Jules Verne and technology

At the end of 1872, Jules Verne published his novel "Around the World in 80 Days" in the newspaper Le Temps.  The story that we find in its pages begins in the same year and in the house where the main character lived, a British gentleman called Phileas Fogg, accompanied by his assistant Jean Passepartout. A sort of Don Quixote and Sancho, but in a more refined style, with the same restlessness in search of adventure, although some began on the plains of La Mancha and the others decided to cross borders. Motives and motives, that too, were what made them set out on their journeys, as were the means, since in this case our beloved Rocinante had nothing to do with the elephants, trains or sledges that the Englishman and his companion used. Nor should we forget that Cervantes wrote his masterpiece in 1605, and that centuries do not pass in vain.

The complete works of Jules Verne have always been part of the bookshelf in the family home. Beautiful books with neat red bindings that in time must have passed to other shelves and hands. It has always been said of this author that he was a visionary, a restless man who was ahead of his time with his intelligence and imagination and that much of what he wrote as pure science fiction, not for nothing is he considered one of the fathers of this genre, turned out to be reality in time.

Thinking of the thousands of aeroplanes that travel the sky every day; of the trains that run; of the enormous ocean liners and their cruise liners; of those submarines he spoke of in his Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea; and of the millions of dollars it costs to go to the moon... I have come to remember this author and his imaginary ideas, and, incidentally, my childhood. Because I wonder if this illustrious adventurer and traveller, for he was one in his life, who was so far ahead of his time, would have been taken by surprise by the speed with which the technological world, digitalisation, the metaverse, artificial intelligence... is advancing. And my answer would be no. Maybe if his birth had been delayed by a few decades, his books would tell us about this revolution that is driving us a little crazy, at least those of us who are no longer so young. How many days would the English protagonist, a member of the Reform Club, bet that he would travel the world if we set this story today? As there are people for everything, there is also a Guinness Record in this sense: three days, one hour, five minutes and four seconds. The protagonists of such a feat last December were two Indians, a record held by an Emirati in 86 hours and 46 minutes compared to the 73 of the new conquerors.

In short, man's capacity to advance and the vertigo it produces is incredible, but one thing is clear: despite the passage of time, it is a pleasure to read Jules Verne.