Five Weeks in a Balloon

 

Book, 1863

 

Premise - A scientist builds a hot air balloon that can sustain height for long periods of time using only hydrogen. He uses his invention to undertake the most ambitious anthropological and geographical journey, to fly across the entirety of Africa. Accompanied by his manservant and best friend, the three men journey where no white men has ever reached before.

Review - This was the most racist book I have ever read in my entire life, and I don't say that lightly. I made myself finish so I could say, with fervor, that this is the most racist book I have ever read. When I reviewed Around the World in 80 Days a few weeks ago, I spoke of how racism was built into the structure of the novel and cannot be teased apart from the story. Well, if that's the case, than racism is not only built into the structure of this story, it IS the structure. The whole story does not function without these three white men needing to escape the perils of African savages.

In Around the World in 80 Days, I still gave an overall positive review as a book I really enjoyed. I could swallow my social justice side and put on the lens of "this is what a well-educated, well-meaning white man of the time would have thought." With this book, there's no possible way to give that excuse. Oh boy, was this book explicit about its racism. I can't view Jules Verne the same. It's ugly, vulgar, and intentionally cruel.

The premise of the book is that these three white men are sailing across Africa in a balloon. The parts of the novel I enjoyed were man vs. nature, or man vs. animal. When the balloon sails across the desert and they run out of water, suffering intense thirst - I found that survival story so compelling. The same can somewhat be said about the times where they had to battle lions or elephants (though there was a lot of cruelty expressed towards animals throughout the novel, as the best friend character was a professional hunter). However, these were small sections of the book in comparison to the biggest African peril - those savages! (I'm going to use the word savages, but the words used in the book were much more explicit).

They are described as savage, cannibals, no better than animals, they are mistaken for monkeys (no joke, there's a WHOLE scene where they're like "oh my gosh, the balloon is being attacked by monkeys!" and it's not until halfway through the scene where they realize that they aren't monkeys, they're people), their lives are worthless, they take joy in killing them off. They manipulate the Africans. It's SO SO SO SO BAD. And not a single review I could find mentions this, despite several other common complaints.

The typical complaint is that it's just not a good book in comparison to his others, which is true. This was Jules Verne's first novel, and a lot of it was droning and boring. The skeleton was there for future adventure novels to come, including plot twists, situational comedy, a really uppity English man leading the way with an all-too-willing and unreasonably devoted servant - it follows the exact same formula as future novel, Around the World in 80 Days, which you might as well just read instead if you're looking for some travel thrill. (12/100)

Quote - "The safest plan, you see, is to take matters as they come."

What to read for - Like I said, I enjoyed the man vs. nature aspect of it more, as well as man vs. science as they figure out how to control the balloon. Those moments of needing to sacrifice water, and then suffering thirst... man, that was visceral. If the whole book was a survival adventure story like that I would have loved it.

If you liked this book, I'd recommend Around the World in 80 Days!

Written by Jules Verne

Published by Pierre Jules-Hetzel