Books like Around the World in Eighty Days & Five Weeks in a Balloon

AT THE BEGINNING:Saw the Mike Todd movie AGAIN last week with a perfectly cast David Niven as Phileas Fogg and the ever effervescent Mexican actor Cantinflas as Passepartout.And realised I had always avoided the book like the Plague."Well, why shouldn't the book be as delightful as the film ?" I asked myself in a revelatory moment. "Well, WHY NOT???" Why not go get IT??After my final session on my root canal therapy this morning at the dentist, I wandered off in the mall to find the tables of books and the SOLITARY volume complete with Hot Air Balloon on the cover.WUNDERBAR!!!Dying to find out the FLAVOUR of Verne's text, I made the astounding discovery that the author had a Sense of Humour. Having, when quite young, read "Twenty Thousand Leagues Under The Sea", which I didn't find humorous AT ALL, (although I don't think I would have grasped its gentle flavour then), it was really the VERY LAST thing I expected.It was ABSOLUTELY DELICIOUS!!!!!!However reading Goodreads Reviews I was ABSOLUTELY DEVASTATED to learn there is NO BALLOON. (MON DIEU and DAMN Mike TODD !!!) However style can compensate HUGELY for a minor Plot Failing, although I am promised lots of Colonial Condescension, Racial Revulsion and all that Politically Incorrect Stuff. Quel Dommage!!Will Style alone suffice????POST READ:Style was only part of the pleasure.I quote,as example, a morsel of said pleasure:(This is in regard to Phileas Fogg's indifference to the customs, history and organisation of every country he passes through)"Phileas Fogg had no desire for information.He was not travelling, he was merely describing a circumference. He was a solid body moving through an orbit around the terrestrial globe, in obedience to the laws of rational mechanics."Passepartout, Fogg's adventurous and loyal servant is, on the other hand, captured by indians, set upon by priests for unwittingly defiling their temple, arrested, hired to work as an acrobat in Japan, drugged,and rescues a woman from being burnt alive ...well, to put it mildly, he gets involved.Some critics see this 'lack' of character or character development as stereotyping.How much does YOUR character develop over 80 days generally? How often have you psychoanalysed deeply those around you?It's the stuff of books that writers seem bent on justifying every flicker of eyelid, run of runny nose, smirk or sneeze with a barrage of psychological justification. Fogg falls in love: Passepartout develops a fierce love and dedication for his master;Fogg exhibits inflexible courage, devotion and generosity which we would never have expected.There are surprises of character and character development as there are in real life with no labouring the point. No one delivers a thesis of justification. Except novelists...but we want and expect that. In books. No??? Yes!!!Alas!!!What does come as a surprise is that this book is one of 64 titles in Jules Verne's life long job which was to write two stories a year under the title "Les Voyages Extraordinaires"....for CHILDREN !!!!Hence "Journey to the Centre of the Earth"!!!And the deal came about when he delivered up his first book, which just happened to be about a journey,"Five Weeks in a Balloon".Set for life and a good,regular income, Verne set out to enjoy his life...and did.My worry is...how beyond children today is the vocabulary and syntax of this book. How and why have our children become so dumbed down?As for any disapproval re matters such as Passpartout referring to some local inhabitants as "savage barbarians", well, he was a man of his time and we can expect no less. He is IN character.As for Jules Verne... Joseph Conrad, has been accused of racism on Goodreads, when the racism is practised by one of his characters.On that note I say:"Bon Voyage!!!"With apologies to Mike Todd ...he, making a film rather than writing a book, dealing with the visual,introduced the balloon to take advantage of magnificent views of France From the Air. Who but the most fastidious wretch could quibble with that!!??!!