Reading Verne's Voyages Extraordinaires

[Windshadow]

sorry to see that the detective Fix has been changed into a reporter. I liked his work as comic relief

 

[farseer2]

(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, also available at http://thecatacombs.ca/JulesVerne/index.html). Both have cheap or free 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

 

[Hobbit]

By coincidence I watched the Harryhausen movie last weekend. Very different by the sounds of things.

Both take liberties with the text, from changing names, to skipping passages, to making changes for ideological reasons.

Lots of stories about how bad the English translations are. Has been a campaign to get better translations for a while now.

 

[farseer2]

By coincidence I watched the Harryhausen movie last weekend. Very different by the sounds of things.

Lots of stories about how bad the English translations are. Has been a campaign to get better translations for a while now.

I haven't seen the Harryhousen movie, but I just read the plot summary and saw some screen captures and it's completely different from the novel. Are those giant crabs? Even the plot is very different. The novel is serious, not campy like that. And no giant nor tiny animals.

Yes, a bad translation can give a distorted idea of Verne as a writer. I mean, I'm the first to admit he's not for everyone. Some modern readers will be taken aback by his old-fashioned style. I cited in my review what Jordan Stump says in the introduction to his translation of The Mystery Island (despite his speculative modernity, Verne is very much a 19th century writer in style, and there's a certain formality, a certain stilted quality to his dialogue that is part of his charm), because I agree completely. He has a style that would not be accepted in a modern novel, but I like him more because of that rather than less. I find his style charming, and I love how formal, polite and Victorian his characters are. But despite all that he's a very entertaining storyteller, and some of that can be lost with a bad translation. (By the way, Stump's modern translation is only 2.99$ as ebook in Amazon, its the Modern Library Classics edition).

I'm lucky that Spanish translations, including the free 19th century ones, are quite acceptable.

In the most popular English translation of The Mystery Island (the Kingston one), Cyrus Smith becomes Cyrus Harding for some reason. Harbert becomes Herbert. Even though it basically follows the original, there's a lot of details and paragraphs changed. And there's some ideological censoring in certain parts, which I won't mention because they are spoilery, to make England look better.

Anyway, it seems you can find rather good modern translations of his most popular novels, but not so with the others.That doesn't mean that all classic translations are bad, but if several are available one can count the words to see how much each of them cuts (easy to do with the Project Gutenberg ebooks), and read the beginning to see which one flows better.

 

[farseer2]

(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 stylistic 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

 

[farseer2]

(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

 

[Hobbit]

Pleased to see this thread pop up again!

And that's one I don't remember hearing of at all, farseer. As ever, interesting comments.

 

[farseer2]

Pleased to see this thread pop up again!
And that's one I don't remember hearing of at all, farseer. As ever, interesting comments.

I was on hiatus, but I'm the the mood for more Verne, so I'll probably do several reviews in the next few weeks.

This one is not at all among his most obscure titles. It was rather popular in my country. I ranked them by popularity in the first post of this thread, going by number of goodreads reviews. Michael Strogoff is a "top ten", the eight most popular Verne novel in goodreads, although still far from the really well-known ones.

I think Verne's relative lack of popularity in English-speaking countries has to do with the inconsistent way he was treated in terms of English translations. That has contributed to making him less popular than in countries like my own (Spain), where the editorial treatment was better. According to Adam Roberts, "It's a bizarre situation for a world-famous writer to be in. Indeed, I can't think of a major writer who has been so poorly served by translation." Roberts wrote that when discussing the English translation of the next novel I'm going to read, Off on a Comet (Roberts himself wrote a novel, Splinter, based on that Verne novel).

 

[Hobbit]

Roberts wrote that when discussing the English translation of the next novel I'm going to read, Off on a Comet (Roberts himself wrote a novel, Splinter, based on that Verne novel).

I have that, with Roberts's novel!

