Customer Reviews

Around the World in Eighty Days (Signet Classics)

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I just read Around the World in 80 Days by Jules Verne. Besides a great book and a fun read, I found there to be a number of principles in there that are useful for managing and executing any project or undertaking. Without giving away too much of the book if you haven't yet read it, here it goes:

1) Singleness of purpose: Phileas Fogg had one goal in mind. It was not to tour the world and learn about new cultures. It was to win the bet with the Reform Club that he could circumnavigate the globe in 80 days or less. Granted he may have missed out on some chances to learn a new language or receive insight into the way others live, but that was not his goal and he knew it.

2) Availability of resources: It's true that money can't buy you love but it can buy a heckuva lot of other things! Having the cash that he did bailed him and Passapourt out of many a jam throughout their adventure. You should always count the cost before taking on any venture in terms of financial and human resources.

3) Keep a cool head: If Phileas Fogg was nothing else it was unflappable, composed, self-possessed, and cool-as-a-cucumber. No matter what the obstacle, he never lost his composure. Bringing a project in on time and within budget means dealing with all of the issues that come up with coolness, logic, and good decision-making.

4) Openess to risk: Phileas Fogg was willing to risk his entire venture to save the woman Auoda from death. He was not reckless, however! He was able to work himself into a position to take this risk by getting ahead of schedule where he could afford to try and save the woman. Success in this venture leads to one of the greatest benefits of the entire voyage although he does not know it at the time.

5) Expect the unexpected: Early in the tale when confronted with all the uncertainties involved in his proposed endeavor, Phileas states simply that "The unforeseen does not exist." What he means is that every roadblock can be anticipated with enough foresight. Likewise, we can use careful planning to mitigate many of the possible pitfalls for any given project we undertake.

A great exercise would be to have your young reader (11 or older) read the book and see if they can pull any of these principles out and use it as a discussion starter. Enjoy Jules' fun classic of adventure!!

Anyone having seen the movie of the 1950's starring David Niven will be quite familiar with this novel from Jules Verne. None-the-less, the story is a pleasure to read whether one knows the outcome or not.

Jules Verne had wanted to be a writer from childhood but to please his parents (his father was a lawyer) studied to become a lawyer. Trying to combine the requirements of the law and the desires of his heart, he worked for awhile as a lawyer while writing, but eventually switched over to full time writing.

He began to write books of adventure and daring, which led to a string of books some have called 'extraordinary voyages', which include Voyage Around the World, Five Weeks In A Balloon, Journey To The Center Of The Earth, and 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea. One of the later novels in this long series was the present novel, written from a serious viewpoint but also with touch of comedy, an element previously unknown in the writings of Jules Verne. He confessed to picking up the idea of the story while in a cafe, that it was now possible (1872) to travel around the world in 80 days. With the writing of this novel, Jules Verne, wrote the most popular novel of any of his many books; and to this day, the book remains a classic. One of the unusual features of the story is the manner in which Verne uses, as did Edgar Allen Poe earlier, the international date line to have a major influence on the outcome of the story.

One of the more surprising facts of Jules Verne's life is that he did not travel, even living in Paris amounted to too much noise and busy activity, so he moved north of the city 80 miles or so to his wife's hometown of Amiens, there to live out the remainder of his life in peace and quiet. The closest he got to any travel was the railroad that daily ran past his house. Yes, the author of so many travel and adventure stories never, ever, went traveling himself. So if you read that this most popular novel of his is an armchair adventure book, you can believe it. For its author never ventured forth, with only a couple exceptions, from his armchair either!

Semper Fi.

If you have ever had the desire for travel outside of your own borders and have an appreciation for creative thinking, then this is must read for you! By reading this Jules Verne classic, you'll be taking your mind and your heart on a much needed and worthy vacation.

Classic Jules Verne! This book is my favorite of his, at least so far. It's got everything in it - suspense, action, romance, travel, humor. Just read it. It's fantastic!

