Conceptual Fiction: From Earth to the Moon by Jules Verne

Conceptual Fiction is a regular feature, contributed by Ted Gioia, focusing on major works of fantasy, science fiction, magical realism and alternate history. These books are celebrated in recognition that literary experimentation with ways of conceptualizing reality has been as important as experimentation with language in creating fiction of lasting value. Dismissing these books as genre or escapist works has created a blind-spot in literary studies that this feature aims, in some small part, to rectify.

Is Jules Verne the father of science fiction? Too bad they don’t have a DNA test to settle this paternity case. With an offspring so successful, there is no shortage of candidates seeking custody. Yet alongside Verne’s claim, one needs to assess the cases for H.G. Wells or Hugo Gernsback as pater familias of the genre.

Verne sometimes seems to have more in common with the travel and adventure writers of his day, such as Richard Burton (no, not Liz Taylor’s husband), Mary Kingsley and Isabella Bird. But with this difference: Verne preferred to write accounts of imaginary trips beyond anything these others had ever dared - to the center of the earth or the bottom of the sea, around the world in eighty days, or to the moon. To quote the famous infinitive-splitting, gender-insensitive boast, he aimed “to boldly go where no man has gone before.”

From Earth to the Moon, Verne’s account of a lunar expedition penned more than a century before the Apollo mission, is the closest thing to hard science fiction one will find in this author’s oeuvre. You may think that this writer is just an escapist storyteller constructing modern fables for adolescents, but at least half of the book is devoted to discussing, debating, and hypothesizing on scientific matters. The plot moves slowly to make room for all the tech talk - so much so that the most interesting character in the work, the French “astronaut” Michel Ardan, doesn’t appear until halfway through the novel.

By then Verne has meticulously outlined how the launch date was determined, where the launch should take place, the construction and materials for the capsule, the chemical nature of the propulsion and the safety hazards involved in its manufacture and use, the financial arrangements for funding the project, the duration of the journey, the nature of the telescope that would monitor the trip from Earth, and a hundred other details. When I was studying journalism years ago, I was told that my accounts needed to answer the five Ws (who, what, when, where, why) and the one H (how). Verne, in this book, is very H-heavy.

Article Author: Ted Gioia

Ted Gioia is a writer and musician. He is the author of Delta Blues, The History of Jazz and, most recently, The Birth (and Death) of the Cool. You can follow Ted Gioia on Twitter at www.twitter.com/tedgioia.

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