 

[farseer2]

(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

 

[farseer2]

(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

 

[farseer2]

(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

 

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(19) Les Tribulations d'un chinois en Chine (Tribulations of a Chinaman in China, 1879) (1 volume) 66K words


The nineteenth Extraordinary Voyage takes us to China. It's the second one taking place in Asia, after Michael Strogoff. It also abandons the more cautionary tone of the previous novel (The Begum's Millions), and presents us with a fun adventure story, with dramatism but also comedic elements.


First read or reread?: This is a first read for me, although it reminded me of movies that had taken the same premise.


What is it about?: A Chinese man, Kin-Fo, despite being young, wealthy and about to get married, is bored with life. When he receives news about the failure of his investments abroad, which leaves him in poverty, he decides to end his life. He signs up for an expensive life insurance policy that, in the event of his death within two months, will make his fiancée and his old mentor rich. Wanting to experience some emotions before dying, Kin-Fo asks his mentor, a former revolutionary assassin, to kill him before the policy expires. Unfortunately, when he changes his mind, the would-be killer proves impossible to locate.


Because of its plot, involving the travels of an eccentric millionaire and his comic-relief servant, this novel has been compared with Around the World in Eighty Days. I can see the similarities, but they are quite different in some ways.

Tribulations of a Chinaman in China is probably funnier. Not so much because of any jokes, but because of the situations and characters. We have the stolid millionaire who has arranged for his own murder but, now that he no longer wishes to die, is unable to cancel the arrangements and travels around China hoping to keep ahead of his murderer. We have the two agents of the American bank that sold him the insurance policy, who are determined to accompany him and keep him alive at any cost, at least until the policy expires. These two agents, of such identical appearance and temperament that they can be mistaken by twins, are an antecedent of Thompson and Thomson, the two bumbling detectives from the Tintin comics, except that Craig and Fry are much more competent. We have the lazy and incompetent servant, Soun, who after each of his gaffes gets a piece of his braid cut by his employer...

Verne, as always, is well documented in his descriptions of 19th century China, and I thought he did a good job when creating Chinese characters who, despite sharing the same universal human emotions, have a way of thinking different from his European characters. Without being in any way a deep philosophical novel, this one is more concerned than I would expect from Verne with questions about the meaning of life and the pursuit of happiness.

He is also critical of British imperialism here, decrying the pernicious effects of the opium trade.

Despite it being a simple adventure tale, Verne does not forget to include some cutting-edge technology, like phonographs and the Boyton apparatus (a kind of diver suit with some extra features).

So this is a fun, short adventure with a good premise (used later in several movies) and other interesting elements. It had everything to earn a place among Verne's best works. Unfortunately, for me at least, it did not always achieve that delicate balance between informative descriptions and action that I have seen in his best novels. Until we get to the last third of the novel there is not enough action, and because of that the story felt less dynamic than Around the World in Eighty Days.


Enjoyment factor: This was not a bad read. I enjoyed the premise and the characters, but it occasionally dragged a little. That improved by the end, but with this material Verne might have written one of his best novels if he had found a better balance between description and adventure.


Next up: The Steam House

 

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(20) La Maison à vapeur (The Steam House, 1880) (2 volumes) 116K words


The 20th novel of the Voyages Extraordinaries takes us to India. We had been there in Around the World in Eighty Days, but only in passing. Verne introduces here another one of his wondrous vehicles, although not one of his best known: the mechanical elephant, a steam-powered road vehicle that travelled along the paths and roads of India pulling two large carriages with all the comforts of a 19th-century house. In English, it has also been published in two volumes with the individual titles of Tigers and Traitors, and The Demon of Cawnpore.


