Definitely Not For The First Time

A lot of what we accept as normal inventions or ideas first came from the mind of a writer. Many have been knowingly been turned into some sort of reality. It’s no coincidence that at the 1976 dedication ceremony for the Space Shuttle Enterprise the cast of Star Trek were present, just don’t tell Orwell what his nightmare world was turned into. Other things were probably where we were headed anyway, so stories set in the future included technology that seemed the obvious progression of the science of the day; and as we are now in the future we have some of these things. Do you want a small pocket sized device on which you can read articles on just about anything and anywhere? You can either have the Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy or you can have a phone and go to Wikipedia, or even just Google. Of course Douglas Adams didn’t invent the internet or smart phones, but he was smart enough to get the idea down on paper.

Sometimes though an idea deliberately created for a novel is just too good not turn into reality. In the late 80s something happened on BBC Television that changed the way a lot of of us saw travel programmes or indeed travel itself, and it all started almost a century earlier in the Reform Club in France.

Jules Verne was an established writer by the 1870s. He’d already written books we still know to this day: Voyage au centre de la Terre or Journey to the Center of the Earth, De la Terre à la Lune or From the Earth to the Moon and Vingt Mille Lieues sous les mers or Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea. However in the 1870s he hit upon his probably most famous work.

Born in 1828 in Nantes, Brittany, France Jules Gabriel Verne was a visionary. His works as a writer generally dealt with the fantastic, so in 1872, when Le Tour du monde en quatre-vingts jours or Around the World in Eighty Days was first published, how realistic was it? By the late 1800s pretty much all of the world had been discovered and transport was making getting about in it easier to the point that even the every day man or woman had opportunities to go places that they’d never of been able to visit before. Train networks were opening up on land and for sea travel more and more faster ships were launching, whilst the opening of the Suez Canal made life a whole lot easier for getting to Asia from Europe. Around The World In 80 Days wasn’t as far fetched as from Earth To the Moon, I mean that was still about 100 years off.

The novel is about a very rich man, Phileas Fogg, who enters a bet to circumnavigate the globe in 80 days; travel was possible and open, physically, but it still would have cost a fortune to do it. The novel tells of the adventures of his epic journey and if he completed his bet. Aside from the concept, it’s a really good read. I knew what happened by the time I got the book, yet I was still on the edge of my seat. Adventure and travel, even today with aeroplanes and Google, these things are what we dream off, well I do. How much more so to someone who’s world was a lot smaller?

“Unhappily for his master, as well as himself, his curiosity drew him unconsciously farther off than he intended to go. At last, having seen the Parsee carnival wind away in the distance, he was turning his steps towards the station, when he happened to espy the splendid pagoda on Malabar Hill, and was seized with an irresistible desire to see its interior. He was quite ignorant that it is forbidden to Christians to enter certain Indian temples, and that even the faithful must not go in without first leaving their shoes outside”
― Jules Verne, Around the World in 80 Days

And so as Around The World in 80 Days became literature almost straight away readers wanted to make it reality. In 1889 American journalist Nellie Bly (Elizabeth Cochran Seaman) set off from New York, rather than the Reform Club in London where Fogg began his journey, and competed the task in just 72 days. She then wrote a book called Around the World in Seventy-Two Days, which to be honest I’m still to read, I’ll keep you posted.

Through the next century, even though travel was becoming more commonplace, Verne’s book still fascinated people. More attempts were made to recreate it or at least a version of it. The story of Fogg transcended the page to become films and television dramas. The first I came across the tale was as the slightly odd cartoon Around the World with Willy Fog, where all the characters are animals, Fog is a lion. As a kid I loved it and would tune in for each episode to watch the cartoon world unfold before me; I can still sing you the theme song. I quickly learnt it was from a book, but at that age I wanted the cartoon lion.

Then in 1988, for broadcast a year later, the BBC decided to have a go at it, for real. The result was Around the World in 80 Days with Michael Palin. Travel was to follow the route Fogg took and, like in the novel, there would be no air travel (which would have made things a whole lot easier). From a broadcasting point of view the team that made it got everything right, starting with it being Michael Palin who accepted the challenge (after others had turned it down). For seven weeks in late 1989 nearly everyone I knew was talking about it. Palin wrote a book based on the journey which became a No. 1 best seller. I was still a child then, but even then I knew this was an event. British audiences had not really seen travel like this before on their screens and it became a template for a lot that followed after.

“8.30. On board the Al Shama Captain Suleyman is beaming. Something must be wrong. It is. We won’t be leaving quite as early as we thought, so plenty of time to settle in to our quarters. These appear to be on top of some boxes of sultanas where a flat space has been cleared and covered in a tarpaulin. The boat looks very spruce. The Captain is proud of the fact that he has cleaned the paintwork, not just with ordinary water, but with drinking water.”
― Michael Palin, Around the World in 80 Days

The strange thing was that when Verne wrote the original book sailing around the world was just beginning, the opportunities were opening up, when Palin did it the there were less ships to work with and the days of shipping were drying up due to air travel. His book is just as a good of a read as the original and if you are going to read just one, you’re probably missing out. Both books have a real heart to their respective adventures, so much so that they really make you feel part of it all.

Already a successful comedian and actor this launched Palin’s career in a whole new direction, as well as TV travel documentaries in general. I once met Michael Palin; it was at an signing of a later travel book. I stood in the queue to get my copy signed but time ran out, there were just too many people there; regardless he told everyone he’d stay and sign our books and he did just that, still joking and happily making time for everyone.

Things from literature do become reality every now and then, but seeing both Verne’s and Palin’s books upon my shelf just makes me smile and feeds my own wanderlust.

Since the late 80s the same story, first thought up by Jules Verne, has be retold many more times, in various ways and to various degrees of quality. Just goes to show, despite the changes in the world, the ease of travel and getting information about distant lands, a great story has power to keep on living.

Buy Around The World In 80 Days – by Jules Verne
Buy Around The World In 80 Days – by Michael Palin

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