Jules Verne’s Day Around the World: 150 years of the novel that cemented his fame

The ways of creation are mysterious. An image, a phrase, a memory, a newspaper clipping… anything can be fuel to get started. According to the scientist Rene Eskesh, the French writer Jules Verne could confirm this, who in 1870, opening the pages of the magazine Le Shop Pittoresqueread the article that talked about the possibility of “circling the world in less than three months” if the starting point is Paris.

The note recommended an itinerary that included steamboat and railroad travel. It was a “birth certificate”‘Around the world in 80 Days’, wrote the Spanish journalist and writer Miguel Salabert in his book ‘Jules Verne, this stranger’. He added that another reading that inspired the Nantes-born author was the story “Three Sundays in a Week.” Edgar Allan Poe, although it is unknown if he read it before or during the writing of the book. If anything, it inspired his denouement.

In 1872 Julio Vern finally published the first chapters of his novel in a Parisian newspaper Le Temps. There is no doubt that the readers of the time were so carried away by the story that the newspaper had to increase its circulation. The main reason, according to Salabert, was the current airplay that aired the transition, to the point where there were passages that could pass as reports (such as a “detail” of the Union Pacific railroad).

“This modernity constitutes one of the keys to the enormous and immediate success achieved by this work…”, the translator also noted. In 1873 a complete edition of the story was published by Phileas Fogg, who by then had already toured France and increased his fame in 1874 when it was adapted for the theater by the playwright Adolphe Philippe d’Ennery. Julio Vern he increased his fortune and, of course, with some of this money he bought two sailing yachts. He was a tireless wanderer.

There is no age for a miracle

Before sagas like Harry Potter, long before the invention of Wattpad, novels Julio Vern Previously, they were considered ideal for children and young people. Even today, the idea persists that his stories are part of an initiatory stage in the reader’s life. For critic and writer Alexis Iparraguirre, this is a response to the fact that in the past “it was believed that reading for young people or children should be educational”.

This ingredient, in fact, gives spice to Verne’s books. “They combine fun with science education, the latest scientific discoveries, adventure and geography,” said the narrator. Elements of which he is not deprived’Around the world in 80 Days’, which tells how Phileas Fogg, a wealthy British gentleman, goes on a trip around the world, accompanied by his servant Jean Passepartout, in order to win a bet.

But Verne’s books have the power to seduce older readers. Even in a time like ours, when the Frenchman’s inventions are eclipsed by technological advances like artificial intelligence or the Webb Space Telescope, his characters continue to evoke emotion through “a kind of inner light of truth, knowledge that nothing stops.” them, and they believe in the power of intelligence and deduction,” says the specialist.

Phileas Fogg just belongs to the lineage of Vernian creatures. “You could say that the great fuel is the bag of money that Fogg carries, but without his head, without his nobility, without his chivalry, without his love of science, traveling around the world would be impossible,” he said. One can marvel at the ‘prophetic’ power of the novel. But it’s kind of outdated in a way, because the surprise lies in the ability of his characters to be surprised. It continues to excite.”

Jules Verne, his influences and traces

It seems that Julio Vern have read Edgar Allan Poe in the translations that the poet made from his work Charles Baudelaire. The American storyteller’s influence is evident in the French stories at the thematic level, to the extent that his novel The Ice Sphinx, for example, is a “sequel” to the unfinished “Arthur Gordon Pym’s Tale”. , he pointed out. Salabert also explains that this influence “extends to technical composition as well.”

However, in addition to literary readings, there were others, of a scientific nature, with which Vern was noted. Son of an era when scientific naturalism was in vogue, the writer drank from the works of the geographer Alexander von Humboldt, according to Iparragirre. “There is a model of naturalistic description that comes from von Humboldt. Especially in Miguel Strogoff, the landscape that he paints, the journey that he makes, is very similar to the one that Humboldt makes in Russia, ”he said.

Salabert also notes that “Around the world in 80 Dayscontinues the general theme of Extraordinary Journeys under the title under which Verne consolidates his 64 novels: “the conquest and mastery of nature by industry, of which the train and the steamboat are the main representatives here.” “This is not about an exploratory journey, but about a journey through the measurement of the Earth, which uses a time meter and the instrument is a living clock: Phileas Fogg.”

prophet of the future Julio Vern he was credited with the authorship of science fiction. According to Iparraguirre, his stories of travel across oceans and new continents can be extrapolated to the “idea of ​​travel to the stars” that genre writers developed in the 1920s and 1930s. the possibility of isolation, life on board… the great metaphor for space is the cosmic sea. This way of space exploration has Verne’s stamp.

my favorite novel

Although Jules Verne excelled primarily for writing novels of scientific anticipation, Around the World in 80 Days is a travel novel full of risk, adventure and humor in which our protagonists overcome all sorts of obstacles to achieve their goal. And between adventure and adventure, we discover how beautiful the world, its countries and the pleasure of travel is. With Eric Garcia, Alberto Isola and Bruno Odar. Adapted by Carmen Salas and directed by Alonso Alegria.