Customer Reviews

Around the World in Eighty Days (Enriched Classics (Pocket))

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I read this good book, here in Brazil.This good book was writen more than 120 years ago.And this book remains fun and easy to read.The defects of this book is to be strange, for today's standards.Even being a fiction, this boook is also a good description of life in XIX Century.

A simple story with a decent narrative. What interested me most was the occassional glimpse you get of the world from the vantage point of the mid 1800s - the mormon sermon in the train, suttee (sati) and so forth. Phillis' doubt about the rabbit meat in Bombay (Oh, our reputation did precede us even then!) and his depiction of the haggling elephant mahout does make for a good laugh. The plot is simple and interesting. A series of almost-missed-but-somehow-made-it events with a sprinkling of bollywood-ish scenes here and there (Passerpout rising from the fire with the princess with the villagers prostrating at the event) enable Phillis Fogg to finally traverse the world in 80 days and everything ends happily everafter (except for the guys in the club)

Phileas Fogg makes a bet that he can travel around the world in eighty days. Unfortunately, a London bank is robbed on the same day Mr. Fogg makes this bet. He leaves London with his servant Passepartout and they begin their eighty day journey. They run into many obstacles along the way, but Phileas remains calm and it always seems to work out.

Detective Fix follows Phileas and Passepartout around the world because he believes he is the person who robbed the bank in London. He is not able to arrest him because he doesn't have an arrest warrant and then when he finally gets one, he is in America. He finally arrests Phileas at the end of the journey. This arrests makes Phileas miss the bet deadline. Passepartout saves the day again, but you'll have to read the book to find out how.

I thought this was an interesting book, although it was difficult to read in some parts. It was fun to see how Phileas was going to get out of each situation so his trip wouldn't be delayed. I think Jules Verne could have given Phileas a little more emotion and not make him so bland at times.

Some of the book was difficult to understand because it was written in 1872 and Jules Verne talked about people and places that I didn't know.