Jules Verne: Around the world in eighty days (1984, Bantam Books)
163 páginas
Idioma English
Publicado el 1984 por Bantam Books.
Great excitement and awe greeted its publication in 1873, and today Around the World in Eighty Days remains Jules Verne's most successful novel. A daring wager by the eccentric and mysterious Englishman Phileas Fogg that he can circle the globe in just eighty days initiates this marvelous travelogue and exciting suspense story. Together with his manservant, Passepartout, Fogg makes a breathless world tour, overcoming wild misadventures and finding time to rescue a beautiful Indian maharani from a burning funeral pyre-all the while restlessly pursued by a bumbling detective called Mr. Fix. Realistically utilizing nearly every means of transportation known in the 1870s, Around the World in Eighty Days generated enchantment with scientific progress-and its delightful mixture of fantasy, comedy, and dazzling suspense has kept it a perennially superb entertainment.
Great excitement and awe greeted its publication in 1873, and today Around the World in Eighty Days remains Jules Verne's most successful novel. A daring wager by the eccentric and mysterious Englishman Phileas Fogg that he can circle the globe in just eighty days initiates this marvelous travelogue and exciting suspense story. Together with his manservant, Passepartout, Fogg makes a breathless world tour, overcoming wild misadventures and finding time to rescue a beautiful Indian maharani from a burning funeral pyre-all the while restlessly pursued by a bumbling detective called Mr. Fix. Realistically utilizing nearly every means of transportation known in the 1870s, Around the World in Eighty Days generated enchantment with scientific progress-and its delightful mixture of fantasy, comedy, and dazzling suspense has kept it a perennially superb entertainment.
Libro scorrevole, molto piacevole da leggere, finito in tre giorni. Rispetto ad altri romanzi di Jules Verne la storia sembra molto più plausibile, senza espedienti fantastici o fantascientifici, il che permette al lettore di immedesimarsi di più nei protagonisti e riuscire a seguire meglio la storia. Il linguaggio non è complicato neanche in lingua orginale.
I enjoyed this book a lot more than I thought! It's a fun adventure story, and I think probably fits in a lot better with other 19th century adventure stories than it does with other science-fiction of the time, though it's also not as if they were too distinct back then. But while it does obviously focus on technology and how it has changed (and continues to change) the world, it's definitely meant as a realistic, contemporary (published as a serial in 1872, afaict with the dates in the story roughly matching with actual dates) story — e.g. at particularly desperate moment the idea of crossing an ocean by balloon shows up, but is dismissed immediately as undoable.
Definitely the best parts are when Verne pokes fun at the whole British-Empire-gentlemen culture and its absurdities. It's not in any way anti-imperialist, but ig it's refreshing to read this sentiment …
I enjoyed this book a lot more than I thought! It's a fun adventure story, and I think probably fits in a lot better with other 19th century adventure stories than it does with other science-fiction of the time, though it's also not as if they were too distinct back then. But while it does obviously focus on technology and how it has changed (and continues to change) the world, it's definitely meant as a realistic, contemporary (published as a serial in 1872, afaict with the dates in the story roughly matching with actual dates) story — e.g. at particularly desperate moment the idea of crossing an ocean by balloon shows up, but is dismissed immediately as undoable.
Definitely the best parts are when Verne pokes fun at the whole British-Empire-gentlemen culture and its absurdities. It's not in any way anti-imperialist, but ig it's refreshing to read this sentiment in "the other way", given how embedded making fun of frenchness often is in english culture and writing?
(also, since at some point i got asked: the voyage in the book is fictional, but apparently its popularity led to people actually trying this, and Nellie Bly did it in 72 days in 1890)
Oh also it's a product of its times, so expect racism and such, but tbh i have read much, much worse from this period, and in most of the chapters it's easy enough to ignore.
