Around the World in Eighty Days by Jules Verne (1872)
A whirlwind of enjoyment
Book cover blurb
One night in the reform club, Phileas Fogg bets his companions that he can travel across the globe in just eighty days. Breaking the well-established routine of his daily life, he immediately sets off for Dover with his astonished valet Passepartout. Passing through exotic lands and dangerous locations, they seize whatever transportation is at hand - whether train or elephant - overcoming set-backs and always racing against the clock.
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My Review
Well, if ever a book could be classed as 'non-stop' this has to be included.
Things get up and running pretty much right from the start, and events simply don't stop until the end. And even at the end, when you think it's all over, there's a final burst of activity. And even though you have worked out the ending and are expecting it, that certainly doesn't detract from the read at all.
I really enjoyed the quintessential Englishman in Fogg, the bullish Frenchman in Passepartout and the misguided devious villain in Fix, not to mention all the other characters we meet along the way. Even the exaggerations and over-embellishments in procedures gave cause for a smile rather than criticism. However, the miraculous appearance of $60000 to purchase the Henrietta, when there should have been next to no money left in Fogg's pocket, did irritate more than a little bit.
I feel like a lot of the classic language structure of the time was lost, possibly in the book's translation, which was a shame and something I really look forward to in classics of the 19th century. If you read French I suspect that would give you the most out of this story. But it’s still worth a read nonetheless.
On a personal note, I felt like a lot of this book was more of a geography lesson than a fictional tale. The story itself I really enjoyed, the overabundance of location detail not so much, but that's just me.
My copy of this novel
Penguin Classics hardback edition.
Published in 2021
230 pages
ISBN 9780241468654