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Jules Verne · 56min
Phileas Fogg’s rigid stoicism faces the vibrant, unpredictable pulse of a nineteenth-century world. This frantic race against time reveals the human spirit beneath the gears. Join us for a look.
“We selected Around the World in Eighty Days by Jules Verne to explore its lasting influence on the evolution of adventure. It provides a perfect canvas for debating the complex motives of its characters.”
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Phileas Fogg is a Victorian gentleman of extreme regularity who lives his life according to a strict mathematical schedule. He enters a high-stakes wager at the Reform Club, betting £20,000—half his fortune—that he can circumnavigate the globe in exactly eighty days. Accompanied by his newly hired valet, Jean Passepartout, Fogg departs London. They are pursued by Detective Fix, who believes Fogg matches the description of a fugitive bank robber and intends to arrest him on British soil.
The journey takes them through Suez, India, Hong Kong, Japan, and the United States. In India, Fogg demonstrates a rare break from his mechanical nature by pausing the schedule to rescue a widow named Aouda from a forced sacrificial ritual. Aouda joins the group for the remainder of the trip. Throughout the voyage, Fogg treats obstacles not as adventures but as logistical problems, using his remaining wealth to bribe crews, buy elephants, and even purchase a trading vessel in New York when they miss their steamer. To keep the engines running during an Atlantic storm, Fogg orders the crew to burn the ship's own wooden structures as fuel.
Fogg arrives in Liverpool with just enough time to reach London, but Fix finally executes his arrest. Though the error is cleared within hours, Fogg believes he has lost the bet by five minutes. He returns home ruined and apologizes to Aouda for his inability to support her, only for her to propose marriage to him. While arranging the ceremony, Passepartout realizes they arrived a day earlier than they thought because they gained twenty-four hours by traveling eastward across the International Date Line. Fogg rushes to the Reform Club and wins the wager with seconds to spare, ultimately finding that the journey's true profit was his marriage and newfound human connection.
Jules Verne published Around the World in Eighty Days in 1872, initially as a serial in Le Temps before its book release in 1873. The novel emerged during the Industrial Revolution, a period defined by a Victorian obsession with punctuality and rapid technological advancement. The story was made plausible by three major engineering milestones of the era: the completion of the First Transcontinental Railroad in America, the linking of the Indian railways, and the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869. Verne, a pioneer of early science fiction and adventure fiction, used the character of Phileas Fogg to examine the collision between rigid scientific logic and the chaotic reality of the natural world. Unlike Verne's more fantastical works, this narrative is grounded in the actual infrastructure of the late nineteenth century, reflecting a world that was becoming increasingly interconnected and compressed by steam power and standardized timekeeping.
Phileas Fogg attempts to navigate the globe as if it were a frictionless machine, assuming every delay can be solved with a calculation or a payment. However, the 'real' world constantly intrudes through natural and human chaos, such as the fifty-mile gap in the Indian railway or the Sioux attack in the American West. Fogg’s eventual success is not due to his perfect planning, but rather a geographical phenomenon—the International Date Line—that he had failed to account for in his initial logic.
The novel highlights how nineteenth-century technology changed the human perception of the planet. Fogg views the Earth not as a collection of cultures, but as a geometric circumference to be traversed at a specific velocity. For example, when he arrives in Bombay, he refuses to see the sights, preferring to eat a mundane meal at the station. This perspective shows a shift toward modern travel where the destination and the schedule are prioritized over the experience of the journey itself.
Initially described as a closed system or a 'Leroy chronometer,' Fogg is forced to choose between his schedule and his humanity. The rescue of Aouda in India is the first sign of this shift, but it culminates in the American desert when Fogg abandons his timeline to save Passepartout from captivity. By the end of the book, the wager is secondary to his marriage to Aouda, signaling that he has traded his mechanical isolation for emotional integration.
Moments from Jasper and Maya's discussion of Around the World in Eighty Days:
“We are looking at what happens when the perfect pristine theories of mathematical planning crash head first into the deeply unpredictable nature of the real world.”
— Jasper
“To understand Philius Fogg, you have to understand extreme unrelenting precision.”
— Maya
“He isn't just punctual, he is a clock.”
— Maya
“The physical distance is almost secondary to the psychological terrain.”
— Jasper
“The machine demands accountability.”
— Jasper
“The machine might have found a heart, but it is still fundamentally a machine.”
— Jasper
The novel follows the stoic Phileas Fogg as he attempts to win a bet by circumnavigating the globe in exactly eighty days. Accompanied by his servant Passepartout, he faces various logistical and legal hurdles, including being pursued by a detective who suspects him of bank robbery.
The book was written by French author Jules Verne. It was first serialized in 1872 and published in book form in 1873.
This discussion episode between hosts Jasper and Maya is 56 minutes long. It covers the complete plot, including the ending and major character arcs.
The main character is Phileas Fogg, an enigmatic and wealthy Englishman known for his rigid routine. He is supported by Jean Passepartout, his French valet, and Aouda, a woman they rescue in India.