Jules Verne was a French science fiction writer who is widely regarded as the father of modern science fiction. In the past forty years, he has created hundreds of works, and his "Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea" and "Around the World in Eighty Days" have long been included in the children's must-read list, so that they are well known to more people and household names.
And, today I want to introduce you to his first science fiction novel, his famous work "Five Weeks on the Balloon". I bought the book a year ago and put it in the bookcase. Because of the limitations of buying books online, it feels like buying back a pirated book, on the grounds that the whole book lacks a sense of heaviness in my hand, so it has not aroused my interest in reading.
It wasn't until I opened it two days ago that I suddenly realized that I had almost missed a good book, and that I was particularly interested in it. Due to my personal temperament, I am not keen to read some works about adventure science fiction and the like, but I am eagerly attracted by the regional and cultural things in such works, and at the same time, the knowledge of natural science and historical facts contained in such books can also arouse my reading pleasure.
All in all, this is a very valuable book for me, so I am willing to share it with my friends, and I hope you can enjoy it too.
A quirky journey of three British explorers
The reason why it is strange is clear from the title of the book, "Five Weeks in a Balloon", yes, the three travelers in the book are traveling across the African continent using hot air balloons as a means of transportation.
In the first half of the nineteenth century, many explorers, geographers and travelers emerged in Europe, who, with great curiosity and curiosity, or ambition, launched a brave, difficult, and fearless exploration of the primitive and unknown world of Africa, and many of them sacrificed their precious lives for science. This book is based on these historical events, plus the author's fantasies and hypotheses, so as to present readers and friends with a thrilling and interesting journey to Africa. And its shining point is the traveler's transportation - hot air balloons.
In nineteenth-century Europe, capitalism was thriving, the Industrial Revolution was in full swing, and science and technology were advancing rapidly, but at that time, the main means of transportation used for long journeys were still limited to ships, horses, and camels, and no spacecraft was invented that could fly freely in the sky. But the hot air balloons helped the travelers, who spent five weeks flying from the east coast of Africa to the west coast.
In the process of reading, you will definitely be impressed by the imagination and wisdom of the author. The protagonist of the story, Dr. Ferguson, can only skillfully manipulate the ascent and descent of the balloon by relying only on scientific knowledge, and in which direction they will go, and at what speed, can only be handed over to the ever-changing nature, or in their own words, to God.
So, when the balloons don't go as the traveler wishes, the Doctor is always trying to find a suitable airflow in the air to take them in a preset direction. And the intricate structure and operation of the hot air balloon in the book, which is where we marvel at the author's wisdom and extraordinary imagination.
In the book, man and nature live in harmony, and this practice of human beings revering nature, relying on nature, and taking the parts that are beneficial to human beings for their own use is really nostalgic and touching, and it is far more shrewd than the "great feat" of human beings in the future to transform nature and conquer nature.
Beautiful and fertile Africa, barren and monotonous Africa, and the difficult, diverse and pleasant experiences of travelers
The travelers, riding their proud Victoria, sometimes hundreds of feet above the ground and sometimes thousands of feet above the ground, saw Africa as different for other explorers.
The fertile land of Africa, the lush farmland, the verdant grassland primitive forests, the endless mountains and rivers, the barren hills, the vast deserts; the simple villages, barbaric tribes, and towns that have gradually become civilized; the grasslands, the woods, the swamps, the animals and plants that hold the african business card, the animals and plants, etc., all receive the eyes of the lucky travelers.
During the day, they fly at different altitudes, encountering torrential rain and lightning weather that can even rush over them, feeling the dark clouds rolling and thunder and lightning roaring under the radiant sun under their feet. At night, they anchor on cacti, baobab trees, fig trees, and settle down. When it was safe, they could eat on the grass, go into the woods to hunt and replenish fresh meat, and in the barbarian territory, they inadvertently watched the battles between different tribes. They have saved European missionaries whose lives are hanging in the balance for the sake of their wild tribes, and their partners have jumped off balloons into treacherous pristine lakes and savage tribes at critical moments, risking their lives for the sake of their companions' lives. They followed the footsteps of their predecessors, found the source of the Nile, verified the discoveries of the previous explorers again and again, and encountered the large gold mines near the volcano. They admired the natural beauty that countless people had never had the opportunity to see in their lifetimes, and they also endured the despair and pain of dying in the Sahara Desert due to lack of water...
All of this is what strongly appeals to us in this book, intellectual, creative, interesting, and perfectly integrated here. The author's imagination and wisdom are even more vivid. The stories in the book are interlocking, vivid, informative and more interesting, and the landscape descriptions and text expressions are delicate and fascinating. Personally, I think it is a book for all ages.
Europe, Africa, white, black, civilized, barbaric —the superiority and discrimination of people between races
Once Europe and Africa, or white and black, are put together, we cannot avoid the haze of colonial expansion in that age of discovery.
The author Verne's sense of superiority as a Caucasian is evident in the book, and his discrimination against black Africans throughout the language and behavior of the protagonist of the story runs through.
The simple huts, the dilapidated tents, the barbaric killings, the clothing, demeanor and behavior of the indigenous people who have shown no sign of civilization, their primitiveness and backwardness, their ignorance and covetousness, etc., may have existed in the author's time, in the vast and closed world of Africa, but we cannot help but wonder how universal it existed. Moreover, whether barbaric or civilized, only the natives were the masters of that land, so there was nothing wrong with their legitimate defense within their means. From a fair point of view, we may not even have the right to judge, let alone in their eyes, the wanderer's unprovoked intrusion. The brutal plundering and killing of black Africans by Europeans is a memory that can never be erased from human history.
Of course, the broad historical environment and events are like the natural laws of nature such as the survival of the fittest and the survival of the fittest, the survival of the fittest, and other natural laws that human beings cannot influence, and all conquests, invasions, and colonization activities in history are the pains that human beings must experience in the progress and development process. And these things fall into the literary sense of the book, and they are a bit far away.
Therefore, we will put aside these historical rights and wrongs and ideological things for the time being, and it is enough to taste the scientific and literary things in the book.