Around the world, Verne style

Jules Verne’s Around the World in 80 Days was published on this day in 1873. It’s a busy date. Charles I was beheaded in 1649, Oliver Cromwell likewise, though posthumously in 1661, Hitler came to power in 1933, Ghandi was assassinated in 1948, and Churchill was buried in 1965. Verne didn’t make it on Clement K. Shorter’s list of a hundred best books from 1898, because he was still alive at the time of its compiling, but since the date fits so nicely, I’ll write about the book anyway.

I’ve already written about my favourite Verne novel earlier, Journey to the Center of the Earth. Around the World would be my second favourite Verne. But I have only read it once. The story in all its variations is more familiar to me from films and TV series.

Like the Three Musketeers I wrote about last week, an animated series first introduced me to the story in the early 80s. In Around the World with Willy Fog, Phileas Fogg – the fearless adventurer – was depicted as a lion named Willy Fog. All characters were anthropomorphisms of various animals; the good guys were felines and all the crooks were canines. It was shown once a week, and woe if I missed an episode. (This was before we had a VCR.)

I was a bit older, twelve or so, before I read the book. It turned out to be quite different from the animated series with themes I was too young to fully comprehend. Some plots, like saving Aouda from the funeral pyre, were changed in the cartoon. And while it’s perhaps natural to avoid that topic in a children’s series, it’s actually very rarely used in other adaptations I’ve seen either. The woman is rescued, but from various other perils.

Around the World in 80 Days was a wonderful book to read as a child. All those exotic countries, the adventures, and the excitement of the chase, as the detective Fix from Scotland Yard tries to keep up with Fogg, tickled my imagination perfectly. Not all adaptations I’ve seen have managed the same, but they are rarely so bad I wouldn’t watch them. And nothing beats the cartoon. Perhaps not even the book.

Here are the opening credits – the English version, which I have to say is not as good as the version of my childhood. You can also watch full episodes on YouTube.

My favourite Verne

Jules Verne came up on Twitter today, where the question of who first wrote about the moon travel was brought up. I had to take a look, too, and learned that humans have always been fascinated with the moon travel. It was seen as rather difficult to reach, however, and most of the earlier moon travelling required divine or demonic help, or was achieved only in a dream.

The first books featuring man-made technical innovations that might have made the travelling possible weren’t published until the 19th century. Verne’s From the Earth to the Moon (1865) was generally regarded one of the first such books, although Poe had an earlier story (1835) where the moon travel was attempted with a balloon.

Oddly enough, this post is not about From the Earth to the Moon. I’m not sure I’ve even read it. It simply made me remember my favourite Verne, which heads in the other direction entirely. I like – probably unfashionably – Journey to the Center of the Earth (1864) the best. I read it quite a few times growing up. Although, if I recall correctly, I tended to skip the beginning on later readings, and start straight from where the professor and his team descend into the volcano.

Jules Verne: Journey to the Center of the Earth

The story is simple. Professor Lidenbrock, a German, discovers a runic message in an old manuscript that, when decoded, reveals a passage to the centre of the earth from a volcano in Iceland. The Professor immediately sets out on an expedition with his reluctant nephew Axel and a native guide. After all kinds of amazing events, they emerge back on the surface through a volcano in Italy.

It’s an adventure story, plain and simple, at least once the actual expedition starts. The party encounters fascinating natural phenomena as well as prehistoric monsters; even what they suspect is an early human. They barely escape with their lives on many occasions. It’s an exciting and entertaining book that kept me on edge the entire time.

I had some trouble dating the book, however. I can’t remember what it was, exactly, that made me constantly wonder when it was that the events in the book took place. It felt much more modern than what I imagined things would have been on Verne’s time. A sign of good science fiction, perhaps?

I’ve read some other books of Verne’s, and have seen numerous movies and TV series based on them. Around the World in Eighty Days came close to being equally entertaining, although mostly in visual form – I was especially fond of an animated series for children where each character was an animal – but I haven’t read the book more than once. Other books, like Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea, I found positively dull. To my amazement, there isn’t a proper filmatisation of my favourite Verne, although there have been a couple of attempts, the latest 3D monstrosity from 2008; for those who prefer their books in a movie form, there is a 1999 movie on YouTube in its entirety.

I think that Journey to the Center of the Earth appealed to the budding historian in me. It had old manuscripts, cryptic messages, and mystically preserved prehistoric life. It all seemed like it could actually be possible. Is there anything more intriguing than that? There isn’t for me.