Karavansara

East of Constantinople, West of Shanghai

Jules Verne 190th birthday

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Author: Davide Mana

Paleontologist. By day, researcher, teacher and ecological statistics guru. By night, pulp fantasy author-publisher, translator and blogger. In the spare time, Orientalist Anonymous, guerilla cook.

2 thoughts on “Jules Verne 190th birthday

  1. Keith Taylor's avatar

    Yes! Good old great old incomparable Jules Verne! 20,000 Leagues under the Sea, Journey to the Center of the Earth, and Around the World in Eighty Days, yes of course, along with lesser known stuff like In Search of the Castaways (made into a Disney movie with Hayley Mills), Robur the Conqueror and Master of the World … but for me his best ever was a straight adventure novel, Michael Strogoff: Courier of the Czar. You haven’t read it? I strongly advise doing that, quickly! The two foreign correspondents, very English Blount and very French Jolivet, are worth the time to read it by themselves, as is the femme fatale gypsy, Sangarre, and they’re just minor characters! Michael Strogoff himself is as stalwart and old-fashioned hero as you’ll ever find. When the evil Ogareff is about to have his mother knouted to death, and Michael takes the hellish scourge away and strikes Ogareff across the face with it, marking him permanently, you can’t forbear to cheer. When the Englishman observes to Michael, “He will carry that for long,” Michael answers quietly, “No. Not for very long.” READ IT!

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    • Davide Mana's avatar

      Michael Strogoff was my mother’s favorite Verne novel, and we also got a TV mini-series (an Italian-German-French co-production) in the late ’70s.
      I grew up with it. But it might be a good time for a re-read 🙂

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