Having re-read this timeless story (I first read it as a 12-year-old on a sick bed) again. I have found that Around the World in Eighty Days can still ignite the imagination and spark off a sense of adventure, almost thirty-eight years later. Every back-packer, the world over, should carry a copy of this book with them. It is a definite must read for anyone who wishes to travel overseas.

Phileas Fogg sets off on a reckless adventure, not just merely to win a wager, but simply because he wishes to prove his opinion is right. While every reader latches on to the fact that there is a wager, they tend to overlook that Fogg is designed to be Verne's mouthpiece advocating the brilliance of modern invention, industry and -- yes -- technology. Through Fogg, Verne shows how the world is made shorter by faster means of travel and the monumental organisational skills of the workers in the transport companies, feverishly working out departure times, travelling times and correlating that with the departure times and travelling times of other means of transport. This book is Jules Verne's tribute to that ingenuity.

What could be more emblematic of Jules Verne's `Around the World in 80 Days' than Phileas Fogg's famous flight in a French balloon? Heck, it even graces the cover of my book. Turns out Fogg never flies in a balloon, in fact the various movies based on the Verne classic added a lot that isn't in the book. Phileas Fogg is one of Verne's more memorable characters being a stereotypical over starched Brit with top hat and cane. Fogg is neurotically obsessed with time and precision and when he makes a suggestion at the gentleman's `Reform Club' that one could circumnavigate the world within 80 days he's met with a substantial wager challenging him to prove it. With that Phileas Fogg and his newly hired French valet Jean Passepartout set off almost immediately with the intention of circling the Earth and arriving back at the Reform Club in precisely 80 days. His challenge is made more difficult when he's mistaken for a bank thief and finds himself unwittingly followed around the world by Detective Fix intent on bringing Fogg back to England to face justice.

There are some adventures along the way but by and large the raison d'etre for the book is to give Verne the opportunity to demonstrate his knowledge of foreign lands and cultures (his accuracy may be debatable). In `From the Earth to the Moon' Verne could show off his knowledge of ballistics, in `Journey to the Center of the Earth' he could talk about geology and here it's geography. One difference between this book and the former two is that this one is not science fiction. It's mostly about train schedules and catching boats before they set sail. The movies emphasized his various modes of transportation (including the nonexistent balloon flight) but Fogg only jumped from vehicle to vehicle out of necessity and I never got the impression that this was intended as the focus of the book besides an unplanned ride on an elephant in India. Verne's goal is generally to entertain and educate and not necessarily in that order. For instance an entire chapter is devoted to the history of Mormonism as Fogg and his Passepartout ride a train traveling across the United States.

This is my third Jules Verne novel having recently read `From the Earth to the Moon' and `Journey to the Center or the Earth' and it's probably my favorite. `Journey to the Center of the Earth' was too absurd to be taken seriously and `From the Earth to the Moon' was a bit shallow in plot and characterization. I was glad to see Verne actually include a significant female character even though Princess Aouda is fairly flat. This criticism could also be leveled against Phileas Fogg who is a wonderful caricature of the unflappable British gentleman but really has little depth. I'm sure most readers root for Fogg but without feeling emotionally invested in the character his success or failure is of little matter. Besides the rescuing of Princess Aouda and an attack by Native American's on a train ride there isn't a whole lot of action which is why the films needed to add so much material.

Generally the book is about Phileas Fogg trying to reach all his connecting ships and trains and often missing them forcing him to find alternate transports (i.e. a different boat). It's somewhat repetitive so it's probably a good thing that the book is fairly short. The plot is also rather dated now that man can circle the Earth in well under a week so you have to put yourself in the state of mind for the time it was written. It's a good book but I have yet to give any of Verne's books the full five stars.

Finally after nearly fifty years I have read this book of which I have seen several movie versions.

It is just great fun from start to finish. The characters are one dimensional but that does not detract from the adventures Fogg and his companions have on their trip around the world.

As I am probably one of the last people on the planet to read this it won't be a plot spoiler to say that the bet was won and the enterprise was successful.