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


What is it about?: Nana Sahib is wanted for the atrocities he committed during the Sepoy revolt in India in 1857. Ten years later, an engineer named Banks invites Colonel Munro, Captain Hood, a Frenchman named Maucler and their associates to accompany him on a tour of the northern parts of India via a unique conveyance. The conveyance's engine resembles a huge elephant, only this elephant is powered by steam. As the adventurer's head north it becomes obvious to them that Colonel Munro (whose wife was reported killed at Cawnpore) has plans to for revenge. Unknown to him, Nana Sahib has similar intentions. (Plot description taken from http://epguides.com/djk/JulesVerne/works.shtml)


I have to admit that my first thought after reading about this vehicle was "OK, Verne is trying too hard. I mean, I can see the balloon, the Nautilus, the hollow projectile that travels to the Moon... but, a steam-powered elephant?" There are, of course, steam-engines designed to travel on roads instead of over rails, but this elephant walks on legs instead of using wheels, although the carriages it pulls go on wheels. It seems to me kind of unpractical, although nowadays they have built a giant machine inspired by Verne's elephant and it's a thing of wonder: search for videos of "Machines de L'ile Great Elephant" to see it.

Anyway, despite my initial misgivings about the vehicle, I'm fine with it after reading the novel. This felt a lot like a group of friends (the typical Victorian group that we expect in a Verne novel), traveling with an autocaravan all across India. Which is appropriate for the novel, because this is a trip done for pleasure, not for exploration.

This is a problem for Verne, actually. He was writing adventure books, but contemporary adventures, not historical adventures (they only seem historical to us because of how long ago they were written). The problem is that, in the last decades of the 19th century, while there were still unexplored parts of the world, most of the it was already known. And, like it or not, when it comes to adventure, exploration is more thrilling than tourism. Of course, Verne could have placed all his adventures in the depths of Africa, or the poles, or desert islands, or under the ground, or the sea... but it's not just the adventures he is interested in. He also wants to visit with us as much of the world as he can, and to be our guide and teacher about it.

So, this time, it's India's turn. Obviously, India was not unexplored, except for the most inaccessible parts of the Himalayas. It was, at the time, part of the British Empire, and a lot of it was densely populated. So we come across that problem: tourism is not as thrilling.

It's not the first time Verne deals with this. Books like A Floating City, Around the World in Eighty Days or Tribulations of a Chinaman in China also have this "tourism" feeling, and Verne manages not to let them become boring. Incidentally, those were all one-volume novels, while this one is two volumes. ¿Maybe this could get a bit too long for a travelogue?

I think Verne mostly avoids this pitfall. This is not the most fast-paced of his novels. Perhaps a few chapters of the first volume dealing with the cities they visit before getting to the Himalayas, or the first chapters of the second volume describing their hunting activities may try the patience of some modern readers, but I was fine with them (take into account that I enjoy Verne's Victorian style).

It's good that the plot is complemented by the story of the rebel leader Nana Sahib, a real-life leader who rebelled against Britain during the 1857 upraising and was responsible for several massacres of British civilians, including the wives and children of British officers. Then he disappeared without a trace after being defeated. In the novel he had survived, and was still full of hate for Coronel Munro, one of Verne's characters. The hate was mutual, because Munro's wife and mother in law had been murdered by Nana Sahib in the Cawnpore massacre, while Colonel Munro had killed Nana Sahib's lover, a leader herself in the rebellion, in the midst of a battle.

I enjoyed Verne's accounts of the Sepoy Mutiny. Despite his Victorian mindset, I think Verne was not completely unsympathetic to the Indian struggle for freedom (after all, didn't he make Captain Nemo a former Indian prince, sympathetic to all struggles against foreign oppression?). Here, Verne tells about the rebellion in a rather neutral way, describing atrocities committed by both sides, although Nana Sahib who, to be fair, was particularly savage in his methods, is the villain of the story, while Coronel Munro and the others, as representatives of European civilization, are the heroes. Certainly not an example of 21st century anticolonialism, but for his time Verne was not very imperialistic, although he shared the contemporary belief in the current superiority of Western civilization. I remember him discussing that in Five Weeks in a Balloon, where one of the characters said he believed Africa would the the most advanced part of the world in the future, once Europe's and America's natural resources were exhausted.

