Reading Verne's Voyages Extraordinaires

[db105]

Originally Posted by Dr. Drib

After you finish the final novel - The Barsac Mission - do you plan to do the two collections of short stories, in addition to the seven individual short stories?

Yes, I was planning to read the short stories, the two collections and the individual ones. Those are all officially part of the Extraordinary Voyages, so I'll be finished with the original project after that.

However, as it would be a pity to end it so soon, I'll finish with "The Waif of the Cynthia" and "Paris in the Twentieth Century". I'll also read the beginning of "Backwards to Britain", and I may or may not skip that one, depending on whether I like it.

I would like to suggest Anthony Trollope for your next venture; that is, when you finish with Jules and Michel Verne.

Thanks for the suggestion, I'll take note, as I confess I haven't read any of his novels, and I'd like to rectify that. I like 19th century novels, so I'd like to read more of them, although perhaps not so completely concentrated on one single author. That will be for the future, though. For the moment I'd like to read more epic fantasy. In any case, I don't think I would post reviews for such a project like I have done for this one. I felt these could be useful, since apart from the popular ones, a lot of Verne's work is rather neglected, and more so in English. Also, I'm just someone who likes reading, but I'm not at all an expert on literature, and I think I would be unsuited for the task of analysing novels that are less plot-driven and more literary.

[db105]

Originally Posted by Calenorn

Would it be possible to collect all the reviews you've written here into an ebook and offer it here for downloading?

I hadn't thought of doing that, but if you think someone might be interested I'd be happy to. After all, the whole point of posting these reviews was sharing my enjoyment of the author and perhaps being helpful to someone who is looking for a Verne novel to read.

[db105]

(62) L’Étonnante Aventure de la mission Barsac (The Barsac Mission, 1919) (2 volumes) 122K words


The 62nd and last Extraordinary Voyage was published in 1919, 14 years after Jules Verne's death. With this, the great cycle of stories that was Verne's lifetime work is finished. Here, we readers are taken to a secret city filled with technological wonders, on the sands of the Sahara, close to the Niger River. This location is not lacking in symbolism: In the first Extraordinary Voyage, published 56 years earlier, a balloon carrying Dr. Samuel Fergusson and his companions flew over the great African desert, very close to that point. Sixty-two novels later, we return to the same place and the circle is closed.


First read or reread?: First read for me.


What is it about?: In England, the Buxton family, with a long tradition of selfless service to their country is drowned in shame. The eldest son was killed in Africa, a traitor to his country, and the second son has disappeared after stealing the money of the bank he worked for. Meanwhile, in France, the parliament debates giving voting rights to the black population in French West Africa. To find out on the ground whether those populations are ready for citizenship, a study mission is sent, led by the experienced politician monsieur Barsac. When the French mission gets to Africa, they are joined by Miss Jane Buxton, who intends to travel to the place where his eldest brother died, determined to clear his name.


This novel was published in 1919, 9 years after the previous novel in the series ("The Secret of Wilhelm Storitz") and 14 years after Jules Verne's death. In English, it is usually published in two volumes: "Into the Niger Bend" and "The City in the Sahara".

The novel, like all the posthumous Extraordinary Voyages, was published only under Jules' name. However, in the case of this last novel it was discovered much later that most of the writing had been done by Michel Verne. Michel combined two works his father had only started, one about a study mission to Africa and another about a city in the African desert.

The plot is quite eventful, combining Verne's scientific speculation with his exploration travels, humor and family revenge drama.

The beginning of the story is strong, with a terse description of the bank robbery that reads like a heist thriller. However, after an entertaining description of how the Barsac mission was formed, once the travelers get to Africa and start traveling on land, the level of the story goes down somehow.

This African trip makes up most of the first half of the novel. There are few of those geographic descriptions that we can find in some Verne novels. For some that would be a blessing, but I thought that maybe it went too far in that direction. For a travelogue, I would have liked a stronger sense of what the regions they went through were like.

A lot of the narration in this section is told in the form of long articles written by one of the characters, Amédée Florence, a journalist attached to the mission. Amédée's voice is entertaining and often funny, although much more attention is paid to the personalities of the travelers, with particular emphasis on the antics of one of them, Monsieur de Saint-Bérain, than to the purpose of the mission. Saint-Bérain, who is Miss Jane Buxton's nephew (although in this case the aunt happens to be much younger than the nephew) is one of those clumsy, easily distracted Vernian heroes, who is always getting into humorous scrapes. Perhaps this resource is used too much in this part of the novel. It becomes clear, however, that some nefarious hand is trying to sabotage the mission. I found it frustrating that the characters remained oblivious when it was so obvious for the reader.

