Jules Verne Master of the World (1904)
There's this place high up in the mountains, so high up that no-one can get to it. There's something going on up there, flames - lightning maybe, and everyone is worried that it might be a volcano. John Strock tries to climb up to have a look but it's too high, and then he gets a mysteriously anonymous letter suggesting that he should mind his own business. Next come strange reports of a very, very fast car, and later there are reports of a very, very fast boat. John investigates and encounters the boat, but it flies away with him inside. It's piloted by the Master of the World, a man who doesn't say very much and who doesn't seem very friendly, but he crashes the amazing car-plane-boat thing he's invented, and so that's the end of that.
All of this is padded out with speculation, page upon page of it. One might surmise that this thing which has been described is actually one and the same as the other thing described earlier. Could it then be that this thing which has been described is actually one and the same as the other thing described earlier? Let us examine the reasons why this thing which has been described might actually be one and the same as the other thing described earlier; then eventually it dawns on us, the truth is revealed - this thing which has been described is actually one and the same as the other thing described earlier!
I vaguely recall a movie adaptation of this novel which I saw as a kid, and one which sort of worked because the cinematic Master of the World had invented a superweapon, a huge dirigible with propellers from which he presumably menaced the rest of us. Unfortunately in the book he just has this car-plane-boat thing which now sounds a bit ludicrous, and his alleged mastery of the world is seemingly because he's the fastest. Verne's Master doesn't seem particularly interested even in maintaining a small circle of pals, never mind ruling over anyone, and so the plot mostly resembles the mumbled invention of a four-year old kid whose attention is divided between playing with his Lego and making up a story which, on close inspection, actually turns out to be Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea but with wheels.
I've had this problem with Verne before, and doubtless someone will tell me that I've read a lousy translation. Unfortunately, I actually enjoyed Master of the World in so much as that I found it highly readable, even engrossing, in spite of its fucking stupid story; and whilst I recognise Verne as having been very much an ideas man, the gulf between those ideas and his seemingly elegant prose is a complete pillock flouncing about in a cape, pulling scary faces and expecting you to be surprised at revelations of the bleeding obvious. So I'm not saying he was a bad writer, only that they weren't all stone cold classics, and that he had some sauce saying whatever it was he said about the work of H.G. Wells.
There's this place high up in the mountains, so high up that no-one can get to it. There's something going on up there, flames - lightning maybe, and everyone is worried that it might be a volcano. John Strock tries to climb up to have a look but it's too high, and then he gets a mysteriously anonymous letter suggesting that he should mind his own business. Next come strange reports of a very, very fast car, and later there are reports of a very, very fast boat. John investigates and encounters the boat, but it flies away with him inside. It's piloted by the Master of the World, a man who doesn't say very much and who doesn't seem very friendly, but he crashes the amazing car-plane-boat thing he's invented, and so that's the end of that.
All of this is padded out with speculation, page upon page of it. One might surmise that this thing which has been described is actually one and the same as the other thing described earlier. Could it then be that this thing which has been described is actually one and the same as the other thing described earlier? Let us examine the reasons why this thing which has been described might actually be one and the same as the other thing described earlier; then eventually it dawns on us, the truth is revealed - this thing which has been described is actually one and the same as the other thing described earlier!
I vaguely recall a movie adaptation of this novel which I saw as a kid, and one which sort of worked because the cinematic Master of the World had invented a superweapon, a huge dirigible with propellers from which he presumably menaced the rest of us. Unfortunately in the book he just has this car-plane-boat thing which now sounds a bit ludicrous, and his alleged mastery of the world is seemingly because he's the fastest. Verne's Master doesn't seem particularly interested even in maintaining a small circle of pals, never mind ruling over anyone, and so the plot mostly resembles the mumbled invention of a four-year old kid whose attention is divided between playing with his Lego and making up a story which, on close inspection, actually turns out to be Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea but with wheels.
I've had this problem with Verne before, and doubtless someone will tell me that I've read a lousy translation. Unfortunately, I actually enjoyed Master of the World in so much as that I found it highly readable, even engrossing, in spite of its fucking stupid story; and whilst I recognise Verne as having been very much an ideas man, the gulf between those ideas and his seemingly elegant prose is a complete pillock flouncing about in a cape, pulling scary faces and expecting you to be surprised at revelations of the bleeding obvious. So I'm not saying he was a bad writer, only that they weren't all stone cold classics, and that he had some sauce saying whatever it was he said about the work of H.G. Wells.
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