Anyway, the revenge plot between Nana Sahib and Colonel Munro helps keep the novel interesting.

There is a fair amount of hunting here, by the way. Captain Hood, one of the travellers, is a great hunter, much like Dick Kennedy in Five Weeks in a Balloon. For Verne, hunting for food or sport is part of the adventure, and clearly in the 19th century it had none of the negative connotations that it has for many people nowadays. There are some scenes where groups of animals make a coordinated attack on the caravan. I'm not an expert, but this sounded fanciful to me.

There are also dangerous storms, forest fires... even though India was not unexplored, there was still a fair amount of wilderness.

Most of the plot twists were predictable, and there was one particular point where the villains acted in a stupid way because of plot demands, but all in all this was a pleasant read. I was amused by the fact that, despite it being written in first person from the point of view of Maucler, a French traveller who was a member of the group, the last chapters change to third person since they told of events that Maucler did not personally witness. In fact, Verne explicitly warns us about this change in perspective. It did not bother me, but I wondered why he didn't just tell the whole story in third person, like most of his novels.


Enjoyment factor: I enjoyed it. This is not top-tier Verne, and because of that I wouldn't recommend it as the place to start, but it was still an interesting adventure and journey.


Next up: Eight Hundred Leagues on the Amazon

 

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(21) La Jangada (Eight Hundred Leagues on the Amazon, 1881) (2 volumes) 93K words


The 21th Extraordinary Voyage is the first one to take place on a river. The setting is the Amazon, the fabulous fluvial system that is by far the largest in the world by discharge volume of water. This is also the first novel in the series to be fully set in South America (we had explored South America before, albeit further south, with "In Search of the Castaways", but not for the whole novel).


First read or reread?: I had read it as a kid and, even though I liked it, it was not among my favorite Vernes.


What is it about?: A Brazilian man called Joam Garral lives on a thriving plantation with his family, in Peru, by the upper Amazon. When his daughter is set to marry a Brazilian army surgeon named Manuel Valdez, the couple decide to have their wedding in Brazil, in a city called Belém at the mouth of the river at the Atlantic Ocean, so that Manuel's invalid mother can attend. Joam seems strangely reluctant to leave his plantation and set foot in Brazil, but eventually he decides to do so and confront the dark secrets in his past. The Garral family and their workers build a giant jangada (a Brazilian timber raft) to ride down the Amazon River towards their destination, carrying a large amount of trade goods from the plantation.


Before introducing the heroes, the novel starts with a couple of chapters from the point of view of the villain, which was a nice way to arouse our interest, since the first half of the story is kind of slow.

The building of the raft (so large that it's the size of a small village) and the first part of the journey are described in detail, and it's relatively uneventful in terms of adventure. The course of the river is known and, although there are certainly native tribes with little contact with western civilization living by the shores, at this point in history they are mostly content to be left alone and not be crushed by civilization, so the characters only see them from a distance. There are wild animals, of course, although there is not as much hunting as in other Verne novels.

Nevertheless, I found the details of the trip interesting. I have come to think of Verne's Extraordinary Voyages as the National Geographic documentaries of the time (the actual National Geographic Society would be founded a few years after the publication of this novel), combined with adventure stories. This first part of the novel, which seemed too slow when I read it as a kid, was now more interesting for me because it felt like a travelogue about the 19th century Amazon River. I enjoyed following the characters' progress in the maps included with the novel. Verne, of course, had not made these voyages himself, so his descriptions are not first-hand, but his documentation were the actual travelogues available at the time.

The second half of the novel is more fast-paced, becoming a gripping mystery thriller, with blackmail, old crimes, fugitives, duels and a race against time. Like in "Journey to the Center of the Earth" and "In Search of the Castaways", cryptography plays a role, since deciphering a coded message becomes a central plot element. Here Verne explicitly pays homage to Edgar Allan Poe's story The Gold-Bug: one of the characters, Judge Jarriquez, is a fan of that story and tries to use a similar kind of analysis to decipher the message.

