Almost a century after his death, the well-known French author Jules Verne has once again managed to fire the imagination of people around the world, this time with an unpublished novel, Paris in the 20th Century. The manuscript, completed in 1863 but long locked away in a safe, was uncovered only in 1989 by Verne’s great- grandson, and it appeared in English translation just a few months ago. This 19th-century vision of the future describes life among skyscrapers of glass and steel, high-speed trains, gas-powered automobiles, calculators, fax machines and a global communications network. The prescience of these forecasts matches what one would have expected from the author who introduced countless readers of his age to a host of technological marvels, from submarines to helicopters and spacecraft.
But in fact, Paris in the 20th Century is a tragedy. It describes the life of an idealistic young man who struggles to find happiness in the fiercely materialistic dystopia that Paris has become by 1920. Like George Orwell’s 1984, Verne’s novel is a grim and troubling comment on the human costs of technological progress.
That such a message should come from Jules Verne proves surprising to many. Most people--particularly in America--assume that Verne wrote about the wonders of technology because he was himself an optimistic scientist. Many also believe Verne wrote primarily for children, crafting novels that were invariably exciting but intellectually shallow. These misconceptions show how Verne’s current status has completely shadowed the reality of his life and writings. They are part of the continuing misunderstanding of this author, a result of some severely abridged translations and simplified adaptations for Hollywood cinema.
In truth, Verne was neither a scientist nor an engineer: he was simply a writer--and a very prolific one. Over his lifetime, Verne produced more than 2 novels. Yet his works were carefully grounded in fact, and his books inspired many leading scientists, engineers, inventors and explorers, including William Beebe (the creator and pilot of the first bathysphere), Admiral Richard Byrd (a pioneer explorer of Antarctica), Yuri Gagarin (the first human to fly in space) and Nell Armstrong (the first astronaut to walk on the moon). Verne’s novels were thus profoundly influential, and perhaps uniquely so.
Although novels with scientific foundation had been written before, Verne raised the technique of scientific description to a fine art. And this type of science fiction, based on accurate descriptions of science and technology, has tended to dominate the trend ever since. But Verne’s devotion to technical detail does not reflect an confidence in the virtues of science. Indeed, his earliest writings--a mixture of plays, essays and short stories--were distinctly critical of science and technology.
It was only the strict monitor of his publisher, Pierre-Jules Hetzel, that steered Verne toward what eventually made him famous: fast-paced adventure tales heavily flavored with scientific lessons and an optimistic ideology. And although his own attitude was quite different, Verne offered little resistance to Hetzel. After the release of his initial book in 1863, the first in a series of novels published under the banner "Extraordinary Voyages: Voyages in Known and Unknown Worlds", Verne explained to his friends at the Paris stock market (where he had been working part-time to make ends meet) about his accomplishment. "My friends I’ve just written a novel in a new style ... If it succeeds, it will be a gold mine." He was right.
Under Hetzel’s continual guidance, Verne created one novel after another, each fundamentally of this same type. But most of the works published after Hetzel’s death in 1886 show Verne returning to his original themes championing environmentalism, anticapitalism and social responsibility while questioning the benefits that science and technology could bring to an imperfect world. To understand how Verne’s later writings could differ so completely from popular image of him requires a closer understanding of the man and his times.
in the sentence "In truth, Verne was neither a scientist nor an engineer: he was simply a writer and a very prolific one.", the word "prolific" probably means ______.