Then, in the second part of the novel, the travelers get to the hidden city of Blackland and find out who is the enemy that conspired against their trip. This section starts weakly, with too long descriptions of the physical layout of the city, but then it gradually becomes more interesting as we see some of the futuristic technology the city has acquired and the purpose to which it is put.

I said in my review of the previous novel that "The Secret of Wilhelm Storitz" was the last science fiction novel by Verne, but after reading this one I have to rectify: I believe that the speculative content in the second part of this novel is enough to call it science fiction, including drones, remote surveillance systems and cloud seeding.

The final part of the story is epic, providing a suitable end to the novel and to the Extraordinary Voyages themselves.

I have read that in this novel Verne shows some anti-colonial ideas, featuring a revolution of the indigenous population against their colonial rulers. It's not quite like that, however. While there is an uprising against white rulers, it's not really against colonial authorities, but against an oppressive gang of outlaws who had enslaved the population. The Barsac mission itself is part of the debate about whether to grant citizenship rights to the black population of the colonies, but in the novel, particularly in the journalist's tongue-in-cheek reports, there are many remarks that would be racially insensitive by modern standards. No different to other adventure novels set in Africa during the 19th or early 20th century.

The novel does feature, however, a strong heroine, since Jane Buxton is worthy of joining the not too numerous ranks of Verne's "strong female characters", with the likes of Paulina Barnett from "The Fur Country" or Mistress Branican from the homonymous novel.

And this is it. Reaching the end of the last Extraordinary Voyage brought a poignant feeling. We have traveled over the seven continents and even under them, we have sailed on (and under) the different oceans, we have been to space and to the two poles, we have explored the limits of 19th century knowledge and technology. As I closed the book, I felt an impulse to jump on Dr. Fergusson's balloon and start the journey again, right away. But before any such thing, I still have some reading to do as part of this project: the short stories that are also part of the Voyages, which I have left till the end, and a few novels which are not part of the Voyages but that I'm including as a bonus.


Enjoyment factor: I enjoyed most of it. This one was kind of irregular, maybe as a result of being a combination of two different Jules Verne stories and featuring a lot of Michel's writing, but it was never boring, except maybe in the beginning of the second part, where the descriptions of the layout of the city became long-winded. I thought as a travelogue it was lacking, but as family drama/science-fiction it was interesting and had appealing characters. It included an incredible coincidence that allowed Captain Marcenay to receive an appeal for help from Blackland.


Next up: The short stories

[db105]

Having read the 62 novels that make up the Extraordinary Voyages, it's the turn of the short fiction. To begin with, I read the seven novelettes and short stories that, without belonging to a short story collection, were published as part of the Voyages, accompanying one of the novels. Most of them appeared elsewhere before being published in book form.


(1) Les Forceurs de blocus (The Blockade Runners, published with A Floating City, 1871) 17K words

Plot: Due to the disruption in trade caused by the American Civil War, the textile industry in Glasgow is stopped, in what was called the "cotton famine". A Scottish merchant builds a fast steamship to defy the naval blockade set around Charleston harbor by the Union, in order to sell weapons and buy cotton from the Confederates. However, a new "cabin boy" and his "uncle", a sailor who joins the ship at the last moment, turn out to be the daughter of a Northern Anti-Slavery activist imprisoned in Charleston and her protector.

Comment: Well, this was certainly in Verne's style, only with a plot more straightforward and unadorned than his novels. I enjoyed how the supposed sailor proved not to have ther slightest idea about ships. Later, however, we see that the hapless sailor is also a most determined and brave man. His "nephew" was a girl in disguise, a plot element that Verne also used in "The Mighty Orinoco". This one came first, though, since The Mighty Orinoco was written a couple of decades later. The girl proves to be brave and full of spunk, staying on deck during the naval action, even if she did not take part in the adventure on land. There is, of course, a romance. Most of the adventure on land happened "off camera", though, as that part of the story was told from the perspective of those who remain on the ship. It was interesting to see a foreign but contemporary perspective on the American Civil War. This novella could easily have been extended into a full novel. Nice enough read, published together with the novel "A Floating City", also set on a ship.