The story is basically an adventure/thriller/travelogue, again with no science fiction elements. In terms of technology, the most we find here is the use of a diving suit which must have been state-of-the-art at the time.


Enjoyment factor: I enjoyed it more than I remember enjoying it on my previous read. In his best novels, Verne finds a nice balance between adventure and his didactic/geographic exploration elements. The pace of the first half of this story is not his best, but nevertheless the adventure is quite gripping when it gets started.


Next up: Godfrey Morgan, aka School for Crusoes

 

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(22) L'École des Robinsons (Godfrey Morgan, aka School for Crusoes, 1882) (1 volume) 62K words


The 22nd Extraordinary Voyage is Verne's second robinsonade (after "The Mysterious Island"). Verne would later revisit the genre again in "Two Years' Vacation", "The Castaways of the Flag" and, to a lesser extent, "The Survivors of the Jonathan". "In Search of the Castaways", despite the title, is not a robinsonade, since it's not really about the castaways, but about the people trying to locate and rescue them.


First read or reread?: I had read it as a kid. I enjoyed it, although it's a lighter, sillier, less detailed and epic story than "Two Years' Vacation", which was one of my favorites among the Verne novels I read in my youth.


What is it about?: Godfrey Morgan of San Francisco, California, is a good-natured but slightly pampered and naive young man. Before marrying his sweetheart, encouraged by his deportment and dance instructor, Professor Tartlett, he wants to cruise around the world and gain "life experience". His uncle, the millionaire William Holderkup, consents to this demand. Therefore, Godfrey and the much less enthusiastic Professor Tartlett set out to travel around the world. However, the two of them are cast away on an uninhabited Pacific island.


This novel is at the same time a robinsonade and a spoof on the genre. Like Kipling's "Captains Courageous", it's also a coming of age story about a young man growing up and finding his self-confidence in the face of adversity.

It's probably Verne's funniest story. The humor is provided by the ridiculeness of some of the situations and the unlikely pair of castaways, particularly Professor Tartlett, who is completely unfit for any practical endeavour. People do not think of Verne as a funny writer, but he had proved he had some eye for comedy in books like "From the Earth to the Moon", and he often added comic relief characters.

One thing I like is that even if it's comedy Verne doesn't forget to tell an adventure story. As I mentioned, this story is shorter, lighter and less gritty and detailed than other Verne robinsonades like "The Mysterious Island" or "Two Years' Vacation", but there's still adventure, suspense and danger.

Verne also goes back to telling a story with a twist. When I read it as a kid I didn't see them coming, but in this novel Verne foreshadows the twists so thickly that I do not think he meant them to be a surprise.

The author has some fun with the conventions of the genre, comparing the fortunes and misfortunes of his castaways with the ones happening to Defoe's Robinson Crusoe or to the castways in The Swiss Family Robinson by Johann David Wyss. It's a fond parody, paying homage to them more than making fun of them.

As in other Verne novels, expect some 19th-century clichés on "savage" people that would be considered racist today.


Enjoyment factor: I enjoyed it. It was a quite pleasant read although, you know, it's light. If you are in the mood for an epic adventure, this is not it.


Next up: The Green Ray

 

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(23) Le Rayon vert (The Green Ray, 1882) (1 volume) 46K words


The 23rd novel of the Voyages Extraordinaries is the second one to take place in Scotland (the first was "The Child of the Cavern").

Since Scotland is not an exotic, unexplored land, both of those novels are rather offbeat as Verne adventures. A lot of "The Child of the Cavern" is set underground, and "The Green Ray" is not exactly an adventure novel. "In Search of the Castaways", a more traditional Verne novel, also starts in Scotland, but most of it takes place in the Southern Hemisphere.

The reason for so much attention to Scotland in his work (he also has a good number of Scottish characters in other novels) is that Verne had an emotional bond with this country. He had travelled there and he considered it downtrodden by the English, linking the history of Scotland to his anti-British imperialist views. He also greatly admired Walter Scott.


