Paris in the Twentieth Century

An amazing book. If you usually enjoy Jules Verne books, this one will amaze you. It really shows how much of a visionary Jules Verne really was.

If you are a Jules Verne fan, this recently (1989) discovered novel, written at the beginning of Verne's career (1863), rejected by his publisher, and found in a locked safe by his great-grandson, is a must read. Although Verne's later works (Journey to the Center of the Earth, Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, Around the World in Eighty Days) contain numerous examples of his uncanny knack for prediction, such as modern space, air, and sea travel in rockets, airplanes, and submarines, no other work of his combines all these elements along with a prophetic description of modern industrial, capitalist society, and its attendant anomie and atomisation of the individual. Set nearly one hundred years in the future from the date of its writing, the protagonist, 16-year old Michel Dufrenoy, has recently graduated with honors from a Parisian college with a major in classic literature in a world where classic art and literature have been forgotten, and only scientists, engineers, and accountants are valued and can find work. In this remarkably prescient novel, Verne accurately and in amazing detail foresees a modern, technologically advanced Paris of the 1960's. Its citizens ride in gasoline powered automobiles and pneumatic subways, live and work in modern apartment buildings and skyscrapers, and use electric lights, fax machines, air conditioning, the Internet, television, and calculators. Verne mentions a structure remarkably similar to the Eiffel Tower fourteen years before its construction and, in what must be his most eerily precise prediction, a geometric centerpiece for the courtyard of the Louvre Museum, which would not be added until 1989. The novel, written when Verne was 35, parallels his own early career. Dufrenoy is obviously based upon Verne himself, and represents Verne's own fears and frustrations as a young writer, when he abandoned the path his father had set for him as a lawyer and took up writing and theater instead. Perhaps the best aspect of the work is Verne's description of a modern, technologically advanced, materially prosperous and peaceful society plagued by shallow relationships between individuals, trashy and lowbrow mass entertainment, and the marginalization of those whom society has deemed, due to their more romantic and bohemian notions and tastes, unfit for participation in the larger culture.

This was a long-lost Manuscript of Verne's; it was his second science fiction novel and one of his most pessimistic (probably because he had not yet achieved his full success in life). It was never fleshed out into a full length novel due to its lack of commercial prospects (his publisher rightly assumed that people were looking for more positive views of the future in his day, just as his positive visions of the future are unlikely to become best sellers today) Via extrapolation of the technology and social conditions of his day, he managed to make any number of amusingly accurate predictions as to how the future (1960s paris) would look. "The future," in fact, looked an awful lot like he said it would. Lots of high rises, international trade causing more world harmony, lots of "service industry" dominating the economy, huge universities (something that was not at all obvious in his day), elevators, keyboard computers, the end of classics and rhetoric as the central feature of higher education, fax machines, cars, industrialization of the arts, the metro: all predictions which more or less came true. Of course, his metro was above ground like the T in Boston rather than the underground metro they have in Paris today. And his cars ran on compressed air and "carbolic acid" and such. And while weapons of mass destruction "rendered war ridiculous, and France finding it laughable, disarmed," war isn't so ridiculous that France has disarmed completely. Amusing things he missed: ball point pens, databases, "industrialization" of pop culture, and the manner in which the arts became barbarous. He was convinced that all artistic things in the future would be machine-like; frankly I think that machine-art is one of the few areas in which modern art occasionally remains interesting or relevant. The main character of this novella was a sort of hippy, except that instead of cultivating the childish nonsense that hippies did in the 1960s, his character cultivated latin poetry. I think people read a lot more into his "prophecies" than was appropriate. This was apparently a runaway best-seller in 1994 Paris. I would imagine that lots of pious french types read a lot into his predictions, moaning that it was as bad as he said and worse. In fact, life in the 1960s were a lot worse and a much, much better than Verne predicted. It was worse in that, instead of global trade issuing a new era of peace and making armies irrelevant, trade has really only made war between the western european nations unnecessary. Quite an accomplishment after countless millenia of slaughter (Europe has not been as peaceful as it is now since the Roman empire). It was worse in that, instead of poetry named "electric harmonies" and music called "a grand fantasy on the liquefaction of carbonic acid" we had the insipid poetry of Alan Ginsberg and Maya Angelou (or whatever the French were reading), and the vulgar, grody pop music of Serge Gainsbourg and the Monkeys. It was much better in