(2) Martin Paz (Martin Paz, published with The Survivors of the Chancellor, 1875) 17K words

Plot: Set in Lima, Peru, during the 1830s, this is the story of the young Indian Martín Paz, the son of the leader of an indigenous group that is preparing a revolt. Just as the insurgency is about to break out, Martín falls in love with Sara, fiancée of the wealthy mestizo Andrés Certa and, it is believed, the daughter of Samuel, a Jewish usurer. After wounding Certa, Martín becomes a fugitive and finds refuge in the house of a generous Spanish marquis. He will have to choose between his love for Sara and his loyalty towards his father's revolt.

Comment: A romantic story, more tragic than usual for Verne. It's interesting that it was published accompanying "The Survivors of the Chancellor", which is also kind of bleak. The Peruvian setting, filled with racial tensions, was interesting, although I have my doubts on how deep Verne's historical research was. Some parts felt rushed because of the novella-length. For example, Martín really connects with the Spanish marquis, who comes to regard him almost as a son, but in the story it's not clear why. It just happens without us seeing how. In some ways it's of its time: it has a Jewish usurer villain (more stereotypical, in my opinion, than the one in "Off on a Comet"), and assumes that Catholic faith is somehow more virtuous.


(3) Un drame au Mexique (A Drama in Mexico, published with Michael Strogoff, 1876) 8K words

Plot: In 1825, off the islands of Guam on a passage from Spain, Lieutenant Martinez, and his associates plot a mutiny on board of two Spanish warships. Conspirators murder Captain Don Orteva, take command of the ships, and plan to sell them to the republican government in Mexico. On arrival in Acapulco, Lieutenant Martinez and Jose embark on a cross-country trip to Mexico City to negotiate the sale. However, Martinez becomes increasingly fearful that he is being pursued.

Comment: Despite its short length, it's quite eventful, with action at sea and on land, showing a curious moment in history when the newly-constituted Mexican republic still did not have a navy. There's time for some quick descriptions of Mexico's geography. I was surprised by the attempt at psychological terror at the end. Verne is not Poe, but still a nice story.


(4) Les révoltés de la Bounty (The Mutineers of the Bounty, published with The Begum's Millions, 1879) 7K words

Plot: The story of the real-life mutiny on the Bounty.

Comment: An account on the mutiny, then the story of what happened to captain Bligh and the men who remained faithful to him, after being abandoned on a boat, and finally the story of what happened to the mutineers. This story, is of course well-known nowadays through movies or books and, despite being factual, it is rather extraordinary, one case where real life does not fall behind fiction. The first two parts are told like a regular story, including the dialogues between the characters, and the story of the mutineers is told more quickly, as a non fiction explanation. Entertaining, and the subject deserves a whole novel.


(5) Dix heures en chasse (Ten Hours Hunting , published with The Green Ray, 1882) 5K words

Plot: First-person account of the disappointments of a novice hunter on his first, and only, hunt.

Comment: Light, humorous account, supposedly autobiographic, of a hunting day. The narrator has been invited and it's his first time. The tone is self-deprecating, and the author looks at himself and his companions with satirical eyes. Numerous funny remarks, although perhaps will be funnier for people more familiar with hunting.


(6) Frritt-Flacc (Frritt-Flacc, published with The Lottery Ticket, 1886) 3K words

Plot: A doctor who only treats the sick for money. In the middle of a stormy night (“Frritt…! It's the wind that breaks loose; Flacc…! It's the rain that falls in torrents”), someone needs help and the doctor refuses to go unless he gets paid, and paid well, first. Finally the doctor gives in to the sound of the coins...

Comment: A very short fantasy story that could be called a fairy tale, or maybe horror.


(7) Gil Braltar (Gil Braltar, published with The Flight to France, 1887) 2K words

Plot: A crazy Spanish hermit named Gil Braltar dreams of reconquering Gibraltar from thye British, with the help of his army of local barbary macaques.

Comment: A silly, very short story. Some digs at British imperialism, but mostly very silly.

[radius]

What a fun project! Thank you for the reviews!

I have never counted myself as a deep Verne fan, but following along your review thread I discovered I had already read ten of Les voyages extraordinaires. Now I'm inspired to finish the remaining books; I quite like the Tired n' Grumpy editions here at Mobileread.

I'd even consider reading in French, but oddly, it appears we have more German and Danish translations here than the original French haha.

