so you finished le tour du monde en 80 jours? :)
Yes !!! I found it very funny, how Fogg has No Emotions Ever. He's polite, but he is English and he will Not express emotions. Is he worried ? Scared ? Happy ? Relieved ? Who knows. He will politly decline seeing the countries and only stay at his hotel to play The Most Silent Of The Games Of Cards. He was carried strapped to the side of an elephant and he didn't even blink. At one point he got a knife out and stiff expressed nothing. He's fascinating to me, I want to study him. He doesn't particularly wants to travel the world but he doesn't hate it either. He will not win any money with his bet. He travels on the word of a publication and his love of precise hours. He's about to kill himself, gives all his money to a women met a month before, and ends up marrying her instead, and it's only THEN that he gets a tiny bit of emotion. Genuinly incredibly funny to read about a guy like that.
And on the other end of the spectrum is Passepartout ! He doesn't even want to be called that ! He wanted to find a stable, uneventful job and he gets roped to discover Suez and India and Japan and be on the worse boat trips ever. He does blashemy in Suez and get drugged in Calcutta and joins a circus in Nagazaki. He doesn't believe then gets scared then gets hopeful. He's so fun and resourceful and I love hiiiiim.
Then Ms Aouda ! First of all, I was so thrilled an Indian woman joined the party mid adventure. She is SO baffled with Fogg whole... thing that she wonders if he hates her. SHE proposes to a pennyless man, so good for her. I do think there's a whole 'white savior' thing that would not fly today, but at least it's based on facts (suttys and kings were a thing, as far as I can tell) and not on a mythologized orientalism. Also, polyam trio ever.
And finally Fix ! I really liked his whole journey of hating Fogg then begrudgingly admitting he's resourful to being genuinly impressed and almost feeling too bad to arrest him. But alas, as always, acab.
One thing I didn't really like was the damned descriptors of everything. They go to a park ? Well you will know in detail every type of tree that there is. You will know quotes about the place and the people and you will know three facs about its geopolitical situations. It was my first Jules Verne book, I didn't know whay to expect, and that is an aspect that I see the author really likes but I personally don't care about (especially when there's comments about hierarchy of people š¬)
On the other hand, I really liked seeing the world in 1872 ! Singapour, a city state that I know excusively for being a rich trade center made out of tall buildings, known as the port by which everything passes, is described as basically a park without a lot of geopolitical interest. Nagazaki was mentionned severa time as a city in Japan, which was a real eye opener on the fact that it was not just 'the place where a bomb was dropped, eradicating it from maps' ; that it meant it WAS on maps before, it was a real, buzzling, important city with actual people. Also I did loved how Jules Vernes disses the Englishs and usamerican, very fun to see that the Frenchs dont change :,)