First read or reread?: This one is a reread for me. I found it disappointing at the time and it was my least favorite among the Verne novels I read as a kid.


What is it about?: After reading a newspaper article about the Green Ray's elevating effects on the mind and soul, rich heiress Helena Campbell vows to experience it for herself. She refuses to marry the man her well-meaning but clueless uncles, Sam and Sib Melville, have selected for her until she sees it. Therefore, they set off on a attempt to witness the elusive atmospheric event. Their quest takes them to the west coast of the Scottish mainland and the Hebrides. Joining them in the search are two would-be suitors for Helena, one an artist, the other an amateur scientist.


This is the first novel in the series that I wouldn't call an adventure. It's mostly a romance and a travelogue, although you could justify using the term "adventure", since there are a few moments of danger, mainly at the end. It's danger caused by the characters' imprudence, though, more than by the actual danger of their touristic trip.

Let's say it bluntly: by writing a romance novel, Verne was not playing to his strengths. His is the adventure, the exploration, the scientific sense of wonder. But romance? Not so much. I think his characterization is normally adequate for his purposes. He creates sympathetic characters, and can make them funny, energetic, daring or noble as needed, in a Victorian kind of way. However, he is not into creating deep, complex characters nor into describing their internal life, their hopes and dreams, their growth. And a romantic novel fails or succeeds on the strength of its characters. So, no, Verne falls short at that.

The novel, having not much of an adventure plot, lacks tension. Even the romance lacks tension. Sure, Helena's uncles want to marry her to the hilariously awful scientist, Aristobulus Ursiclos, but only because they are too clueless to realize how much a young woman would dislike Mr. Ursiclos as a suitor. However, they are well-meaning, doting uncles, and Helena has them wrapped around her little finger, so there's never any question of them forcing her to do anything she doesn't want to do. And it's clear from the beginning that she is not going to marry Aristobulus. This is reinforced by the fact that Verne makes this scientist a caricature. He is a bore, awkward, conceited, sexist, with bad timing and no ability to read the mood of his interlocutors. This would be fine for a comic relief character, but for one who is part of the love triangle at the center of the novel he is too obviously unsuitable to keep the suspense alive. The artist Oliver Sinclair, who is the other suitor, is of course perfectly appropriate and compatible with Helena. So the interest here is seeing Aristobulus make a fool of himself and the two young lovers be drawn to each other.

The story is not without its positive points. It's rather pleasant as a travelogue and description of the Hebrides and the Firth of Clyde. And the characters are amusing. Because of that, I found it less boring than I had found it as a child. Of course, I remembered not liking it, so I did not have high expectations, and that helped.

The atmospheric phenomenon that gives the novel its name is a MacGuffin, something that provides the characters' motivation but is not important for the story in itself. It's curious, because the green ray, a spot of green light that can sometimes be observed just at sunset, is quite elusive, more than the novel implies, and was not well-known in Verne's time. In fact, this novel helped popularize it and impulse research on it. Wikipedia informs me that the scientific explanation Verne gives in the novel is, in fact, incorrect, probably because the phenomenon was still poorly understood at the time. The green ray is not created by the last ray of the sun going through the water of the ocean at sunset. Instead, the effect is related to the refraction of sunlight into different colors, caused by the atmosphere, not the sea. It's often seen at sea because it requires an unobstructed horizon. So, because of Verne I have believed the false explanation for half my life.

Once thing that shocked me as a kid is that I had an image of Verne as very science-friendly. Here, instead, he goes for the artistic, romantic angle, to the point that the heroes excoriate Aristobulus for rejecting the mythological, romantic explanation of it being caused by fairies and instead offering the scientific explanation. The thing is that as a kid I thought the scientific explanation more interesting and filled with wonder, and I still do (even if it turned out to be inaccurate). Your thing is science, Jules, leave romantic notions and fairy tales to other writers. Not that I was sympathetic to the insufferable Aristobulus, but I was sympathetic to the scientific worldview.