[db105]

Originally Posted by radius

What a fun project! Thank you for the reviews!

You're welcome! Yes, I have found the project fun, more than I had initially expected.

I'd happily read these in French if I knew that language, but I haven't been blessed with a great ability for learning languages. I haven't checked, but with Verne being in the public domain and no translation being involved, I suppose they must be available in French somewhere.

Which of the Extraordinary Voyages have you already read?

[db105]

L'Epave du Cynthia (The Waif of the Cynthia, 1885) (1 volume) 71K words


This novel was published as cowritten by Jules Verne and Andre Laurie (pseudonym used by Paschal Grousset), but modern scholars believe the actual writing was done by Laurie and Verne's role was that of supervisor and corrector. It is not officially part of the Voyages Extraordinaires, although the edition and the type of story are similar. The story begins in Norway and eventually takes us on a sailing trip all around the Arctic Circle.


First read or reread?: First read for me.


What is it about?: Erik Hersebom is a Norwegian boy from a small fishing town, endowed with a remarkable intelligence. However, there is something else unusual about him: he does not have the characteristic physical features of the Scandinavian people. He looks like a Celt. Doctor Schwaryencrona takes him under his wing and finances his education. The doctor discovers that Erik was adopted by his family of Norwegian fishermen, after being saved from the sea when he was only a few months old, attached to a lifebuoy with the word "Cynthia". Once grown up, with the help of the Doctor, Erik will seek to elucidate the mystery of the sinking of the Cynthia to find a trace of his origins. This quest will lead him through the polar seas and Siberia.


I mentioned that this book is not part of the Extraordinary Voyages. You might wonder what this means exactly. OK, so this book was published as co-written by Verne and another writer, and nowadays scholars think the other writer probably did the actual writing. However, we have seen that the posthumous Extraordinary Voyages were modified by Michel Verne, with one of them ("The Thompson Travel Agency") possibly written by Michel alone. So then, why are those posthumous novels part of the Voyages, but not "The Waif of the Cynthia"?

The answer is that the Extraordinary Voyages is a series only in the sense that they were published with that label by Verne's publisher, Hetzel. "The Waif of the Cynthia" was also published by Hetzel, and the edition looks more or less similar to the ones used for Verne's Extraordinary Voyages. However, the publisher did not include it as part of the series, so that's why the posthumous novels and the two short story collections are part of the Voyages, while "The Waif of the Cynthia" isn't. Just a question of labels.

In my case, the collection of Verne novels that I have includes this novel, so I have also included it in my reading project. I have read it after the other novels, but actually it was published in 1885, in the middle of Verne's career.

So let's talk about the book. I have to say that I found it an enjoyable read. It's an adventure story, with a plot that wouldn't be out of place among the Extraordinary Voyages. The writing style was slightly different from Jules Verne's, which is something I did not notice in "The Thompson Travel Agency", for example.

It's not a huge difference, though, and I don't really mention it as a bad thing. There are fewer geographic descriptions, and more emotional content. There was more emphasis on the feelings of the characters, for example how Erik's adoptive family feels about his search for his biological family, and how Erik himself feels about it. Some moments are quite emotive, more than we would expect in a Verne story.

It wasn't a long novel (just one volume). I thought the pacing was good, and it kept me interested throughout. I did think at some point, when they were investigating by sending letters and discussing the responses, that I would like it if they actually travelled in person to investigate, but they quickly did just that, and once they did I have no complaint about the amount of adventure and exploring, in search of a disappeared sailor who might have relevant information. The novel reminded me a little of "In Search of the Castaways" because of the investigation element.

So the plot is very Verne-like, and the style, while not the exactly the same, is not that different. It's similar to Verne's adventure stories, without any speculative element.

One thing that was similar to Verne is how it foreshadows which characters are villains. This is something that is quite Verne-like. The character-related twists in Verne's novels often do not come as a surprise, which is something some modern readers complain about, but I have come to accept as part of his storytelling style.


Enjoyment factor: I enjoyed it. It was more emotional than most Extraordinary Voyages, but in terms of quality it was a good adventure story and it could have easily been part of the series, even if it wouldn't be among Verne's most innovative novels.

