it to be.  It’s been an utter treat to read something that is just a simple and fun adventure story without the dark angst or introspective streams of consciousness.  It’s clear from the beginning that Phileas Fogg’s in it for the shits and gigs.  There are no worries even when everything thing is going wrong. Fogg’s cool demeanour is a point belaboured throughout the book.  When anything goes wrong, he’s Mr Cool with his contingency plans and easy come easy go attitude.  Despite all this, the climatic dash across the Atlantic Ocean is still marvellously tense.

I was also shocked by the lack of racism in the book.  I mean this, of course, in the period typical sense.  The book was written in the 1870s and, aside from a few playful snipes about the English and few off colour remarks about the Indian tribe from which Mrs Aouda is rescued, there seems to be a remarkable respect for other cultures.  In fact, the narrator is obsessed with providing the reader with facts and statistics about other cultures.  I don’t know if it’s because it’s a French book, I haven’t read that much French literature of the time which is specifically writing about other countries, but it’s such a contrast to the British stuff.  During the days of the Empire it seems we were unable to set a story abroad without an air of ‘we own that,’ as a side note.  The treatment of America is most notably different, Verne writes about them from the perspective a revolutionary brother in arms, as opposed to many British writers of the time who treated them like a wild runaway child.

My only criticism of the book is the characterisation of Fogg himself.  Whereas with his valet Passeportout and the dogged Mr Fix we’re given inner monologues and experience, Fogg has few scenes to himself.  He is means to an end; he acts with a single-mindedness that only serves to further the plot.  This means that despite being the hero of the book, he is unknowable.  And while the only possible ending to the book is his marriage to Mrs Aouda, there’s a lingering question of when they had time to fall so deeply into the love they profess to feel.  At best she loves an image she holds of him, which is as likely as not to be completely false.  Even so, it’s a crackingly entertaining read.  I’m just a little sorry I didn’t get around to it sooner.

I’m currently blasting my way through Elmore Leonard’s Get Shorty, so come back soon for that.