09-17-2020, 04:34 AM | #46 | |
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09-17-2020, 05:25 AM | #47 | |
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And as I said previoulsy and will repeat " I did not say many books do not contain racist elements" |
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09-17-2020, 05:34 AM | #48 | |
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The only real judge can be oneself. So have YOU read it? I have not. It is not my kind of book. |
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09-17-2020, 08:35 AM | #49 | |
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09-17-2020, 08:37 AM | #50 | ||
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Perhaps some people do take the search for offensive material too far, but at the other extreme are those who refuse to hear anything bad about a beloved work. However, most of us live somewhere in the vast middle ground, and it's not helpful to accuse us of offences we have not committed. It would be more generous to suppose that someone might notice some prejudice, if it exists, just from casual reading, and that, should they look more closely, what they find might indeed be real and not imagined. And, if a person chooses, they might listen to others and learn new perspectives that on their own they would not have found. Certainly that is one of the reasons I am here. So I am not a fan of statements like the one quoted above, that seem intent on deriding input before it has even been offered. |
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09-17-2020, 09:48 AM | #51 | |
cacoethes scribendi
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But, conversely, while a few ships at this time could make it from New York to Queenstown in just under 8 days, it seems very unlikely for the Henrietta to make it in that time given her reported top speed and the circumstances. So Fogg making Queenstown by the 19th, which is necessary for the last of the story to play out, becomes unlikely unless he really had left New York on the 11th. (The China may have seen the same weather problems as the Henrietta, and taken 10 days rather than 9, thus fitting a departure on the 10th.) And in this we seem to have confirmation that everything adds up as explained in the book, and it all seems quite deliberate. The problem with the previous paragraph is finding justification in the text: why would Fogg think a steamer left New York on the 11th? The closest I can come up with is from chapter 24, the first time we get a date for New York: "Phileas Fogg was therefore justified in hoping that he would reach San Francisco by the 2nd of December, New York by the 11th, and London on the 20th..." This reads to me as if he chose the 11th not because he was certain of a boat on that date, but because it was 9 days before the 20th (the time he knew he needed to traverse the Atlantic). I think that he was just assuming he could get a boat, even if he had to bribe or buy his way through; it was a tactic that had got him this far. That would have been okay, and consistent with his behaviour to date, but at some point we get a departure time of 9pm as well, which suggests something more explicit than wishful thinking. I can come up with imagined explanations for this (maybe it's just the time the transatlantic steamers generally leave New York, or we'd had an example of a boat leaving ahead of schedule, or the schedule might have changed in the time Fogg had been travelling), but I cannot remember nor find any hint in the text. Maybe I missed it, maybe the translation missed it, maybe the editor removed it, or maybe the author forgot to provide a suitable explanation. Whatever. It was certainly much easier just to take the events as presented than to backtrack through and try and verify the details, so the flaw (if flaw it is) doesn't seem too devastating to me. (But it was a puzzle, and I'm a sucker for puzzles which is how I came to spend far more time on this than I should have.) |
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09-17-2020, 10:18 AM | #52 |
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09-17-2020, 10:31 AM | #53 |
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Would you prefer the real-life race around the world for a publicity stunt in 1889? Both Nellie Bly's Around the World in Seventy-Two Days and Elizabeth Bisland's In Seven Stages: A Flying Trip Around the World can be found at A Celebration of Woman Writers.
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09-17-2020, 10:40 AM | #54 |
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I've actually read Nellie Bly's account. And while I am still not super excited to read it again, I did enjoy it more than this.
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09-17-2020, 11:27 AM | #55 | |
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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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09-17-2020, 11:34 AM | #56 | |
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Also George Francis Train traveled around the world in 80 days in 1870.
From Wikipedia: Quote:
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09-17-2020, 11:41 AM | #57 | |
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https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episod...rld-in-80-days Still available to watch on BBC iPlayer. |
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09-17-2020, 11:42 AM | #58 |
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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.
Paris to Port Said, railway and steamer............6 days Port Said to Bombay, steamer ......................14 days Bombay to Calcutta, railway .......................3 days Calcutta to Hong Kong, steamer ....................12 days Hong Kong to Edo, steamer .........................6 days Edo to Sandwich Islands, steamer ..................14 days Sandwich Islands to San Francisco, steamer.........7 days San Francisco to New York, railway.................7 days New York to Paris, steamer.........................11 days Total ............................................ 80 days |
09-17-2020, 08:25 PM | #59 | |
cacoethes scribendi
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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. That's interesting, and it would certainly fit it in well with the opening of the story. |
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09-18-2020, 01:23 AM | #60 | |
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I was thinking of certain critics, academics and others. And yes you are right "If you fail to look at all then you will imagine prejudice does not exist whether it exists or not." but it must be accepted that books written in the past will contain thoughts and ideas that we almost certainly will find wrong and offensive today, be it racism, sexism, classism, etc. Saying "this book was written in 1870 and may contain ideas and offensive attitudes only needs saying once when it is presented to the book club. It does not need postings that "This book is "XXXist". Get on and talk about the text, plot and characters. I only came on this thread by accident and started reading it because I like and enjoyed Jules Verne as a boy. Last edited by Thasaidon; 09-18-2020 at 01:27 AM. |
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