[db105]

(1) Le Docteur Ox (Doctor Ox, 1874) (1 volume) 70K words

This collection, which was published by Hetzel in 1874 as part of the Extraordinary Voyages, consists of four novellas or short stories by Verne:


"Une fantaisie du Docteur Ox" ("Dr. Ox's Experiment," 1872)

Plot: In an extremely quiet Flemish town, a chemist called Dr. Ox is building a gas lighting system that he has offered for free. Unfortunately, Ox is a mad scientist who intends to use the substance he has invented to modify the brain chemistry of the town's inhabitants, making them more irascible.

Comment: This was a rather funny novella. The inhabitants of the imaginary town were humorous to begin with, calm and quiet to an absurd extreme, enemies of any passion. Dr. Ox's gas changes all that and makes them choleric and aggressive, willing even to go to war against a neighbouring town for the most ridiculous reasons. Verne makes some reflections about whether we are the result of our brain chemistry, but doesn't really explore this interesting subject more than that, and instead concentrates on the humorous portrait of the town's citizens, who go from one extreme in the beginning to the opposite once the gas starts changing their behavior. Other than that, the plot is slight. So, more humor than science fiction, I would say.


"Maître Zacharius" ("Master Zacharius," 1854)

Plot: Master Zacharius, perhaps the greatest and more renowned among the Swiss watchmakers falls into despair when all the watches he has made and sold stop for unknown reasons, and no one is able to repair them.

Comment: Another novella, this one a dark fantasy in the style of E.T.A. Hoffman and Edgar Alan Poe. I liked the premise, and the story was OK, but, although I appreciate his trying something different, I don’t think Verne was playing to his strengths here. Poe would have made a more terrifying portrait of this prideful watchmaker falling apart and maybe selling his soul.


"Un drame dans les airs" ("A Drama in the Air," 1851)

Plot: The narrator is about to make a hot air balloon demonstration but, just as he is about to take off, a stranger rushes into the basket and forces him to let go of ballast to rise higher and further than he expected.

Comment: This short story is written in first person, in the style of a non-fictional account even though, of course, it’s fiction. Verne was interested in flying devices and this story, originally published more than decade before “Five Weeks in a Balloon,” foreshadows that novel, showing that Verne had in mind that balloon trips could make for an interesting adventure. The plot of the novel is much more substantial, though. The intruder here takes advantage of the trip to narrate at length the story of incidents related to the human quest to fly in lighter than air devices. Imparting didactic information like this is typical of Verne’s early novels, but the problem is that here it takes up too much of the story, given its short length. The adventure, otherwise, is interesting, but I would have liked more of it.


"Un hivernage dans les glaces" ("A Winter Amid the Ice," 1855)

Plot: A captain from Dunkirk and two of his sailors were lost when trying to help a ship in difficulties in the northern seas. His father and his fiancée, not believing that he is dead, set up an expedition to look for him. Their investigation takes them deep into the Arctic Sea.

Comment: An adventure novella, very much in Verne’s style. We see elements that Verne would revisit later in his novels, like the search for a loved one lost at sea ("In Search of the Castaways", "Mistress Branican"), survival in a harsh Arctic winter ("The Adventures of Captain Hatteras", "The Fur Country"), the presence of a traitor... In particular this novella reminded me of "The Adventures of Captain Hatteras", with a ship wintering in the ice, and it also features a message in a bottle being found, like the one from "In Search of the Castaways", only in this case without anything that needed decyphering. I enjoyed it, even though it necessarily is more straightforward than his novels. There was a dubious incident when the characters got snow blindness... during the polar night (!?), supposedly due to the reflection of the Moon on the snow.


The collection also includes a short non-fictional account, "Quarantième ascension française au mont Blanc " ("The Fortieth French Ascent of Mont Blanc"), written by Verne's brother Paul. I say non-fictional because it feels like it, although I don’t know whether it really happened. But Paul gives some details that I, having been in Chamonix a few times, quite enjoyed, recognizing the places mentioned but also appreciating how different mountaineering was back then. Short and without extraordinary incidents, but ascending Mont Blanc in those times was extraordinary enough.

[db105]

(2) Hier et Demain (Yesterday and Tomorrow, 1910) (1 volume) 63K words

The last short story collection by Verne was published posthumously in 1910. It contains four novelettes and a couple of short stories ("In the Twenty-ninth Century: A Day in the Life of an American Journalist in 2889", and "The Humbug"). Like the previous collection ("Dr. Ox"), this one was published as part of the Extraordinary Voyages. And, like the posthumous novels in the series, the stories here were edited and modified by Jules Verne's son, Michel.

