By Jules Verne

Discussion Précis by Gregory Thornquest

What adventure sounds impossible to you? Does stepping onto a sailboat in San Diego tomorrow and ending up in Athens, Greece sound feasible? How about flying to Santiago, Chile tonight, hoping into a Toyota 4Runner and driving to Nome, Alaska? Or could you see yourself in a couple days loading onto the next SpaceX Starship and taking an orbital journey around the planet? For a very small few with an exuberant amount of time and money these epic adventures could be possible, but for the vast amount of the population these trips are unobtainable.

In Jules Verne’s classic novel Around the World in 80 Days what seems like an unobtainable task to the practical comes down to mere formality for an eccentric English gentleman named Phileas Fogg. This adventure, written and published in 1872 by a Frenchman about an Englishman, begins at the Reform Club of England with a very unexpected and unbelievable wager for the present time of 1872. The challenge of traveling across the world in 80 days is introduced and accepted. But can this “most uncommunicative of gentlemen” that “talked as little as possible” really achieve such an extraordinary task? As the reader is dragged upon steamships, railways, carriages, yachts, a sledge, and many other transports, some of which have tusks, they are brought on a journey that they could never experience for themselves, especially in the 19th century.

Although Jules Verne may or may not have have intended this novel to have a feeling of exploring with National Geographic at the time, it reminds me of how important it is to read classical works of literature in order to remember history. In a current era of Hollywood trying to convince people how bad colonialism was I find it refreshing to be reminded of a time where peoples openly worshiped demons and committed horrific acts of human sacrifice to those demonic gods through their religious practices. I for one would rather not have those in my present time.

In addition to enlightening the reader on social behaviors of people throughout the world from European aristocrats to the American Sioux the novel forces one to ponder and question, especially in a time of exaggerated super heroes, what does true heroism look like. Would we produce the same virtues demonstrated as Mr. Fogg, to “risk life, freedom, and the success of a project, without hesitation to do what is right”? Ironically in the story Phileas is described as “a man of iron” and then “A man of steel” by his servant and companion on the trip Passepartout. Although Jules Verne uses these terms decades before writer Jerry Siegel and DC Comics uses them to describe Superman the main character exhibits his unchanging moral compass and exemplifies prudence, justice, courage, temperance, faith, hope, and love. May we all work to one day have others describe us with the same characteristics.