It is a fact that graduate school will eat up most of my reading time soon, but it is also a fact that there are some reading traditions that I refuse to let go of. Starting off my year with a Jules Verne novel is one of those traditions. This time of year always puts me in the mood for a fresh adventure, and whether I go under the sea, to the center of the earth, or even to the moon, Verne scratches that itch for me. This year, I decided to read Five Weeks in a Balloon. I didn't know anything about the story before I started reading. I chose it simply because it was Verne's first published novel. You see, I've already read all the books by him that I have heard of before. Since I don't know much about the works that remain, I figured it made sense to start going in order.
Five Weeks in a Balloon was the first novel in what would become Jules Verne's Extraordinary Voyages series and in it, he developed what came to be his defining style. He called it a "Roman de la Science," or "novel of science," and its aim was to blend an interesting fictional story with educational content about science and geography. Verne developed this genre himself over time and he eventually became so successful at it that he is remembered today as the "father of science fiction." Everything people love about Jules Verne started here, in the pages of this novel.
The plot of the story follows Dr. Samuel Ferguson, a scholar and explorer that sets out to chart the mysterious and vast continent of Africa, most of which is still unknown territory when the story is set. As traveling on foot is treacherous and very slow, he develops a way to travel by balloon instead. He uses a combination of air currents, hydrogen, and a clever invention of his own that allows him to travel the breadth of the continent without running out of gas. He brings two assistants with him, his good friend Richard "Dick" Kennedy, and his manservant, Joe. Together, the three men set out on a five-week journey to see what they can discover. Along the way they run into danger from men, animals, and weather. There are moments that threaten to end the entire expedition and moments that threaten their very lives. However, using a combination of Dr. Ferguson's intelligence, Dick Kennedy's marksmanship, and Joe's agility, they manage to pull themselves out of scrape after scrape and collect more knowledge of the African continent from their perch in the sky than any of the other explorers that came before them.
Overall, this story is a clear window into what Jules Verne's novels would eventually become. It hits all the hallmarks of a typical Verne adventure. There is an intelligent and unflappable hero with a practical friend and a goofy sidekick. There are long sections of factual information broken up by regular adventure sequences. There are scientific explanations provided for everything, including the technology that Verne made up himself. What was missing, however, was the charm. The cleverness and spirit of his later works simply wasn't here. You can certainly tell that these elements were on the way, but this was Verne's first novel and it felt like a first novel.
The plot itself was repetitive and dry. As the balloon took flight, the action settled into a regular pattern of geographical exposition studded with short adventure sections, which the characters generally overcame with very little trouble. The stakes never felt particularly high. With one or two exceptions, most of the difficulties the characters encountered were solved by the end of the chapters they originated in. It was very clear throughout that Verne's main goal in this novel was to convey geographical information, and the bits of the adventure story were purely there to hang the different locations around. In his later works, Verne manages to bring the fact and the fiction in his writing together in a more satisfying way, but that balance was very much still in development here.
Similarly, the characters were fairly bland. All three of the main characters were early versions of what would become Verne's classic personality types, but were all a little bit lacking. Dr. Ferguson was the calm genius, with explanations at the ready for any phenomenon the group encountered. He was an inventor and explorer, with no fear and no ego. This mirrors many of the protagonists Verne would go on to write, but anything truly distinctive about this character was completely missing. He didn't have a witty catch phrase, a discernible sense of humor, or any idiosyncrasies to help him stand out. He was the smart guy and the leader and that was pretty much it. His friend Dick Kennedy was the cautious and loyal best friend. His one distinctive feature was his hunting ability and marksmanship, but beyond those skills, he was fairly bland as well. Ferguson's servant Joe had the most developed personality, as the goofy and capable helper character. He was physically very agile, an excellent cook, charismatic, funny, loyal, and eternally optimistic. His presence usually lightened the mood and brought humor to the story. I enjoyed him the most throughout my reading, but again, I've read better versions of this type of character in other Verne novels, so I knew he could have been developed better.
With both the plot and characters lacking in development, this was never going to be the most exciting read. First novels often aren't, and I suspected this would probably be the case going into my reading. However, there was another element that impacted my experience as well that I wasn't expecting, and that was how very poorly this story has aged. I see this in classics all the time, of course. If you're going to read books written in the past, you are going to encounter outdated views. The views expressed here were particularly unfortunate though, and I was cringing the whole way through.
Five Weeks in a Balloon was published in 1863, and it is set in Africa. You can probably imagine how the African people were depicted. Every stereotype you can imagine was present; Africans were described as either uncivilized, childlike, superstitious, violent, or some combination of all those things. Dr. Ferguson and his friends say a myriad of unkind things about them and the times they interact with them all end in some type of deception or violence. Throughout the story, the characters encounter Black Africans and Arabs, and none of them are depicted well. It's outdated to the point where I could definitely not recommend this novel to anyone, ever. I do not believe that Verne was particularly racist for his time, and his other novels show racial views that are much more enlightened. Here, however, the descriptions of Africans are very stereotypical and it does spoil a modern reading experience.
It is worth mentioning that this novel was an immediate commercial success in its time and it launched Verne's literary career, so the people of the 1860s enjoyed the story quite a bit. Picking it up today, however, and knowing all of the other great works that this author would go on to write, definitely puts it at a disadvantage. It is interesting for those who want to see the origins of a famous author, but definitely not one of Verne's stronger works.
Like many other Verne novels, this story was made into a movie. It was released in 1962 and starred Red Buttons, Fabian, Barbara Eden, and Cedric Hardwicke, among others. I actually gave it a watch, as I was really curious to see how close it would stick to the book. They made a lot of changes; it's really only loosely based on the novel. One of the more notable additions was the inclusion of a government mission to use the balloon to prevent the slave trade from taking root in Africa. The movie also steered away from showing any black African tribes and kept their inclusions of Africans to Arab characters. The depictions were definitely still stereotypical, but much less offensive than the book. They also included some women in the story, along with a chimpanzee helper who drinks alcohol, smokes a pipe, and uses a rifle (he's the best character). The characters also had more defined personalities as well. Dr. Ferguson, for example, was extremely grouchy and sarcastic in the movie, and it was a very entertaining change. Of course, all of the educational elements were eliminated entirely, so the movie was definitely did not have the same goals as Verne's original novel. It was a rather fun watch though, if you can forgive the cultural stereotypes.
So ultimately, Five Weeks in a Balloon was a first novel from an author that would go on to refine his talents and create masterpieces of adventures. It's not a novel I would recommend to anyone, but I'm also not upset I read it. It was a chance to see where one of my favorite authors began, and a nice way to start off a new year of reading.
2023 Reading Challenges Tally:
- Goodreads Reading Challenge: 1/24
- Clear the Shelves 2023: 0/24
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