”The tension between the armchair and adventure, between security and possibility, lies at the heart of Verne, as of his age--an age of scientific, te”The tension between the armchair and adventure, between security and possibility, lies at the heart of Verne, as of his age--an age of scientific, technical , industrial, colonial expansion, but also of questioning and reverie...The template of Verne’s great novels [is] a fusing of myth and the real; a new, modern, awestruck apprehension of the manmade and the natural; a dream--yet sometimes nightmare--of the possibilities of mankind, technology and the sublime.” ---From the introduction by Tim Farrant
As I was reading Journey to the Center of the Earth, I kept thinking to myself about those Victorian Englishmen, Frenchmen, Germans, and Europeans of all stripes, who were feeling the thrill of adventure as they sat in their favorite reading chairs and cracked open the latest scientific thriller from Jules Verne. This particular book was first published in 1864. The Civil War in America was still raging to its bloody conclusion, and I’m sure there were many Americans of means who couldn’t wait to escape to wherever Jules Verne was willing to take them.
The Victorian age was an age of discovery. Men were tramping to the deepest heart of Africa, to the highest peaks in Tibet, and courting death in the Sahara Desert, all in an attempt to be the first to discover something. Nothing, of course, existed until a white man laid eyes on it. These days, nothing has been seen unless one has taken a selfie with it. Believe me, the great Victorian explorers would have loved to travel with an iPhone X to faithfully record all of their feats of valor and chronicle the dark mysteries they unraveled.
No one better exemplifies the Victorian explorer than the radical geologist, Dr. Otto Lidenbrock, who suffers strongly from an incurable case of bibliomania. He has discovered a pamphlet, hidden within another wonderful literary acquisition, a runic text written by an Icelandic writer that proposes that the center of the earth is not a fiery ball of flame, but a hidden world of wonders. He proposes to his nephew that they leave for Iceland immediately and begin a descent into the extinct volcano Snaefell. Axel, a much more cautious person than his uncle, would much rather laze about in his uncle’s study, sucking on his hookah and contemplating exactly how he is going to win the permanent affections of his uncle’s beautiful, young ward, Gräuben.
Of course, if his uncle dashes off to Iceland and becomes incinerated in the fiery hells of the Earth, it will hardly endear himself to the young lady.
Axel soon finds himself reluctantly caught up in his uncle’s mad adventure. With the help of their Icelandic guide, they descend into what Axel feels will be certain death.
Jules Verne writes with verve: ”The rain is like a roaring cataract between us and the horizons to which we are madly rushing. But before it reaches us, the cloud curtain tears apart and reveals the boiling sea; and now the electricity, disengaged by the chemical action in the upper cloudations; networks of vivid lightnings; ceaseless detonations; masses of incandescent vapour; hailstones, like a fiery shower, rattling among our tools and firearms. The heaving waves look like craters full of interior fire, every crevice darting a little tongue of flame.”
What made Verne so popular with readers during the later part of the 19th century was his gift for blending known facts with his very plausible flights of fancy. He must have subscribed to every scientific journal available at the time, and any article could prove to be the basis for his next book. The plausibility is such a key element because the armchair traveler he was taking along with him must be able to see himself in the midst of the action. A grocer dreaming of a life beyond potatoes and tomatoes, too, could descend into the bowels of the earth and hopefully return with a tale worth telling.
Next book in this Everyman’s collection is Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, one of my all time favorite Verne stories. I will definitely be rereading that one.
”’Who is it?’ Annie whispers, an odd foreboding descending on her, like the darkness of the night as a cloud momentarily masks the moon. The light fro”’Who is it?’ Annie whispers, an odd foreboding descending on her, like the darkness of the night as a cloud momentarily masks the moon. The light from Christian’s lamp pierces it, startling and bright, and finds a face, sunken and wrinkled, and stretched back across an impossibly prominent skull. Black holes where once there were eyes. Skin, teeth, hair, the deep, red colour of grape juice, matching the crimson of the gown. The mouth hangs open as if frozen in some dying screams. But it is Annie’s scream that fills the night, full of the fear of mortality that comes from a first encounter with death.”
The American wine critic, Gil Petty, goes missing during a tasting tour of the wine region of Gaillac. His power with consumers is immense, and a good rating for him means that a small vineyard might find themselves suddenly popular with the world wine drinkers, but a poor rating can mean the death of a winery. It always makes people uneasy when an influencer becomes so popular that his opinion is the only one consumers believe. He has, after all, one palate, and therefore, he has a preference that fits his own taste buds; consumers will like what he likes, but they may also like a plethora of wines that he doesn’t like. In other words, he is a man who simply has too much power.
Plus, there is the added problem that he is an American deciding the fate of French wines. That alone may prove to be a motive for murder most foul.
When his body is found strung up like a scarecrow, pickled in wine, twelve months after his disappearance, the police, of course, suspect that a winemaker may have been involved in his death, but they believe they have no clues to guide them to the killer. His notes may have provided a list of suspects. A vineyard believing he was about to give their wines a low rating may be compelled to...well...bottle up the problem. Fortunately for everyone, Enzo Macleod is on the case. He is fresh off cracking the Gaillard case, a baffling mystery that had the police scratching their heads for years. He specializes in cold cases, and the Petty case is definitely as chilly as a fine bottle of Pinot Grigio.
Enzo doesn’t have an official capacity. He teaches biology at a small college. He is a trained forensic scientist and can’t help but investigate crimes that have stumped the police. He is not a favorite with the police. He is Scottish-Italian, aggressively annoyingly assertive, a smarty pants, and has too many women vying for his attention. He has two daughters, one who loathes him and one who adores him; he has the ex-girlfriend of one of his best friends who seems to be a friend with benefits. He has Gil Petty’s adorable daughter who seems to have a penchant for older men, a judge whom he finds exceedingly attractive but who is unfortunately happily married, and then there is his assistant Nicole with her bodacious bosoms and tight t-shirts who is a constant source of temptations. It is amazing that Enzo can find the time to actually investigate the crime.
It is never easy for one to insert himself into a community, and certainly, there is much distrust of Enzo’s true motives. He nearly finds himself part of the wine process when he is hurled in front of a wine harvester. What is that elusive flavor in the wine this year? Is it the essence of Scottish haggis or a more full bodied Italian flavor?
I really enjoy the discussion of the minerals and elements in wine that provide a fingerprint as to where the grapes were grown that were used to make the wine. I agree with the winemakers of the Gaillac region that one person should never have the power to homogenize our tastes, but murder is murder, and even the most creative killer will find it difficult to escape the permutations of Enzo Macleod. This is my second venture into the Enzo Files and certainly won’t be my last. I do have to find out how he resolves all his personal issues, but I have a feeling that resolve might prove to be the wrong word.