I'm reading this in Spanish, but I have to warn you that this collection is difficult to find in English. A translated collection called "Yesterday and Tomorrow" was published in 1965, but it doesn't contain two of the stories here ("Adventures of the Rat Family", and "The Humbug"), and in exchange it contains some of the stories that were originally published, not in a short story collection, but accompanying one of the Extraordinary Voyage novels. The reader in English who wants to read the whole thing would need to hunt for the missing stories somewhere else (for example, both missing stories have been published in standalone editions in English). If you are interested, https://www.isfdb.org/ is a useful resource to see where each story was published.

Having said this, let's talk about the stories.


La Famille Raton ("Adventures of the Rat Family")

Plot: The adventure takes place "in the age of fairies and magicians, and also during the time that animals talked." A whole family of rats has been magically transformed by the evil magician Gardafour and is now languishing as a family of oysters. Can Ratin, our hero, wait for Ratine, his beloved, until she is transformed to her true form once again? Can he, with the help of the fairy Firmenta, outfox Gardafour and the evil Prince Kissador, who scheme to keep the beautiful Ratine locked away forever?

Comment: As the plot indicates, this is a fairy tail for children. Verne tells it in a very colloquial tone, sometimes addressing the readers as "my dear children". I found it imaginative and occasionally amusing, although it probably went on a bit longer than it needed to.


M. Ré-Dièze et Mlle Mi-Bémol ("Mr Ray Sharp and Miss Me Flatt")

Plot: The story centers around two young children in a small village near Lake Constance in Switzerland. The town is visited by a mysterious Hungarian named Effarene, “at once artiste, tuner, organ vendor, and organ builder.” The village elders are grateful when Effarene offers to replace the recently departed church organist, but we soon learn the macabre details about his proposal to outfit the organ with a specially built register of children’s voices.

Comment: A dark fantasy tale, reminding me at times of The Pied Piper of Hamelin. It is told in first person by one of the children who sings in the school choir; the "Mr Ray Sharp" from the title refers to him, while "Miss Me Flatt" refers to the girl he likes, who also sings in the choir. The story plays with the anxieties about the dehumanization brought about by technology and mechanization. For those who hate stories where children are hurt, I'll say that the resolution was much less dark than I was expecting. A cop-out, some might say, but I did enjoy the story.


La Destinée de Jean Morénas ("The Fate of Jean Morénas")

Plot: Jean Morénas is serving a sentence of penal servitude for a crime he did not commit, the murder of his uncle Alexandre. Years later, a mysterious man gains access to the prison under the pretence of philanthropic work, but actually intending to help Jean escape and flee to a foreign country. Jean, however, has different ideas: he cannot leave without visiting his beloved Marguerite in their village. There he will face a tragic dilemma.

Comment: After two fantasy stories, this one is a more realistic family drama/adventure. The story is more tragic than you usually get with Verne, but enjoyable.


Le Humbug ("The Humbug: The American Way of Life")

Plot: On board the steamship Kentucky, traveling between New York and Albany, the French narrator meets an eccentric merchant named Meade Augustus Hopkins. Hopkins intends to found a kind of privately-owned World Fair near Albany. But, while this ambitious project is being built, an astonishing discovery is made: the gigantic skeleton of a human-like being that has been buried for countless centuries. But is it a genuine discovery, or part of the schemes of a charlatan?

Comment: I have commented elsewhere that Verne had a half admiring, half amused attitude towards US citizens. He admired their initiative and entrepreneurship, but at the same time he saw the funny side of it and liked satirising it. This is clearly apparent in this short story, which Verne presents as one of those things that could only happen in America. The over-the-top entrepreneur Hopkins has that can-do attitude that gains the admiration of his countrymen, but is he the real deal or is he full of hot air? I found the discovery of ancient human fossils an interesting subject for a Verne story, but this one concentrates on social satire much more than on paleontology. In fact, the interest here is mostly the satire, since the plot is quite basic.


Au xxixe siècle : La Journée d'un journaliste américain en 2889 ("In the Twenty-ninth Century: A Day in the Life of an American Journalist in 2889")

Plot: The story, set in the 29th century, follows a day in the life of an American journalist and businessman named Francis Bennett, who owns a newspaper called the Earth Chronicle. Throughout the story, Firmin Bennett uses various technological advancements to conduct his business and personal life, and we see some of the wonders of the future world.

