So I finally finished Five Weeks in a Balloon, and I didn’t end up liking it any more as it went on. I don’t really know why, but the story just didn’t appeal to me. But the literal narrative aside, the book is a sad reminder of the predominant European condescension towards Africa and anyone of color back in the 1800′s (Five Weeks was published in 1863).
I believe I already mentioned that the book starts exactly the same as all of his other exploration stories (versus his survival stories, which start with a catastrophic event whisking a group of intrepid men somewhere or other). Since this is an earlier work, and I’ve already read many of Verne’s later works, I think the unabashed racism comes as a bit of a shock compared to the more tolerant, albeit ignorant, tones of the later stories.
Some quotes:
Nonchalance towards slavery, listing slaves among other “luxuriant items” traded by Arabs in Africa: “They trade in gums, ivory, fine muslin and slaves. Their caravans traverse these equatorial regions… in search of those articles of luxury and enjoyment which the wealthy merchants covet.”
On the finer things in Africa: “Why is it that such savage countries get all these fine things?”
A foreboding of the consequences of overconsumption: “The races of the future may repair hither… Just note the progress of events: .. Asia was the first nurse of the world… For about four thousand years she travailed, she grew pregnant, she produced, and then, when stones began to cover the soil… her children abandoned her exhausted and barren bosom. You next see them precipitating themselves upon young and vigorous Europe, which has nourished them for the last two thousand years. But already her fertility is beginning to die out; …Thus we are already seeing the millions rushing to the luxuriant bosom of America… In its turn, that new continent will grow old; its virgin forests will fall before the axe of industry, and its soil will become weak through having too fully produced what had been demanded of it…. Then, Africa will be there to offer to new races the treasures that for centuries have been accumulating in her breast.”
Although this hasn’t happened, because Verne, like all the other shortsighted white men back in the day, didn’t give the African people any credit towards utilizing their own native resources, and didn’t even foresee them as having the intellectual capacity to develop technology and trade to destroy their homeland on their own, or to suffer remotely the consequences of globalized capitalism, corruption and pollution.
I guess that on top of the story of three white dudes in a balloon over Africa not appealing to me, I was constantly pulled out of the story by moronic, ignorant remarks about the “black savages” and the superiority of Europeans.
“These tribes are considered man-eaters… It has also been asserted that these natives had tails, like mere quadrupeds; but it was soon discovered that these appendages belonged to the skins of animals that they wore for clothing… But one thing that has been proven true is the ferocity of these tribes, who are really fond of human flesh…”
“…If I have to be eaten, in a moment of famine, I want it to be for your [his companions'] benefit…; but the idea of feeding those black fellows–gracious! I’d die of shame!”
There’s a lot more, but you get the idea. Also, I didn’t enjoy reading about how much fun it was for the sportsman in the group to kill elephants, and how much he wanted to just kill everything he saw for sport. Yes, Europeans were so very civilized.
Then there’s the fun reading the translation of Verne’s French. As previously mentioned, Verne’s translator often used the verb “ejaculate” to indicate an interjection in the dialogue. It happened a lot in this book, along with some other choices of words that are comical after 100+ years of language evolution. Some funny quotes:
“The Victoria resumed her flight, driven along by a spanking breeze.”
“Be quiet on that score, my dear Dick. With a little medicine, I shall work my way through the affair!”
“Ah!” ejaculated Kennedy, “the horrible brute! I can hold back no longer.”
“Oh!” ejaculated the astonished friends.
So I didn’t like this one, but the later books really are a world apart in their tone. And though Verne was probably playing up the characteristics of the arrogant British rather than expressing any agenda of his own (he was generally more about capturing realism in his stories), it is just a sad reminder of why the slave trade was so ubiquitously accepted at the time. But I don’t recommend reading this book unless you’re fascinated by the science of balloon travel. Around the World in Eighty Days is a much better adventure story.
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