Five Weeks in a Balloon: Or, Journeys and Discoveries in Africa by Three Englishmen

By Victor Hugo

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"Five Weeks in a Balloon: Or, Journeys and Discoveries in Africa by Three Englishmen" by Jules Verne is a story of three men who travel across Africa in a hot-air balloon.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Trajectory, Inc.
• Release date: Oct 1, 2014
• ISBN: 9781632097446

Victor Hugo

Victor Hugo (1802-1885) was a French poet and novelist. Born in Besançon, Hugo was the son of a general who served in the Napoleonic army. Raised on the move, Hugo was taken with his family from one outpost to the next, eventually setting with his mother in Paris in 1803. In 1823, he published his first novel, launching a career that would earn him a reputation as a leading figure of French Romanticism. His Gothic novel The Hunchback of Notre-Dame (1831) was a bestseller throughout Europe, inspiring the French government to restore the legendary cathedral to its former glory. During the reign of King Louis-Philippe, Hugo was elected to the National Assembly of the French Second Republic, where he spoke out against the death penalty and poverty while calling for public education and universal suffrage. Exiled during the rise of Napoleon III, Hugo lived in Guernsey from 1855 to 1870. During this time, he published his literary masterpiece Les Misérables (1862), a historical novel which has been adapted countless times for theater, film, and television. Towards the end of his life, he advocated for republicanism around Europe and across the globe, cementing his reputation as a defender of the people and earning a place at Paris’ Panthéon, where his remains were interred following his death from pneumonia. His final words, written on a note only days before his death, capture the depth of his belief in humanity: “To love is to act.”

Reviews for Five Weeks in a Balloon

[soylentgreen23 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Verne's travel stories were always blessed things, but this one is hampered somewhat by the low-level racism at its core. Granted that was very much as it were back in Verne's time, but the balloonists confusing African men for chimpanzees is a bit hard to stomach in the 21st century.

[philsyphe · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

Four years have passed since I read “Five Weeks in a Balloon” and all I remember about it is that it was slow, tedious, and neither characters nor plot engaged me at all.

[cargocontainer · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This is my second time reading a book by Jules Verne, and I'm glad it wasn't my first. It was a decent story, marred primarily by a very racist view of the African people (and to a lesser extent, of Arabs) and a few very implausible stretches of reality. This was written ten years before the first work of his I read, Around the World in Eighty Days. That book was much better written and I enjoyed it immensely. All said, this still wasn't bad considering it was Verne's first book, even if at times all I could think was that he must have been paid by the word to write this.

[youngtrek · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Originally released in French in 1863; first published in English in 1890 (English translation by William Lackland). First in Verne's Extraordinary Voyages series. Full title: Five Weeks in a Balloon, or, Journeys and Discoveries in Africa by Three Gentlemen.In this first of Verne's adventure novels, you can start to see the mix of ingredients which would later make him so popular: adventure, exotic locations, entertaining dialogue between the principal characters, and a pinch of science (or pseudoscience) tossed in. In Five Weeks in a Balloon, there are just three principal characters: Dr. Samuel Ferguson, his man servant Joe, and his friend, sportsman, Richard "Dick" Kennedy. Dr. Ferguson and his companions launch upon an unprecedented journey across the continent of Africa in a hot-air balloon filled with hydrogen of Ferguson's design. The three characters face many trials and dangers on their journey, from threats of starvation, less than cooperative weather and wind currents, capture by dangerous African tribes, and even condors threatening to rip their balloon apart.Verne's writing style overall is a nice and easy one to follow, although at times he tosses in historical details which some might find themselves skipping over. Interest in Africa was still high at the time Five Weeks came out as the continent had not yet fully been explored and Verne's novel fully demonstrates this.Most disconcerting (and at times outright uncomfortable) is the very negative stereotypes of the African natives, which would be completely unacceptable by today's standards. For a work written in the early 1860s, while the Civil War was raging over in the U.S., it probably should not be all that surprising, but that realization does not make it any the more pleasant. Outside of this aspect, however, I found Five Weeks to be an enjoyable read. While certainly not his best, I imagine (this is the first Verne novel I've read, I believe), it was worthwhile to go back and start reading his works from the beginning in order to see how they developed as he went along. (Read as part of my "1860s to 1920s" project.) (Finished reading 8/31/09)