JULES VERNE

Biography

Olivier Woodes-Farquharson worships at the shrine of one of the most influential authors of the 19th Century, whose legacy continues to shape both adventure writing and scientific innovation to this day

“Captain Nemo maintains a pathological loathing of oppression, and in particular imperialism, but we are never sure why. For every moment of terror that he imbues in his captives, there is a moment of tenderness and vulnerability, all against a backdrop of a never-ending exploration of the wonders of the ocean’s depths. Here indeed is the quintessential antihero, enigmatic to the last”

he most translated author in history, as quite

Ta few children are unnecessarily taught, is Agatha Christie. Some, naturally, believe this to be a mark of distinction; others take a sniffier view. Whilst her plots are fiendishly clever, her writing style has dated abominably, meaning that – whisper it – some of the translations could actually be an improvement on the originals to the modern reader. No such accusation could ever be levelled at the author in second place on that list, the incomparable Jules Verne. Christie may have made the whodunit her own, but Verne’s legacy plunges far deeper. A deliriously exciting writer of action adventure, he was – even more than H G Wells – the true pioneer of science fiction before it even had a name, and almost single-handedly inspired the entire movement of thought, fashion and retrofuturistic design that we now call Steampunk. And forget Marvel; Verne’s novels established a timeless and self-contained Universe a century before anyone had heard of Iron Man or Captain America.

Verne’s outlook was always likely to be broad. Born on 8th February 1828 to Pierre and Sophie Verne in the French town of Nantes, he was surrounded from an early age by the big ships and shipbuilders that serviced that busy port city via the mighty river Loire. His prodigious imagination even

“Hetzel had rejected Paris in the 20th Century in 1863 for being ‘utterly unbelievable and too pessimistic’. Set in 1960 – therefore a century in Verne’s future – the novel follows an arts graduate’s increasingly forlorn attempts to make it in a dystopian society where culture and people play an increasingly minor role to business and technology”

then was immersed in climbing aboard those mighty vessels and sailing pretty much anywhere. These memories would later inspire many of his stories.

Verne started writing plays and poetry from an early age, but he first had to overcome a traditional father desperate for him to follow into the legal profession. He duly moved to Paris and graduated (experiencing the 1848 revolution first-hand along the way), and soon accepted a job offer from his brother-in-law as a stockbroker, but always rose two hours early so that he could write every morning before going to his paid job.

By the late 1850s he had tentatively started writing adventure novels, and with his extra income he reconnected with the shipping influence of his youth and, with his wife, the young writer was drawn repeatedly to Britain, sailing there on the first of over 20 trips to the island that would shape many of his future characters, including the unflappable Phileas Fogg from Around the World in 80 Days. He developed a particular affinity with Scotland, sailing there directly on more than one occasion on one of his succession of yachts, which he always called the Saint Michel.

While playing around with an adventure novel tentatively called Voyage en Ballon, Verne’s great break happened in the early 1860s when he met PierreJules Hetzel, already renowned as publisher for Victor Hugo, George Sand and Honoré de Balzac.

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Still from Journey to the Centre of the Earth (1959)

Keen to launch a family magazine combining fiction and science education, Hetzel had found – in Verne’s breathless but scientifically wellresearched prose – his missing jigsaw piece. With a few editorial interventions, including changing its name to Cinq Semaines en Ballon (Five weeks in a Balloon), Hetzel published Verne’s first adventure novel in early 1863, and drew up a long-term contract with the overjoyed Verne to produce two or three texts a year in the same vein, to be serialised in Magasin d'Éducation et de Récréation before appearing in book form.

The true masterstroke happened when Verne’s next book, The Adventures of Captain Hatteras, was published the following year. Verne had had the idea, supported by Hetzel, that this would be the first of a series of hugely ambitious novels that would be called the Voyages Extraordinaires, with Verne’s aim being to “to outline all the geographical, geological, physical, and astronomical knowledge amassed by modern science and to recount, in an entertaining and picturesque format that is [my] own, the history of the universe”. The concept of a ‘Literary Universe’ was conceived, with characters from certain books occasionally appearing or being alluded to in others, and with each story possessing a relentless drive to travel, explore, experiment and push the boundaries of the scientifically possible. The public was hooked, and not just in France.

First out in 1864 was Voyage Au Centre de la Terre (Journey to the Centre of the Earth), where eccentric and ludicrously impatient German professor Otto Lidenbrock believes there are volcanic tubes that reach to the very centre of the earth. He therefore makes his way to the Snaefellsjokull volcano in Iceland with his nephew Axel, finds a local guide called Hans, and the trio discover and explore a stunning but dangerous subterranean world with tornadoes, cave-ins, mighty underground oceans, 12-foot humanoids and more than a few prehistoric animals, all lit by electrically charged gas near its ceiling. They eventually get spewed out of another volcano, which they learn to be Stromboli in Sicily.

The tale is bonkers, but utterly riveting. The professor is infuriating – Verne’s sly dig at the Germans, who were hardly friends of France at the time – but the plot is unrelenting, and the imagination vast. Anyone who has read The Lost World can be under no illusion as to where Arthur Conan Doyle’s inspiration came from. It is also rigorously researched. Verne was able to draw on the emerging schools of palaeontology and

Captain Nemo, played by James Mason in 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (1954)

geology in a convincing way, and without letting it hinder the story. One of the 20th Century’s great science luminaries, Arthur C Clarke, maintained: “The reason Verne is still read by millions today is simply that he was one of the best storytellers who ever lived; and Journey to the Centre of the Earth is a particularly flawless specimen of his art”. Hollywood clearly agreed, with over a dozen adaptations of it over the years.

