Phileas Fogg, was a mathematically precise Englishman of set ways. He would rise everyday at exactly 8:00am, have tea and toast at 8:23am, would require his shaving water at 9:37am, and have his toilet at 9:40am. Everything was similarly regulated from that time on until 12:00 midnight at which hour he retired. His preciseness was such that he had recently terminated from his employ James Forster, his manservant. The reason? Forster brought his master his shaving water at 84 degrees Fahrenheit instead of the required 86.
The Daily Telegraph in 1872 proposed that a trip around the world can be done in 80 days as follows:
From London to Suez via Mont Cenis and Brindisi (by rail and steamboats) – 7 days
From Suez to Bombay (by steamer) – 13 days
From Bombay to Calcutta (by rail) – 3 days
From Calcutta to Hong Kong (by steamer) – 13 days
From Hong Kong to Yokohama, Japan (by steamer) – 6 days
From Yokohama to San Francisco (by steamer) – 22 days
From San Francisco to New York (by rail) – 7 days
From New York to London (by steamer and rail) – 9 days
It was the general belief, however, that a complete journey predicated on such assumption was a folly as a mere delay of one day due to natural and manmade causes will throw the entire schedule off the mark.
Fogg thus astounded his companions at whist in the evening of 2 October 1872 when he decided to take on a bet for GBP20,000 that he can go around the world in 80 days. The party drew up a memorandum of the wager stating that Fogg had to be in the Reform Club, London, by 21 December 1872 at 8:45pm.
Fogg, together with his new French butler Jean Passepartout, would embark on an adventure that little resembled the rail-and-steamer itinerary drawn by the Daily Telegraph. The breathtaking journey would include travelling by elephant, rescuing a beautiful Parsee Indian who has been doomed to burn at a funeral pyre together with her dead rajah, taking a pilot boat from Hong Kong to Yokohama, discovering the debilitating effects of opium, getting entangled in an election for a justice of peace in San Francisco, having a lecture in Mormon history, engaging in hand combat with the Sioux, taking a ride on a sled equipped with sails from Fort Kearney to Omaha covering 200 miles, and forcibly taking over a trading vessel!
Throughout it all, Fogg remained impassive and composed and the only time he betrayed the semblance of human emotion was when he knocked down Mr. Fix, a detective who had been trailing him throughout the journey believing that Fogg was behind the robbery of GBP50,000 from the Bank of England.
The thoroughly phlegmatic Fogg brought back with him to London something totally unforeseen from his journey. Installed now in his No. 7 Saville Row, Burlington Gardens mansion, is Aouda, the Parsee woman who almost became a suttee. This happenstance, however, was not due to Fogg’s mathematical precision but because Aouda had asked him, “Mr. Fogg, do you wish at once a kinswoman and friend? Will you have me for your wife?”.
Fogg’s trip cost almost GBP19,000. Did he win the wager? The book explains, “in journeying eastward, he had gone towards the sun, and the days therefore diminished for him as many times four minutes as he crossed degrees in this direction. There are 360 degrees in this direction. There are 360 degrees on the circumference of the earth.”
The descriptions of places and peoples during Fogg’s travels reflect the bias of the English fully confident of the superiority of their civilization and culture. Afterall, it was the time when it was said that the sun never set on English territory. Monsieur Passepartout, albeit charming and devoted, is emotional, garrulous, and forever involved in one scrape after another causing innumerable delays. Aouda, “received a thoroughly English education” and “from her manners and intelligence, would be thought a European”.
It takes less than 24 hours to go around the world today by jet but what would be interesting to find out is how long it takes to go around the world, almost a century and half after Fogg’s fictional journey, using the points of embarkation and disembarkation suggested by the Daily Telegraph in 1872, but using modern transportation; how much would the entire trip cost; and what is the value today in real terms of GBP20,000.
Around the World in Eighty Days is a travelogue-suspense-comedy romp and remains Jules Verne’s most successful novel to date.
The Daily Telegraph in 1872 proposed that a trip around the world can be done in 80 days as follows:
From London to Suez via Mont Cenis and Brindisi (by rail and steamboats) – 7 days
From Suez to Bombay (by steamer) – 13 days
From Bombay to Calcutta (by rail) – 3 days
From Calcutta to Hong Kong (by steamer) – 13 days
From Hong Kong to Yokohama, Japan (by steamer) – 6 days
From Yokohama to San Francisco (by steamer) – 22 days
From San Francisco to New York (by rail) – 7 days
From New York to London (by steamer and rail) – 9 days
It was the general belief, however, that a complete journey predicated on such assumption was a folly as a mere delay of one day due to natural and manmade causes will throw the entire schedule off the mark.
Fogg thus astounded his companions at whist in the evening of 2 October 1872 when he decided to take on a bet for GBP20,000 that he can go around the world in 80 days. The party drew up a memorandum of the wager stating that Fogg had to be in the Reform Club, London, by 21 December 1872 at 8:45pm.
Fogg, together with his new French butler Jean Passepartout, would embark on an adventure that little resembled the rail-and-steamer itinerary drawn by the Daily Telegraph. The breathtaking journey would include travelling by elephant, rescuing a beautiful Parsee Indian who has been doomed to burn at a funeral pyre together with her dead rajah, taking a pilot boat from Hong Kong to Yokohama, discovering the debilitating effects of opium, getting entangled in an election for a justice of peace in San Francisco, having a lecture in Mormon history, engaging in hand combat with the Sioux, taking a ride on a sled equipped with sails from Fort Kearney to Omaha covering 200 miles, and forcibly taking over a trading vessel!
Throughout it all, Fogg remained impassive and composed and the only time he betrayed the semblance of human emotion was when he knocked down Mr. Fix, a detective who had been trailing him throughout the journey believing that Fogg was behind the robbery of GBP50,000 from the Bank of England.
The thoroughly phlegmatic Fogg brought back with him to London something totally unforeseen from his journey. Installed now in his No. 7 Saville Row, Burlington Gardens mansion, is Aouda, the Parsee woman who almost became a suttee. This happenstance, however, was not due to Fogg’s mathematical precision but because Aouda had asked him, “Mr. Fogg, do you wish at once a kinswoman and friend? Will you have me for your wife?”.
Fogg’s trip cost almost GBP19,000. Did he win the wager? The book explains, “in journeying eastward, he had gone towards the sun, and the days therefore diminished for him as many times four minutes as he crossed degrees in this direction. There are 360 degrees in this direction. There are 360 degrees on the circumference of the earth.”
The descriptions of places and peoples during Fogg’s travels reflect the bias of the English fully confident of the superiority of their civilization and culture. Afterall, it was the time when it was said that the sun never set on English territory. Monsieur Passepartout, albeit charming and devoted, is emotional, garrulous, and forever involved in one scrape after another causing innumerable delays. Aouda, “received a thoroughly English education” and “from her manners and intelligence, would be thought a European”.
It takes less than 24 hours to go around the world today by jet but what would be interesting to find out is how long it takes to go around the world, almost a century and half after Fogg’s fictional journey, using the points of embarkation and disembarkation suggested by the Daily Telegraph in 1872, but using modern transportation; how much would the entire trip cost; and what is the value today in real terms of GBP20,000.
Around the World in Eighty Days is a travelogue-suspense-comedy romp and remains Jules Verne’s most successful novel to date.
No comments:
Post a Comment