Comment: A bit shorter than the other stories in the book, this is one of those science-fiction tour de forces where the author tries to anticipate what life will be like in the future, and what technological advances will be available. As often happens with these things, Verne does some interesting things extrapolating from what existed in his time, and presents suitably wondrous advances in communication, transport, energy. However, he of course missed things that he had no way of guessing, like the rise of computers, the internet and AIs. He is also blind to social change, and in that sense the society he describes is not that different from Verne's own. The positions of high qualifications and responsibility are filled by men; while the main character conducts his business, his wife is in Europe buying clothes and hats, although in frequent contact with him through teleconference. He does get some political guesses right, like the impossibility of wars between superpowers because of mutual assured destruction or China's one-child policy. All in all, it's fun seeing how Verne envisioned the future from his late 19th century perspective.


L'Éternel Adam ("The Eternal Adam")

Plot: Zartog Sofr-Aï-Sran, an archaeologist from a civilization much different from ours, is in the middle of a scientific controversy about the origins of humankind. Due to their interpretation of the archeological record, some scientists believe that humanity's ancestors lost craneal capacity at some point, before recovering it again. Zartog discovers a buried ancient document, that he is eventually able to translate. It is the journal of a man claiming to be a survivor to the total destruction of civilisation.

Comment: This may be my favorite Verne short story. It feels like a Golden Age science fiction story, with sense of wonder and a lot to think about. It's a pity Verne did not expand it into a novel.


---


With this, I have finished reading all of the Extraordinary Voyages. "The Barsac Mission" was actually published after this collection, but since I read the novels first, this is the last book I have read in the series.

I'll now finish my Verne reading project with two posthumous novels that are not part of the Voyages. They were discovered and published for the first time nearly a century after Verne's death: "Backwards to Britain" and "Paris in the Twentieth Century".

[Dr. Drib]

For further enlightening posts [by the members of the site linked below], one might wish to visit what looks like the same posts that db105 posted as here on Mobileread. Interested readers are encouraged to click on the link below

https://www.sffworld.com/forum/threa...inaires.58632/

where there is some interesting and thoughtful discussion by the members of that other forum.

[db105]

Voyage à reculons en Angleterre et en Écosse (Backwards to Britain, written 1859, first published 1989) (1 volume) 57K words


This semi-autobiographical (not part of the Extraordinary Voyages) novel is an account of the journey to England and Scotland that Jules Verne and his friend Aristide Hignard made in 1859. Verne always had a fascination for Scotland, and set two of his extraordinary voyages there ("The Child of the Cavern" and "The Green Ray").

For the novel, Verne changed the names of the characters: he became Jacques Lavaret, while his friend Aristide became Jonathan Savournon. This allowed him to take some liberties with the story, exaggerating a few passages, but mostly it was a faithful depiction of their trip.

This was the first novel that Verne had ever written. He offered it to the publisher Hetzel, but it was rejected. Verne set the manuscript aside and never tried to publish it again, until it was discovered and published in 1989, 84 years after the author's death. Soon after rejecting this novel, however, Hetzel would accept another Verne manuscript, also a travel story, this one fictional, dealing with the more timely topics of ballooning and African exploration. Thus, "Five Weeks in a Balloon" would become Jules Verne's first published novel and the first Extraordinary Voyage.

But let's come back to "Backwards to Britain". The title comes from a change of plan during the trip, as the steamer that was to take the two friends to Liverpool was delayed several days and finally docked not in Saint-Nazaire as originally intended, but in Bordeaux, forcing the travellers to go south to meet it, in a direction opposite to their final destination (thus "backwards").

The tone of the novel is light and good-humored. Jacques (Verne) is enthusiastic and full of puppyish energy, while Jonathan (Hignard) is calmer. Because of this engaging tone, it is a pleasant read, even though it's not as funny as some later Verne novels.

Verne was always a great admirer of Walter Scott, and one of his main sources of pleasure when he gets to Scotland is seeing the locations of the great Scottish novelist. This romantic view of Scotland is also contrasted with its modern, technological present. The darker side of this modern development is also acknowledged, with the two friends being impressed during the English part of their voyage by the misery of the factory workers in Liverpool.

Verne's biases are in view: while he admires the energy and the technological ingenuity of the English, he likes the Scots better, no doubt influenced by the natural beauty of Scotland and the romantical image of it he has from Scott's novels. He also admires Dickens, but Scott captures his imagination more.