Markedly different, but equally effective, was 1870’s Vingt Mille Lieues Sous les Mers (20,000 Leagues Under the Sea). The action starts immediately, when in 1866 ships from around the world keep sighting a sea monster that could be a vast whale and which is damaging shipping. The US government gathers a team to capture the monster. After five months of frustration, they locate the monster in the Western Pacific, are attacked by it, and after the three men are hurled into the Ocean, discover it is in fact a vast submarine.

We are then introduced to two of the most influential creations in 19th Century literature. The first is the captain of the vessel, the utterly mysterious and inscrutable Captain Nemo. The name itself is telling: Latin for ‘Nobody’. His age is impossible to gauge, although he is an amazing physical specimen, and his exact origins are deliberately obfuscated. All Arronax, our narrator, can tell is that he appears to be of South Asian heritage – a fact often overlooked by Hollywood casting directors.

Nemo is hugely complex. A vastly rich scientific genius who can converse in many languages, he refuses to go on dry land, except deserted islands and Antarctica; he only uses products of the ocean, foregoing many landassociated luxuries; and he maintains a pathological loathing of oppression, and in particular imperialism, but we are never sure why. Yet he is courageous beyond reproach and maintains a deep and mutual devotion to his crew, while clearly possessing a dark soul that can snap in an instant. For every moment of terror that he imbues in his captives, there is a moment of tenderness and vulnerability, all against a backdrop of a neverending exploration of the wonders of the ocean’s depths. Here, indeed, is the quintessential antihero, enigmatic to the last.

The other creation that has transcended the story is the submarine itself, the Nautilus. A conception of wonder, both by Nemo himself in the novel and of Verne’s imagination, the Nautilus

is described as a 1500 cubic metre ‘masterpiece containing masterpieces’, travelling at up to 43 knots on sodium batteries, with the sodium distilled from seawater and the batteries providing electricity as well as propulsion. It is not just way ahead of its time with its engineering (Verne accurately predicted battery powered submarines decades before they were developed), it is also ecologically sound, providing a carbon neutral footprint at a time of exponential growth in industrial pollution.

The Nautilus – more than any other literary invention – is the inspiration behind Steampunk. Its retrofuturistic feel, specifically bringing out the perfect balance between technology and design, between form and function, embodies perfectly the Steampunk ideal – all the more powerful bearing in mind the word itself was not coined until 1987. Verne’s prophetic influence on this subgenre continued with many other works, notably Robur the Conqueror and its sequel Master of the World, where the protagonist flies his huge multi-rotor airship, the Albatross, across the world’s skies, causing panic and awe everywhere.

In all, Verne wrote 54 novels within the Voyages Extraordinaires, all of which remain in print and voraciously devoured to this day. Verne’s enormous output came despite continual health challenges. He increasingly suffered from colitis, giving him severe stomach cramps, as well as Bell’s palsy, a temporary form of one-sided facial paralysis caused by damage to the facial nerve. He then developed diabetes in his 50s, leaving him partially blind. 1886 proved especially traumatic. First his mother and then his publisher Hetzel died. Further, on 9th March, as Verne returned home, his mentally ill 26-year-old nephew Gaston suddenly became violent, grabbed a pistol and shot Verne, the second bullet lodging in his left leg and leaving the now world-famous author with a limp for the rest of his life.

Verne died on 24th March 1905 at his home in Amiens. But by then, his body of work had been immortalized, with novels such as Around the World in 80 Days, Michael Strogoff, The Mysterious Island and many others adding to his lustre. Indeed, it is hard to overstate both the scale and scope of Verne’s lasting influence. Famed American submarine designer Simon Lake started his autobiography with the words, “Jules Verne was in a sense the director–general of my life”. Igor Sikorsky was equally unequivocal, citing Robur the Conqueror as his main source of inspiration in developing the world’s first functioning helicopter. Edwin Hubble, the legendary astronomer latterly of telescope fame, was clear in stating Verne’s From the Earth to the Moon as his main reason for giving up a career in law to pursue a hugely successful life in science.

For writers with foresight, mere death seldom spells an end to how they shape future events, and this is no less true of Verne; indeed, in 1989, he was still capable of surprise. While rummaging through Verne’s affairs, his great-grandson stumbled across a manuscript called Paris in the 20th Century. Although written in 1863, Hetzel had rejected it at the time for being ‘utterly unbelievable and too pessimistic’. Set in 1960 – therefore a century in Verne’s future – the novel follows an arts graduate’s increasingly forlorn attempts to make it in a dystopian society where culture and people play an increasingly minor role to business and technology.

Among a host of other predictions, the novel describes – with astonishing prescience – cars with internal combustion engines, underground railway networks, skyscrapers, elevators, department stores, synthesizers, harnessed wind power, feminism, and even a mechanism sending quick messages across vast distances that sounds frighteningly like the internet. Although published in 1994, it is hard to wrap one’s head around the fact that it had been written 130 years earlier. Perhaps Jules did, after all, secretly develop one of his gloriously described machines, one that allowed time travel into the future. Either way, as acclaimed US author Ray Bradbury wrote, “We are all, in one way or another, the children of Jules Verne”. n

“Among a host of other predictions, the novel describes – with astonishing prescience – cars with internal combustion engines, underground railway networks, skyscrapers, elevators, department stores, synthesizers, harnessed wind power, feminism, and even a mechanism sending quick messages across vast distances that sounds frighteningly like the internet”