By the way, this is the first novel in the series with a woman as the main character. She is not a "strong female character" in any action-oriented way, but she doesn't need to be, since this is not an adventure. Paulina Barnett, from "The Fur Country" fits that kind of action role much better. But, even if she is not action-oriented, Helena is strong enough to get what she wants. Although she comes across as kind of spoiled.


Enjoyment factor: I enjoyed it more now than I did as a kid, but it's my least favorite novel in the series so far.


Next up: Kéraban the Inflexible

 

[farseer2]

(24) Kéraban-le-têtu (Kéraban the Inflexible, 1883) (2 volumes) 100K words


The 24th Extraordinary Voyage takes us on a trip around the Black Sea, through Turkey, Russia and other countries, motivated by the eccentricity of the title character.


First read or reread?: First read for me.


What is it about?: Jan Van Mitten and his valet Bruno (both of Rotterdam, Holland) are in Constantinople, Turkey. The pair are going to meet with Van Mitten’s wealthy business associate, a famously stubborn man named Kéraban. Kéraban decides to take them to dinner at his home in Scutari, on the other side of the Bosphorus Strait. Just before getting into a boat, they find out a new tax has been imposed on all crossings of the strait. Enraged, Kéraban decides to take his associates to Scutari the other way around, by traveling seven hundred leagues around the perimeter of the Black Sea so that he won’t have to pay the paltry 10 paras tax. Kéraban, this man of principle, and his reluctant traveling companions, who cannot afford to offend him, begin the journey. The only deadline for Kéraban is that he must be back in 6 weeks time so that he may arrange for his nephew’s wedding to a young woman who must be married before she turns seventeen. If she doesn’t meet that deadline, she won’t inherit 100,000 Turkish pounds. Unfortunately for Kéraban and friends, the villain Seigneur Saffar and his henchmen have plans to kidnap the young woman and force her to marry Saffar instead.


Like Godfrey Morgan, this is one of Verne's funniest novels. The humor in this case comes from Kéraban's stubbornness and the bewildered dismay of his companions. I think Verne was skillful in making the Turk merchant mostly likable and kind, in all matters not related to his boundless obstinacy. He can be infuriating, but also resourceful and brave. That way, the reader can look at his follies with certain sympathy, and be amused by his companions' efforts to avoid disagreeing with him openly, so as not to provoke him into further fits of stubbornness.

The novel has been compared, disfavorably, to Around the World in Eighty Days. In both novels we have an eccentric millionaire going on a long trip with a few associates, while racing against a deadline. While the similarity exists, I thought that this story was original enough.

I will agree that, in terms of pace, this novel is not as perfect as Around the World in Eighty Days. I think that at this point of his career Verne had found a comfortable formula that many of his novels follow. We have the epic trip, which Verne uses to introduce his readers to some remote region of the world, we have some characters with interesting personalities and we have an adventure plot mixed with the travel. The speculative element that is present in some of his novels is usually not to be found in the ones following this formula.

Also, I cannot claim that this is a very deep depiction of the different countries and cultures they go through. Because of that, some modern readers have accused it of orientalism. This is a light adventure, however, and I think that such a deep analysis is beyond the author's goals.

Even though Verne followed this formula skilfully, a formula is still a formula, and perhaps because of that it does not feel as fresh here as in Around the World in Eighty Days. Let's not forget that Around the World was a short novel, in one volume, while this one is two volumes. In Around the World, Verne didn't have a problem going from one interesting episode to the next, while here he is more methodical in following the travellers' progress, and because of that at a couple of points it feels like Verne is just enumerating the towns they go through. I have to admit that I have fun following the progress in the map included with the novel, but not all readers will feel the same.

