Most novelists create their characters by telling us what they are. Jules Verne, on the other hand, goes to great lengths to tell us what his protagonist Mr Phileas Fogg Esq. is not.
“Though he was undoubtedly English, Phileas Fogg was not necessarily a Londoner. He had never been seen at the Stock Exchange or the Bank of England or in any of the financial institutions of the City. No dock or basin in London had ever handled a ship whose owner was called Phileas Fogg. The gentleman in question did not figure on any list of board of directors. His name had never echoed through an Inn of Court, either the Temple, Lincoln’s Inn or Gray’s Inn. He had never pleaded in the Court of Chancery, nor on the Queen’s Bench, nor in the Court of the Exchequer, nor in the Ecclesiastical Court. He was neither a factory owner, nor a businessman, nor a merchant, nor a landowner. “
And so on.
An unusual technique – and effective, perhaps because it’s so rarely employed.
Verne could have described Fogg in a single sentence – “Phileas Fogg did nothing and knew no-one” – and had done with it, but where would be the fun in that? This way is far more edifying for the reader and probably more satsifying for the writer.
I can see Verne now, giggling behind his hand as he dreamt up a myriad of traits and pursuits by which to define his hero with one stroke of his pen – and sent them all packing with the next.
Dramatically, the technique serves its purpose too. Like a play that doesn’t bring the main character on stage until all the minor ones have finished discussing him, the lengthy exposition of all that Fogg isn’t only makes us more eager to meet him.
Ironically, the less interesting Fogg is, the more interesting he becomes.
When we do finally meet Fogg, we feel certain at every turn that he will disprove the short-sighted narrator and show himself to be more than the caricature described.
I should warn there are spoilers ahead…
Verne dupes us again. Fogg remains staunchly uninteresting (although not unlikeable) to the very end. Even his confession of love to Mrs Aouda in the novel’s closing moments is moronically stilted. It’s quintessential Fogg – athough query whether this was the final flourish of an amused author, an error of narrative judgment or just the hallmark of a bad translator.
I have to confess, when I learnt in Chapter 5 that Fogg was suspected of being a bank robber, I invested considerable time and effort into wishing it was so.
The nous Fogg showed in the final leg of his journey – commandeering a ship and burning it from mast to deck – was promisingly un-Fogglike, and for a brief moment I really thought he might turn out to be the villain after all.
I even let myself believe he hadn’t made it round the world in 80 days, which would have been decidedly anti-Fogg and maybe even a little refreshing.
But ultimately I liked the fact that the obvious plot twist (ta da! I’m a bank robber) was not deployed and the less obvious one (ta da! I’m Phileas Fogg, give me £20,000) was. There’s a neatness to the way Fogg leaves the novel: just the way he entered it. An uninteresting, intriguing chap.
A man defined by that which he is not, and nothing more.
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I just started reading Around the World in Eighty Days. I’m currently on the fifth chapter. So glad I stumbled upon your good blog, though I stopped reading when you warned that there were spoilers ahead. HAHA. But I’ll read this article again right after I finished the book. Anyway thank you for pointing Verne’s unusual technique. More power!