(46) Le Testament d'un excentrique (The Will of an Eccentric, 1899) (2 volumes) 119K words


The 46th Extraordinary Voyage takes us to the United States. We had been there in the "From the Earth to the Moon" duet, and in "North Against South", as well as, in passing, in multiple novels of the series. However, this one is particularly devoted to exploring the geography of the country, its cities, states and natural wonders.


First read or reread?: First read for me.


What is it about?: William J. Hypperbone, an eccentric millionaire from Chicago, has left his fortune to the first person to reach the end of "The Noble Game of the United States of America." The game he devised is based upon the board game "The Noble Game of Goose". However, in his version, the game board is the United States, and the players are the tokens who will be sent to different parts of the country according to the whims of the dice, with a limited time to get there. The contestants, chosen randomly among the adult citizens of Chicago, are Max Real (an artist, accompanied by his servant and companion Tommy); Tom Crabbe (a boxer, accompanied and led by his trainer John Milner); Hermann Titbury (a miser and usurer, accompanied by his wife Kate); Harris T. Kymbale (a journalist, on his own); Lizzie Wag (a cashier, accompanied by her friend Jovita Foley); Hodge Urrican (a retired commodore of explosive temper, with his companion Turk, of even more explosive temper) and the mysterious player only known as "XKZ." And who is this mysterious "XKZ" who was added to the game by a codicil to the will? Time and completion of the game will tell.


After a couple of more serious adventure novels, Verne explores again his more light-hearted streak in this book. As he often does when depicting the citizens of the USA, he regards them with a half-admirative, half-ironic frame of mind. Verne clearly admired the energetic, can-do attitude of that country, but at the same time finds the funny side of that attitude, which can become satire when taken too far.

The premise, silly as it sounds, is not a bad setup for a story. Many other later fiction works have followed this idea of an eccentric millionaire who makes his prospective heirs take place in some kind of competition if they want to inherit.

The game here consists in turning the country into a game board inspired by the Game of the Goose, with each state being a square of the board. The late millionaire's solicitor rolls the dice in a public ceremony for each move, and given the stakes, the newspapers and the whole country's attention is on the game. It becomes a great national event, the players become celebrities, and lots of people bet money on the outcome, and some of them help or hinder the players accordingly. There are game obstacles such as the Inn, the Bridge, and Death, but in this case also real-world obstacles. The United States, of course, was a civilized country and there were suitable communications into most places, but at the time (near the end of the 19th century) in some of the remotest corners the train did not always reach and the game could turn more into an adventure, particularly given the time limit to reach the destinations.

Verne obviously uses this premise to describe different parts of the country and the means of transportation available at the time. In 1897, the first Baedecker guidebook for the U.S. was published, and Verne used this as his main source. I have commented in some of these reviews that some of his novels, such as this one, could be described as part adventure and part geography documentary. Of course, there was no TV to compete with books at that time. The danger with this kind of novel is that the descriptions may become boring and slow down the pace of the story. This happens here, but only on a few occasions. Mostly, having multiple characters and moving from one to the other makes for a decent pace. Of course, I'm used to Verne's style and I enjoy it, so a different reader may find these descriptions annoying. It offers a glimpse of the US in a different time, though, so in that sense it's interesting.

In some ways, this story reminded me of "Around the World in Eighty Days", with a bunch of travelers forced to make a race against the clock, but in this case the destinations are chosen randomly, so the characters have no control over them.

One problem of this story is that, for many of the players' trips, there is not much tension, since there's no doubt that the player will be able to reach the desired destination on time. But the colorful nature of some of the players, the ups and downs of the game and the occasional dangers and delays help maintain the interest. Verne, for all that he is normally more focused on the plot than on the characters, could use his characters to good effect when he needed.

We also have a romance between two of the players and a mystery regarding the anonymous player. The final twist is rather unlikely, but as Verne playfully says at the end of the novel, if this seems difficult to believe, the reader should remember that this happened in the United States, where anything and everything is possible.


Enjoyment factor: I enjoyed it, although I wouldn't place it in a top ten Verne list. At this time in his career, Verne, who was already 70, had health problems and would die within a decade, was still producing solid work, although perhaps not always as inspired as in the first part of his career.


Next up: The Castaways of the Flag


See all my Verne reviews here: https://www.sffworld.com/forum/threads/reading-vernes-voyages-extraordinaires.58... ( )

This was another Verne novel that just didn't seem to strike a chord with me. It seems, for the later novels of Verne- that they diminish in quality and standard. This is the case with this particular book. It just didn't have the fervor and power of his earlier works.

2 stars. ( )