Having said that, I think critics who dismiss this novel are being overly harsh. It may not be as good as Around the World, but the characters are a lot of fun (not just Kéraban), it has moments of danger and the overall adventure plot is quite good.

I have said in other reviews that when Verne sets his novel in civilized countries it tends to feel less adventurous than when he takes his characters to unexplored lands, but he does compensate by creating other types of obstacles, normally villains conspiring against the heroes.

It is worth mentioning that the conjugal problems that Van Mitten is running away from are a reflection of the problems of Verne's matrimony at the time. Speaking of Van Mitten and his romantic problems, we go back to the tradition of Verne's novels having final twists, in this case humorous, with the misunderstanding that almost causes him to be married to the noble Kurd widow Sarabul.


Enjoyment factor: I enjoyed it. Perhaps not in the top ten of Verne's best novels but a rather likable and funny adventure story all the same.


Next up: The Vanished Diamond, aka The Southern Star

 

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(25) L'Étoile du sud (The Vanished Diamond, aka The Southern Star, 1884) (1 volume) 71K words


The 25th Extraordinary Voyage takes us back to Africa, a continent that was also the setting of previous novels like "Five Weeks in a Balloon", "The Adventures of Three Englishmen and Three Russians in South Africa" and "Dick Sand, A Captain at Fifteen".


First read or reread?: First read for me.


What is it about?: Victor Cyprien, a French engineer currently living in the "Diamond Fields" of Griqualand (South Africa) desires to marry the beautiful daughter of Mr. Watkins, a man who owns the land where the "Diamond Fields" are. Watkins has other plans for his daughter, which includes her staying in South Africa and marrying one of the wealthier diamond miners. To put himself in a better position to win the hand of Alice, Victor buys a share and begins working his own claim. However, Alice convinces him to return to chemistry and pursue his theory that he can synthesize a diamond. As a result of one of his experiments, an extraordinary 243 carat diamond is created. Victor names it "The Star of the South" and gives it to Alice. When the diamond is stolen, Cyprien and three other potential suitors for the hand of Alice, travel northwards beyond the limits of South Africa in an epic persecution of the suspected culprit.


Although set in South Africa, the plot of "The Star of the South" might serve as inspiration for a Hollywood western, with a frontier setting, a gold rush (diamond rush, in this case), boomtowns, exploration of human character, frontier justice, greed... Of course, this novel predates that genre and is, in fact, contemporary with the Old West. Like the classic P. C. Wren adventure novel "Beau Geste", which would be published 40 years later, it features the theft of a large jewel that derails the life of many of the characters. The tone of this Verne novel, however, is less tragic than Beau Geste's.

I also found it interesting as a contemporary historical depiction of 19th-century South African colonization that would later result in the Apartheid regime. The historical conflict and resentment between the Boers and the English and the exploitation and racism towards black natives play a part in the story.

In addition to all those themes, we have Vernian elements that we wouldn't find in a western or in a normal adventure novel. The extraordinary jewel that drives the plot has been obtained in a scientific experiment designed as an attempt to produce synthetic diamonds. Verne, of course, takes the opportunity to teach his readers about the chemistry of diamonds, at least the 19th century understanding of it. We also have twists involving cartographic mistakes.

Some of the recurrent weaknesses of Verne's adventures are also present, like some unlikely animal behaviors and extraordinary coincidences that drive the plot forward. The treatment of native characters is, at the same time, enlightened and, well, of its time, as in other Verne novels. Verne's heart is in the right place when he denounces their mistreatment at the hands of European colonists and shows how they are not lacking in intelligence, even if they are in education. However, even the heroes who treat the natives decently have a paternalistic relationship with them, and Verne never met an African tribe completely free of cannibalistic tendencies.


Enjoyment factor: I enjoyed it. The Southern Star is not without flaws, but it has a more intense focus on the character's personalities and motivations than other Verne novels, which helps give the story more depth. It has an interesting setting and a good pace, despite the chemistry lesson in one chapter.


Next up: The Archipelago on Fire