Book Review 2: Around The World In 80 Days

I wanna sleep, so many books to read. I bet you wanna sleep too eh? Then go ahead! Hope you are late for school! He he! So......what's up? He he! The book for today is Around The World In Eighty Days. Sounds cool right? Nowadays we can travel around the whole world in less than a month. If we were to take a supersonic plane and fly non-stop, we will be able to make a lap at the diameter of the Earth in less than one day! Alright, enough of this crazy facts, time to get to the subject itself.


Around The World In Eighty Days:
The adventure starts with an English man named Phileas Fogg, who bet twenty thousand pounds with his mates at the Reform Club for travelling around the world in eighty days. He was to leave London at 8:45 P.M. on October 2, 1872 and due back at the Reform Club by December 21 at the same time. He kicked of the journey by taking a train with his new valet, a Frenchman named Passepartout, and his mates from the Reform Club were there to see him off. Here is the desired route taken(click on it to view a larger image if you can't see):


Fogg and Passepartout reached Suez in time. While disembarking in Egypt, they were watched by a Scotland Yard detective named Fix, who had been dispatched from London in search of a bank robber. As Fogg matched the description of the bank robber, Fix mistook Fogg as the criminal. Since he could not secure a warrant in time, Fix went on board the steamer conveying the travellers to Bombay. During the voyage, Fix became acquainted with Passepartout, without revealing his purpose. On the voyage, Fogg promised the engineer a large reward if he got them to Bombay early. They dock two days ahead of schedule.

After reaching India they took a train from Bombay to Calcutta. Halfway, Fogg learnt that the Daily Telegraph newspaper article was wrong – the railroad ended at Kholby and started 50 miles further on at Allahabad. Fogg promptly bought an elephant, hired a guide and started towards Allahabad.

During the ride, they came across a suttee procession, in which a young Parsi woman, Aouda, was led to a sanctuary to be sacrificed by the process of sati the next day by Brahmins. Since the young woman was drugged with the smoke of opium and hemp and obviously not going voluntarily, the travellers decided to rescue her. They followed the procession to the site, where Passepartout secretly took the place of Aouda's deceased husband on the funeral pyre, on which she was to be burned the next morning. During the ceremony, he then rised from the pyre, scaring off the priests, and carried the young woman away. Due to this incident, the two days gained earlier were lost but Fogg showed no sign of regret.

The travellers then hasten on to catch the train at the next railway station, taking Aouda with them. At Calcutta, they could finally board a steamer going to Hong Kong. Fix, who had secretly been following them, had Fogg and Passepartout arrested in Calcutta. However, they jump bail and Fix was forced to follow them to Hong Kong. On board, he showed himself to Passepartout, who was delighted to meet again his travelling companion from the earlier voyage.

In Hong Kong, it turned out that Aouda's distant relative, in whose care they had been planning to leave her, had moved, probably to Holland, so they decided to take her with them to Europe. Meanwhile, still without a warrant, Fix saw Hong Kong as his last chance to arrest Fogg on British soil. He therefore confided in Passepartout, who did not believe a word and remained convinced that his master is not a bank robber. To prevent Passepartout from informing his master about the premature departure of their next vessel, Fix got him drunk and drugged him in an opium den. In his dizziness, Passepartout still managd to catch the steamer to Yokohama, but forgot to inform Fogg.

Fogg, on the next day, discovered that the ship had left. He went in search of a vessel that will take him to Yokohama. He finds a pilot boat that took him and Aouda to Shanghai, where they catch a steamer to Yokohama. In Yokohama, they went on a search for Passepartout, believing that he may had arrived there on the original boat. They find him in a circus, trying to earn the fare for his homeward journey. Reunited, the four boarded a steamer taking them across the Pacific to San Francisco. Fix promised Passepartout that now, having left British soil, he will no longer try to delay Fogg's journey, but rather support him in getting back to Britain as fast as possible (to have him arrested there).

In San Francisco they get on a trans-American train to New York, encountering a number of obstacles along the way: a massive herd of bison crossing the tracks, a failing suspension bridge, and most disastrously, the train is attacked and overcome by Sioux Indians. After heroically uncoupling the locomotive from the carriages, Passepartout was kidnapped by the Indians, but Fogg rescued him after some soldiers volunteer to help. They continued by a wind-powered sledge over the snowy prairie to Omaha, where they get a train to New York.

Once they arrived in New York and missed their ship by 35 minutes, Fogg started looking for an alternative for the crossing of the Atlantic Ocean. He found a small steamboat, destined for Bordeaux. However, the captain of the boat refused to take the company to Liverpool, whereupon Fogg consented to be taken to Bordeaux for the price of $2000 per passenger. On the voyage, he bribed the crew to mutiny and take course for Liverpool. Against hurricane winds and going on full steam all the time, the boat ran out of fuel after a few days. Fogg bought the boat at a very high price from the captain, soothing him thereby, and has the crew burn all the wooden parts to keep up the steam.

The companions arrived at Queenstown, Ireland, in time to reach London via Dublin and Liverpool before the deadline. However, once on British soil again, Fix produced a warrant and arrested Fogg. A short time later, the misunderstanding is cleared up—the actual bank robber had been caught three days earlier in Edinburgh. In response to this, Fogg, punches Fix, who fell to the ground. However, Fogg missed the train and returned to London five minutes late, assured that he had lost the wager.

In his London house the next day, he apologised to Aouda for bringing her with him, since he now had to live in poverty and cannot financially support her. Aouda suddenly confessed that she loves him and asked him to marry her, which he gladly accepted. He called for Passepartout to notify the reverend. At the reverend's, Passepartout learnt that he is mistaken in the date, which he takes to be Sunday but which actually is Saturday due to the fact that the party travelled east, thereby gaining a full day on their journey around the globe.

Passepartout hurried back to Fogg, who immediately set off for the Reform Club, where he arrived just in time to win the wager. Fogg married Aouda and the journey around the world is complete.

The Author + My Reflections:
Jules Gabriel Verne was born on 8 February 1828 and passed away on 24 March 1905. He was a French author who started with the science-fiction genre. He is best known for his novels: A Journey to the Centre of the Earth (1864), From the Earth to the Moon (1865), Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea (1869–1870), Around the World in Eighty Days (1873) and The Mysterious Island (1875).

Verne wrote about space, air, and underwater travel even before this machines were invented, and before any means of space travel had been devised. Consequently he is often referred to as the "Father of science fiction", along with H. G. Wells, Hugo Gernsback and Edgar Allan Poe.


Now, I am deeply impressed with the development of the whole story. It was well-flowed and full of exciting scenes which I guarantee you will not stop reading it till the book finishes. Think about it, around the world in just eighty days using nothing but old and run-down technologies of those times. On first thought, I thought Fogg will be going to every single country in the world and coming back to London again. To my surprise, Fogg only cared about taking the shortest route around the world by cutting through and missing many countries. I felt rather cheated by this.


Ain't that an interesting book? Forget about the cheated part. That's your problem and not mine, he he! With that, this post has come to an end and here is another video to brighten you up! I guess that's why I called my blog "Keno Zero's Video Blog". Well, this video may be rather boring for you but you should watch it. Wanna know why? Mind you, this is the first ever classical animation with a character that has an appealing personality. May more posts come your way!