Comments on: Around the World in Eighty Days http://www.wisemandarine.com/around-the-world-in-quatre-vingt-jours/ none the wiser Thu, 18 Mar 2010 03:43:50 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.2.2 By: polaris http://www.wisemandarine.com/around-the-world-in-quatre-vingt-jours/#comment-8642 polaris Sat, 05 Jan 2008 04:03:37 +0000 http://www.wisemandarine.com/around-the-world-in-quatre-vingt-jours/#comment-8642 Good catch, mandarine. But please give the old man a break :-). "Around the world in 80 days" was, if memory serves me right, the first novel I ever read from start to finish. It was an abridged copy though, with pictures on every other page. This was soon followed by Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea. Good catch, mandarine. But please give the old man a break :-).

“Around the world in 80 days” was, if memory serves me right, the first novel I ever read from start to finish. It was an abridged copy though, with pictures on every other page.

This was soon followed by Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea.

]]> By: mandarine http://www.wisemandarine.com/around-the-world-in-quatre-vingt-jours/#comment-8628 mandarine Sun, 30 Dec 2007 14:03:35 +0000 http://www.wisemandarine.com/around-the-world-in-quatre-vingt-jours/#comment-8628 When I see how grotesque some interpretations of scientific or technological facts can be in many novels or movies when they dare to wander over my fields (space, aeronautics), I often think of all the other stories I enjoy and for which I do not have the same sharp tools and can be completely fooled (legal thrillers, medicine, war, etc.). Maybe the sad alternative for a writer is either to keep to a very narrow specialist's niche (for instance an engineer writing sci-fi or a cop writing detective stories) or be a lifelong amateur. When I see how grotesque some interpretations of scientific or technological facts can be in many novels or movies when they dare to wander over my fields (space, aeronautics), I often think of all the other stories I enjoy and for which I do not have the same sharp tools and can be completely fooled (legal thrillers, medicine, war, etc.). Maybe the sad alternative for a writer is either to keep to a very narrow specialist’s niche (for instance an engineer writing sci-fi or a cop writing detective stories) or be a lifelong amateur.

]]> By: Litlove http://www.wisemandarine.com/around-the-world-in-quatre-vingt-jours/#comment-8624 Litlove Sat, 29 Dec 2007 14:23:36 +0000 http://www.wisemandarine.com/around-the-world-in-quatre-vingt-jours/#comment-8624 This is where my lack of scientific knowledge helps me. I always enjoy Verne as it shows exactly how people at the end of the century with an interest in science believed the world to be. There's masses and masses of fun fantasy stuff there for a literary critic to play with, because science is never free from the ideology of the age in which it was created. You get mad at Verne, dear Mandarine, because you believe in the absolute truth-value of science, but it indulges in pictures and symbols just like any other domain of so-called knowledge. In a hundred years people will laugh their heads off at literature written on the cutting edge of scientific thought today. There's always so much we don't know and need our imaginations to invent. Verne needed Fogg to make the trip in 80 days whilst being sure he had failed; the jiggery-pokery with the dates doesn't matter much. It was the narrative pull of a quasi-scientific 'surprise' at the end that counted to Verne. The strange discrepancies in the world around us could be helpful as well as disconcerting. This is where my lack of scientific knowledge helps me. I always enjoy Verne as it shows exactly how people at the end of the century with an interest in science believed the world to be. There’s masses and masses of fun fantasy stuff there for a literary critic to play with, because science is never free from the ideology of the age in which it was created. You get mad at Verne, dear Mandarine, because you believe in the absolute truth-value of science, but it indulges in pictures and symbols just like any other domain of so-called knowledge. In a hundred years people will laugh their heads off at literature written on the cutting edge of scientific thought today. There’s always so much we don’t know and need our imaginations to invent. Verne needed Fogg to make the trip in 80 days whilst being sure he had failed; the jiggery-pokery with the dates doesn’t matter much. It was the narrative pull of a quasi-scientific ’surprise’ at the end that counted to Verne. The strange discrepancies in the world around us could be helpful as well as disconcerting.

]]> By: mandarine http://www.wisemandarine.com/around-the-world-in-quatre-vingt-jours/#comment-8621 mandarine Sat, 29 Dec 2007 08:12:04 +0000 http://www.wisemandarine.com/around-the-world-in-quatre-vingt-jours/#comment-8621 Emily: beats me kate: so they did with me at the time. Sometimes, I think re-reading an old book teaches me more than reading a new one. Emily: beats me

kate: so they did with me at the time. Sometimes, I think re-reading an old book teaches me more than reading a new one.

]]> By: kate http://www.wisemandarine.com/around-the-world-in-quatre-vingt-jours/#comment-8619 kate Sat, 29 Dec 2007 05:06:01 +0000 http://www.wisemandarine.com/around-the-world-in-quatre-vingt-jours/#comment-8619 Oh my ... all of these discrepancies would have probably sailed right by me. I read this book in my teens and I don't remember much of it. Oh my … all of these discrepancies would have probably sailed right by me. I read this book in my teens and I don’t remember much of it.

]]> By: Emily Barton http://www.wisemandarine.com/around-the-world-in-quatre-vingt-jours/#comment-8616 Emily Barton Wed, 26 Dec 2007 16:47:46 +0000 http://www.wisemandarine.com/around-the-world-in-quatre-vingt-jours/#comment-8616 Why does it not suprise me to find you reading a book with such an editor's mindset? Why does it not suprise me to find you reading a book with such an editor’s mindset?

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