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(39) P’tit-Bonhomme (Foundling Mick, 1893) (2 volumes) 110K words


The 39th Extraordinary Voyage takes us to Ireland. It's the only book in the series taking place there, although the plight of Irish people will also be a theme in "The Kip Brothers". "Foundling Mick" is the third out of four Verne novels with children as the main characters, the others being "Dick Sand, A Captain at Fifteen", "Two Years' Vacation" and "Travel Scholarships". This one is inspired by British social novels like Dickens' "Oliver Twist". Verne did homages like that in several of his novels: "Godfrey Morgan" is a parody of Daniel Defoe's "Robinson Crusoe", "Mathias Sandorf" is inspired by Alexandre Dumas' "The Count of Monte Cristo", and two later Verne novels, "An Antarctic Mystery" and "The Castaways of the Flag" are sequels, respectively, to Edgar Allan Poe's "The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket" and Johann David Wyss' "The Swiss Family Robinson".


First read or reread?: First read for me.


What is it about?: Foundling Mick is an orphan growing up in Ireland. Overcoming misery, hunger and a number of obstacles, Foundling Mick and another orphan whose life he had saved, start a small business that proves profitable. Seeking larger opportunities, they move to Dublin, where Foundling Mick hopes to make his fortune and use it to help the good people who helped him along the way.


This is another atypical novel within Verne's body of work. Instead of being a story of travel and adventure, or a science fiction tale, this is about the life of a young orphan growing up in impoverished Ireland.

The story is inspired by the tradition of British social novels, particularly Charles Dickens, whose work Verne admired (he once said that he had read all of Dickens’ work 10-times over). Another possible influence is the "rags to riches" stories of Horatio Alger Jr.

The depiction of the poverty, misery and privations that the main character and many other people in Ireland went through is quite vivid. Young orphans were mistreated and exploited, or cared for in "ragged schools" which often were not much better. We also witness the plight of the farmers, who didn't own the land and had to pay a rent to their British landlords, subject to eviction whenever they could not pay because of a bad harvest, and also the harsh conditions for those who worked in factories.

The main character, whose birth name, if he ever had it, is unknown, is called throughout the novel by his nickname. In the original French he is called P’tit-Bonhomme, which would translate literally to "Little Lad" or "Little Fellow", but in the Spanish translation I read he is called Hormiguita ("Little Ant").

Even though this is not a travel novel, the circumstances of the titular character's life take him to different parts of Ireland, which allows Verne to give a complete depiction of the island and some of its inhabitants. Verne is sympathetic towards the Irish people's desire for independence, depicting how foreign landlords who rarely set foot in Ireland took the fruits of the work of Irish farmers.

Some parts of the novel are quite bleak, but there also better, more hopeful moments, particularly in the later part of the novel, when the orphan's good head for business starts to pay off.

I felt that at the beginning of the novel, the main character was too precocious for his tender age. Granted that under those circumstances children are forced to grow up fast, but I felt it was a bit too much to be realistic. Fortunately, that annoyance disappeared soon once the main character got a little older. He was still a precocious child, but to a more believable extent.

One thing that caught my attention reading this novel, and other novels of this kind like "Oliver Twist", is how attitudes towards poverty and crime have changed. The main characters of these 19th century novels, although they live in poverty and suffer hunger, are depicted as having an innate moral instinct that keeps them from stealing or other forms of dishonesty, which separates them from most of the people around them. Possibly if the character stole, he would not be considered worth cheering for, while in modern novels we tend to be much more understanding of how poverty may push good people towards petty crime.


Enjoyment factor: I was dubious at the beginning of the story, because I felt the main character was not believable, as he spoke and acted much older than his age. However that soon stopped being an issue once the character got slightly older, and I found myself enjoying the story. I liked the variety in the hero's adventures and misadventures, which kept the story dynamic and entertaining. When things started to get better, it was satisfactory because of how hard the path had been to get there.


Next up: Captain Antifer