This is a most singular work of science fiction indeed. Like many of the futuristic technological marvels Jules Verne described, this novel lay in obscurity, waiting for someone to come along and discover it. That someone was Verne's great-grandson, who in 1989 found the manuscript in an old safe that was thought to be empty. While I bought this book as soon as it was published, I have only now compelled myself to read it. I could not help but wonder if Verne would want this novel published now in its current form, especially given the fact it was one of his earliest writings, so I held off in respect to the founding father of science fiction. Having now read the novel, I must say it differs significantly from the other Verne novels I have read, expressing a maudlin and tragically pessimistic vision for the future of modern society. At the same time, its defense of the classics, arts and literature, and individual freedom is quite moving. In one of the richest ironies in the history of literature, Verne's editor rejected the manuscript of Paris in the Twentieth Century because, in his own words, "No one today will believe your prophecy." As with so many of Verne's visionary ideas, however, fiction has now become fact. Among the wild ideas included in these pages are fax machines, horse-less carriages, a subway system, computers, calculators, and other modern luxuries we take for granted now. A much longer list could be produced, but I would contend that too much of the reaction to this "lost" novel has directed itself to Verne's prophecies fulfilled. Certainly, the basis of Verne's future society is built on technological accomplishment, but Paris in the Twentieth Century is a social commentary that rivals in its unnerving implications famous dystopian novels such as George Orwell's 1984. Verne's vision of Paris in 1960 is a troubling one indeed; the wonders of technology have worked miracles on earth, yet humanity's savior has proceeded to become its curse. It's an action-oriented society, one run with great economy and efficiency. War has been made extinct because, once war progressed to the point that machines and not men were fighting each other, the whole thing seemed ridiculous. Life itself has become scientific, and in the process the society has given up its own humanity. There is no place for an idealistic dreamer such as Michel Dufrenoy in this world where the arts and literature have been completely forgotten; popular literature now consists of books such as The Lubrication of Driveshafts. Popular music is so un-melodic that it would make even John Cage cringe. Still, young Michel does try to become a modern man, taking a job (his first of many) in his guardian's bank. He finds friends in a long-lost uncle, one of his co-workers, his former teacher, and the lovely grand-daughter of the latter. Even still, his life of quiet desperation grows more and more disheartening and threatens to make him a martyr for the forgo

Michel Dufrenoy is a man born out of time. Possessing the soul of an artist, he lives in a time when the artist is despised, and the industrialist is utterly triumphant. Where can Michel go to fit in? What place can an artist find in the Paris of 1960?Jules Verne wrote this short book in 1863, but his publisher rejected it as unrealistic. In many ways, what Verne wrote was prescient. He wrote about electric lights, asphalt streets and motorcars, but he went far beyond that. He foresaw the future degradation of art ("I've even heard of a certain Courbet, at one of his last exhibitions, showed himself, face to the wall, in the performance of one of the most hygienic but least elegant actions of life!"), and the deconstruction of history in mass entertainment ("...History must be raped if she is to bear a child. And she was made to bear any number, who themselves bore no resemblance to their mother!")This book is highly polemical in nature. Verne makes quite clear his distaste for capitalism and its concomitant mindset. Also, this story offers no great insight, but merely warns. I found the story fascinating for its seeming precognition, but did not find the story particularly entertaining. Therefore, I give this book a qualified recommendation--read this book as an interesting historical document, but not as an entertaining story.