My second Jules Verne novel is another of his more popular titles, the first being Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea. Unlike some of his other prominent adventure stories, Around the World in Eighty Days is less of a sci-fi and more of a travelogue, it does not utilise speculative technology, instead Verne writes of pre-existing nineteenth-century modes of transportation. The main protagonist, Phileas Fogg, is less of a character and more of an automaton to propel the plot forward. Aptly displaying Verne's dislike of the English, he is cold, friendless, and aloof. Fogg makes a £20,000 bet with the members of his whist club that by using the wonders of modern technology, he can circumnavigate the globe within eighty days. The true protagonist, designed for the reader to fix onto, is his French manservant Jean Passepartout, a passionate but altogether more human personage than his master. With a bag of banknotes suspected stolen, the pair begin their journey, dogged every step of the way by a Scotland Yard detective named Fix.
The prearranged route that the characters must follow is - London, Suez, Bombay, Calcutta, Hong Kong, Yokohama, San Francisco, New York, Liverpool, back to London. Things predictably do not go quite to plan, various obstacles force the travellers to alter their plans and improvise where necessary to keep to their deadline. The reader is given a geography education along the way, throwing a light on foreign cultures and strange customs, most notably the suttee, where an Indian wife is immolated alive alongside her dead husband. Making use of train, steamship, carriage, yacht, tramp steamer, elephant and sledge, the novel is a celebration of mankind's industry in improving connections across the globe. I often see the book published with hot air balloons on the cover, something that must only take place in film adaptations, for Verne makes a dismissive comment about how impractical such means of transportation would be. The book is a fun, if straightforward escapist read for anyone currently unable to travel in times of Covid.
Rating: 3/5
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