Several of Verne's Extraordinary Voyages also take the form of a travelogue and feature geographical descriptions, but they are spiced up by an adventure, which is something "Backwards to Britain" lacks. Since I particularly enjoy adventure stories, this novel felt a bit lightweight to me, pleasant enough but not as enjoyable as Verne's adventure stories. Even though the point of view of French travellers in Britain at the height of the Victorian era is interesting, this remains an obscure entry in Verne's bibliography, and will only be read by the most thorough Verne fans, or by those particularly interested in Scotland and England travelogues or in Walter Scott's settings.

[db105]

Paris au XXe siècle (Paris in the Twentieth Century, written around 1860, first published 1994) (1 volume) 38K words


Like "Backwards to Britain", Verne wrote this around 1860, when he still had not published any novels (although he had published some plays and stories). Again like "Backwards to Britain", the editor Hetzel rejected it, calling it lackluster and lifeless, so Verne set it aside and forgot about it, until it was rediscovered and published in 1994, close to a century after the author's death. Therefore, it's not part of the Extraordinary Voyages, and it lacks the editing and polishing that a novel would normally go through before publication.

While "Backwards to Britain" was a travelogue, "Paris in the Twentieth Century" is science fiction. It tells the story of a young man called Michel, who is finishing his studies in the year 1960, in a futuristic version of Paris (well, futuristic since the novel was written a century before that date). Being an orphan, he is poor and depends on the charity of unsympathetic relatives. Additionally, he possesses an artistic temperament, at a time when art is despised as unproductive, and only numbers, technology, commerce and profit are appreciated.

The premise reminded me of Verne's short story "In the Twenty-ninth Century: A Day in the Life of an American Journalist in 2889", included in the collection "Yesterday and Tomorrow". That short story showed us a day in the life of a far-future newspaper magnate. It was short on plot, and mostly a pretext to show us some technological and scientific wonders. In the case of "Paris in the Twentieth Century", the situation is somewhat similar: there is not much plot, and Verne's objective is showing us a possible future society. We see some important technological advances, but the emphasis in this case is sociological. Basically this 20th century society has completely abandoned the arts and humanities in favor of productivity.

This disregard about the arts goes to extremes that make this a dystopia. Michel wins a prize for Latin poetry, but he is mocked and jeered at when he receives the award. Then he starts working in a bank, doing a job he hates. He meets some like-minded people, but ultimately this is a story of alienation and despair.

The conventional wisdom is that, as a young writer, Verne was optimistic about technological progress, and during the last part of his life he became more cautious and disillusioned. However, the fact that Verne wrote this at the very beginning of his career as a novelist goes to show the limitations of that conventional wisdom. This novel shows that a certain weariness about technological progress was already there. Perhaps the reason we do not see more of it in his works at this point is the influence of his editor, Hetzel, and, in general, commercial pressures.

So how good is this story? I found it interesting, at least most of it, but at the same time I can understand why Hetzel rejected it. It is very short for a novel (the only other Verne novel that can be compared in terms of length is "A Floating City"). However, the lack of a clear plot made me feel that it would have worked better as a novelette. There are some long dialogues about literature and the arts that may be a bit pretentious, and descriptions of the future Paris that went on for too long.

I liked reading it, and seeing Verne's ideas about the future, but it is not a thrilling story. A lot of his cultural concerns still seem relevant today. I was amused by the situation of the dramatic arts, where there was a public institute devoted to remaking and adapting classic works, while sucking all the individuality out of them... not that different from modern Hollywood, maybe? Some of the technology he describes is not that different from what was really available in 1960. It's not where I would advice you to start if you are new to Verne, however.

[db105]

And, with this, I finish my Verne reading project. There are a few uncollected short stories and fragments I haven't read, but I don't see a need to be (even more) exhaustive. Greetings to those of you who followed my posts.

This project was a lot of fun for me, more than I had initially expected. It's time for me to read other things, but I'm going to miss my regular Verne readings. I almost feel like opening Five Weeks in a Balloon right away and fly over unexplored Africa!

[Pierre Lawrence]

Thanks for such a labor of love. Your reviews were invariably well written, always informative and an enjoyable read. Again, thanks!

[rkomar]

I also want to express my thanks and admiration for your work. I think you should be proud of your accomplishment, and I am glad that you shared it with us. Karma to you!