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Originally Posted by Catlady
You are making my head hurt. My theory is simply that Verne decided to sacrifice reality for the sake of plot, trusting that readers would either ignore or fail to be bothered by the problem of the schedules. I think he wanted to manipulate the readers; he wanted everyone to groan, Oh no! at the apparent failure after the epic struggle, just so he could then turn around and make everyone happy again with Fogg's success. Which is fine; I was sufficiently entertained and did not wish I could throw the book across the room for pulling a rabbit out of a hat at the end.
Related to time: We keep hearing about Passepartout's watch, but is there ever any mention of Fogg having a timepiece and setting it to local time? I can't remember.
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Certainly he wanted to manipulate his readers, which we see in the wrong dates being given to us as the end approaches. But it was quite deliberate, which is why I thought there should be hinted explanations along the way. And mostly such hints are there, perhaps the biggest being that Passepartout does most of the leg work. Only with that transatlantic steamer is it so clear what Fogg did for himself, and so only in that do I find difficulty in justifying (using the text) Fogg's ignorance of the date.
In the early part of the book we are given to think Fogg has some strong sense of the time (telling Passepartout his watch is four minutes slow etc.), but I don't recall being told that Fogg checked his watch. Early on, Fix talking to Passepartout says, "You have kept London time, which is two hours behind that of Suez. You ought to regulate your watch at noon in each country.", and I wonder if the reader is supposed to assume that this is what Fogg is doing.
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Originally Posted by Bookworm_Girl
I also read that Verne’s inspiration may have been an article in Le Tour du Monde about the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869, which gave the following itinerary to circumnavigate the globe.
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That's interesting, and it would certainly fit it in well with the opening of the story.