"Around the World in Eighty Days" by Jules Verne

 I was inspired to re-read this after watching the first episode of the recent BBC adaptation which utterly changed the story. 

When I first read this book, as a kid, I loved it. Fundamentally, it is a race against time. Phileas Fogg, an English gentleman of fixed habits who is almost catatonic in his reserve, bets that he can travel around the world in eighty days and sets off with his newly hired manservant Passepartout, whose role in the novel is to provide comedy and to do stupid things which will cause delays. On the journey Mr Fogg acquires a tail, a detective called Fix (never Mr Fix!) who believes Mr Fogg is a bank-robber and follows him in the hope that he will land in an English territory where an arrest warrant might be served. During the journey, the travellers rescue a lady from the clutches of murderous savages who becomes the love interest. But the excitement is provided mainly when missed connections require the improvisation of unorthodox means of travel. 

There is also quite a lot of 'travel writing', describing the scenery and customs of foreign lands. For example:

• "Mocha, surrounded by its ruined walls whereon date-trees were growing, was sighted, and on the mountains beyond were espied vast coffee-fields. Passepartout was ravished to behold this celebrated place, and thought that, with its circular walls and dismantled fort, it looked like an immense coffee-cup and saucer." (Ch 9)

The fundamental problem to a modern reader (or a BBC scriptwriter) is that the book was written at the height of the British Empire and the indigenous peoples visited are invariably described in blatantly racist terms:

• "They first passed through the “black town,” with its narrow streets, its miserable, dirty huts, and squalid population; then through the “European town,” which presented a relief in its bright brick mansions, shaded by coconut-trees and bristling with masts, where, although it was early morning, elegantly dressed horsemen and handsome equipages were passing back and forth." (Ch 15)
• "the Indians were in the act of plunging themselves into the drunkenness caused by liquid opium mingled with hemp" (Ch 13) Later Passepartout visits an opium den.

 In addition, the only female character is essentially passive. 

When you add the fact that a large part of the excitement requires that the reader/ viewer realises that in Victorian days steamships and locomotives were cutting edge travel, it makes me wonder why they bothered to adapt this book; why not simply take the premise of a race around the world and write your own tale?

But the first episode added a shoot-out in which Passepartout's brother was trying to assassinate the French president. I suppose the BBC believe that the average viewer is unable to be gripped by the fundamentally simple tensions set up by Jules Verne. They must think that we have degenerated to now be in need of such dumbed-down entertainment.

Selected quotes:

• "Passports are only good for annoying honest folks, and aiding in the flight of rogues." (Ch 7)
• "the days were shorter by four minutes for each degree gone over, Passepartout obstinately refused to alter his watch, which he kept at London time. It was an innocent delusion which could harm no one." (Ch 11) Brilliant foreshadowing; of course the 'inaccuracy' of Passepartout's watch is the key to the twist at the end.

Unusually for Jules Verne, this isn't scifi. It was a classic in its time and it is still a good read but it reveals racist and sexist attitudes that were typical of its time but make uncomfortable reading today.

December 2021

This review was written by the author of Motherdarling  and The Kids of God