Sunday, March 24, 2013

Rashmi bookmarks “Off on a Comet”


I have read some of the more famous works of Jules Verne, including Journey to the Center of the Earth, Around the World in Eighty Days and Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea (this one is on my list of favourite books of all time). Although lesser known, sci-fi adventure Off on a Comet - the story of 36 inhabitants from Earth who got the ride of a lifetime when a chunk of their planet was transported into space by a passing comet - was, for the most part, a fascinating read, full of the kind of fantastic ideas we can expect from a pioneer of the science fiction genre.

I loved how the story unfolded and the incredible situation was slowly revealed. From an altercation between Captain Hector Servadac and Count Wassili Timascheff over a young widow who had captured both hearts, the story takes off to the stars. Hints are gently dropped along the way - example, when the ‘moon’ doesn’t quite look like a moon and has its own moon around it - and we begin to see what’s going on … that initial build-up was really amazing! (On that point though, I wish the title of this book was something else: had we - along with the three people - not known what was going on, that first meeting with the astronaut would have had so much more impact).

What I also really liked about this story was how different people with varying characteristics came together to form a whole new world when torn away from their home planet. Gallia is created, complete with a population, a Governor General, a Gallian Academy of Science and even a Gallian calendar to accommodate the Gallian month that is twice as long as a terrestrial month, but with a day only half as long. Fighting to survive in a hostile environment on a strange world, this motley crowd comes together and builds a home in a cave guarded by a fantastic curtain of molten lava!

I also loved the humour! One classic example was the endless chess game between Colonel Heneage Finch Murphy and Major Sir John Temple Oliphant. Having lasted months, a long silence was broken with, ““Then I take your bishop, major,” said Colonel Murphy, as he made a move that he had taken since the previous evening to consider. “I was afraid you would,” replied Major Oliphant, looking intently at the chess-board.”

If there was one thing that took away from my enjoyment of the story, it was the focus on facts and figures. While it was definitely interesting to see how boiling eggs indicated atmospheric pressure, some sections read more like a science journal: such as, the chapter completely dedicated to the exact steps involved in calculating the weight of the comet.

Verne’s treatment of the Jewish character, Isaac Hakkabut, also made me quite uncomfortable. The German trader is seen to be materialistic to ridiculous limits. Having read a lot of books written in the late 19th / early 20th centuries, I have grown to expect a certain degree of racism; but this book seemed to be overly so.

However, there is no question that Jules Verne was a person with an endless imagination and this book bears testimony to that fact. Remember, this book was published in 1877 … take a moment to think about the scientific creativity of a mind that was born in 1828!

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