Of all the movie versions made, the one with David Niven is the most enjoyable but even then the script writers had to meddle with the story. The story its self requires no meddling and should have been able to be transposed from the book to the screen, but no they had to try and tweek it a bit , never mind, if you haven't read this do, its great.

This is a delightful story based on a wonderful concept. My only complaint was that, at times, the novel seemed to have some "padding" --- place descriptions perhaps based on some travel book, subplots which didn't ring quite true, and so forth. The Indian raid on the train struck me as the least plausible.

But why quibble? The world loved this book, and still does. And if you love the book, you might want to seek out the magnificent movie made from this story: Around the World in 80 Days (Two-Disc Special Edition). Excellent acting, good fun all around, and Cantinflas steals the show as Passepartout.

This book was originally published as episodes in Le Temps in 1873, and they became an immediate sensation. And in a case of life imitating art, the episodes' actual readers wagered on the outcome. The story has protagonist, Phileas Fogg, an English gentleman of comfortably sedentary habits, making a spontaneous wager with other members of his club as to his ability to circumnavigate the globe in eighty days or less. Mind you, the first steam-powered vessel had been launched only thirty years earlier, and steam was still considered auxiliary to sail power. Dependence on the wind for powering ships made the timing of arrival dates quite iffy, and multiple rail and ship connections were a certain source of delay and frustration. For a gentleman to wager what amounted to half of his life savings on the complete avoidance of such delays would have, in those days, amounted to lunacy. It was only with some difficulty that Fogg prevailed on his wagering counterparties to take the bet, since they too were gentlemen.

With twenty-twenty hindsight, many of these late nineteenth century science fiction stories look remarkably droll, and for a modern reader to share the excitement of the original audience, something akin to science fiction is absolutely essential - transporting ourselves back 136 years. Imagine being a resident of a small town anywhere in Europe, and being suddenly hoisted by the power of compellingly written fiction to the back of an elephant in the Indian jungle. Imagine strolling around the streets of Yokohama and joining a band of wandering performers. Imagine fighting off Sioux warriors from the windows of a speeding train. Perhaps imagining being accosted by a Mormon missionary wouldn't be quite so difficult for the modern reader, since that, at least, hasn't changed since the author's day.

But it is not only science, and not only geographic and cultural literacy which has advanced over the intervening century. The craft of fiction has advanced to the point that Jules Verne's narrative in a streaming passive voice makes the book seem antiquarian to a degree that its archaic world view doesn't. The reader willingly suspends disbelief regarding character and plot, but more than an occasional abuse of the passive voice is difficult for the modern reader to accept. It dates the book in a way that the headlining of steam power doesn't.

The reason, though, that the story survives in our imaginations is Jules Verne's exceptional ability to create and maintain tension from page to page. Phileas Fogg gets two days ahead of his schedule, and we eagerly anticipate the setbacks which we know must thwart his program. He gets two days "behindhand," becomes separated from his travelling companions, and we churn with anxiety lest he miss his next critical connection.

The careful reader will find facts and figures which date the book, and only add to its charm, e.g., "Everybody knows...that India has a population of one hundred and eighty million souls." This must have seemed incredible to an England with a population of twenty-two million, but it pales beside the current population, 1.1 billion, a number which science fiction could never have attempted without ridicule. A very brief reference to Chicago, as "already risen from its ruins" places the book one year after the Great Chicago Fire of 1871. And while the breadth of Verne's cultural literacy is remarkable for the time, he does manage to get some facts wrong, e.g., the "mangos" he describes are certainly "mangosteens," based on his detailed description.

For a reader of the classics, "Around the World in Eighty Days" is mandatory. For a modern jet-setter, it is a delight. For a student of the history of English literature, the language itself is a destination.

Fast shipping, great condition!! Our local bookstore closed recently...thank goodness for the ability to find the books my kids need for school and get them in time for their deadlines!! So much easier for us now!!!!