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(26) L'Archipel en feu (The Archipelago on Fire, 1884) (1 volume) 62K words


The 26th Extraordinary Voyage takes place in Greece and the Aegean Sea. While most of Verne's Voyages are set at the time they were written, this one tells of (fictional) events happening during the Greek War of Independence, around 60 years before the publication of the novel. It is the first out of four historical novels within the Extraordinary Voyages (the others, all of them written during the following five years after this one, are "North Against South", "The Flight to France" and "Family Without a Name").


First read or reread?: First read for me.


What is it about?: On the 18th of October, 1827, a small Levantine vessel piloted by Captain Nicholas Starcos returns home to Vitlyo, an ancient village in the Peloponnesus, only to be denied entry by his widowed mother. At the same time Lt. Henry d’Albaret, along with many other young men from France and the rest of Europe, has joined the cause of Greek freedom in the war against the Ottoman Empire. While he is recovering from a wound received in battle, d’Albaret meets Hadjine Elisundo, his banker’s lovely daughter. They fall in love and make plans to marry, but Starcos, who holds a devastating secret against the girl’s father, demands her hand in marriage.


Although a historical novel is a new side of Verne, the author had already told a war story in "Michael Strogoff". Also, "The Steam House", even though it does not take place during a war, was rooted in a previous war, and Verne showed his didactic nature there by telling the reader many details about the Indian Rebellion of 1857. "The Archipelago on Fire" is also like that, being a war story and also an opportunity for Verne to tell the reader about the Greek War of Independence. In a modern writer, these asides would be considered strange, but as we know for Verne this is a feature. Ideally, the reader goes along for the story and also to learn something.

I have noticed a certain tendency in this part of Verne's career to tell stories with more dramatic depth. For example, in "The Vanished Diamond" there were some tragic consequences of the disappearance of the fabulous jewel. Here there's also dramatic depth in the story of Nicholas Starcos and his conflict with Henry d’Albaret.

I can't say there's a similar depth in the characters. I like Verne's characters, but he is not one for character development. His characters tend to be static. There's usually no hero's journey in his novels that leaves the protagonist changed or transformed, except perhaps for younger heroes like Dick Sands from "A Captain at Fifteen", who necessarily matures as a result of the sudden responsibility placed in his hands and the adventures and privations he goes through. So, in this novel, d’Albaret and Starcos do not evolve and learn new things about themselves. This is one of Verne's limitations as a literary writer, although on the other hand it leaves him free to concentrate on what he is interested in, which is the plot and the documentary element. After all, you can tell good stories with static characters, see for example the Sherlock Holmes canon.

As an adventure novel I thought "The Archipelago on Fire" was successful. Although it's not action all the time, it has the pathos that the story requires and the pace is good. Some reviewers of course complain about the historical digressions, but well, this is Verne, not Tom Clancy. On the minus side, the ending was a bit easy, in the sense that the villain allowed a situation that he had under control to get out of his hands.

The twists are not very surprising here, you see them coming, but I still read it with pleasure and wanted to know what would happen next. I also got an overview of a war I knew almost nothing about, even though two centuries ago it captured the imagination of many Europeans, who had sympathy for Greece's struggle for freedom, as the cradle of western civilization. Lord Byron, for example, was one of the philhellenists who took up arms in support of the Greek revolutionaries, and he would die in the war some years before the start of this novel.

The novel is mostly set at sea, as the hero is given a ship with the task of cleaning the Aegean of pirates. It's not the first time we have pirates as villains in Verne's novels, but here there's more focus on piracy than in any other of the Extraordinary Voyages so far. There's also plenty of strong women featured here, even though their deeds are not the focus of the novel.


Enjoyment factor: I enjoyed it. It was an entertaining adventure with a historical setting. At this point in Verne's career his most popular novels were already a thing of the past, but he was still very readable.


Next up: Mathias Sandorf