Topsy turvy

I haven't seen this particular edition of Jules Verne's ironic novel, or perhaps novella, "The Purchase of the North Pole" (also published under a few other titles). I read a Swedish translation years ago. This is therefore a review of the novel as such, not this edition.

Verne's early novels were techno-optimistic, as behooved a 19th century writer for the commercial market. His later stories, by contrast, were often pessimistic and rather emphasized the damage that technology could do in the wrong hands (read: the hands of people as they actually are). Sometimes, Verne's heroes staged a come-back in sequels in which they were depicted as insane. One example is Robur, the (somewhat ambivalent) hero of "Robur the Conqueror", who turns out to be the mysterious megalomaniac of the later novel "Master of the World". A more obvious example is the novel I'm presently reviewing, in which the heroes from Verne's "From the Earth to the Moon" and "Around the Moon" turn out to be mad scientists gone bonkers!

The shadowy company Barbicane & Co, co-owned by Barbicane, Maston and Nicholl from the Moon novels, purchases the North Pole, but are unable to reach it and claim it. They therefore hatch a daring plan: "if we can't get to the North Pole, the North Pole would have to come to us". By launching a huge projectile from an enormous drilled-out tunnel in the Kilimanjaro, Barbicane & Co hopes to change the tilt of the Earth's axis so that the North Pole ends up being in North America! That millions of people will die in the process is of no consequence...

I won't reveal the plot twists, except that the story is written in the form of satire, making it less depressive than it perhaps should be. Yet, we are certainly left to wonder why Verne saw fit to "kill" his heroic characters in this manner. I suppose he realized, earlier than most of his scientistic admirers, that the world is indeed...topsy turvy.