Sophie Masson shares her observations on French culture and oddities as she continues her writer’s sabbatical in the most romantic country on the planet. Enjoy!

Today for my post I’m venturing out of Paris, heading due north to Amiens in the Somme river valley, where we spent a couple of days this month.—a city known as ‘Little Venice’ because of its charming setting on many little canals, and famous for its magnificent cathedral, centrality in World War One battles, its delicious macaroons—and the towering literary figure of Jules Verne, who lived there for much of his life. And going around his house which is kept as a museum, as well as being the centre for the Jules Verne research institute, was both very interesting and thought-provoking, in its train bringing up all sorts of reflections on the nature of literary fame and its price.

Verne, who even today is still famous for such books as Around the World in 80 Days, Three Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, Voyage to the Centre of the Earth, and lots more (and who is credited as the true father of the literary genre known as ‘steampunk’) was in his day the equivalent of a JK Rowling or a Stephenie Meyer in terms of enormous fame and influence, and wrote much more than either as well, with lots and lots of not only novels but non-fiction works, plays, articles, reviews and so on to his name. In the museum you can see some of the huge amount of merchandising that in his day and later was based around his works—board games of Around the World in 80 days, Jules Verne calendars, Jules Verne ink, figurines based on his characters—some things really don’t change! And of course quite a lot of other people’s novels based on riffs on his work—the sincerest form of flattery! 

Verne, who was born in Brittany, came to Amiens because his wife Honorine came from there, and he settled in the city in 1870, and in the house which is currently his museum in the 1880′s. This dynamic, energetic, creative and driven man was not satisfied with just scribbling away in his study, decorated with maps and diagrams from all over the world, or in the boat he kept off the Picardy coast(he was also a very keen sailor)but was intimately connected with the social life of his time, getting involved in the theatre, in local politics, in creating a circus which still exists, and inspiring generations not only of writers but of scientists and travellers and film-makers (literally hundreds of films have been made, since the very earliest days of the cinema, based on his work, by film-makers from France and all over the world). He did a lot for Amiens—and Amiens is inordinately proud of him. More than any other writer I’ve ever seen anywhere, his presence still dominates the city, with not only, of course a Boulevard Jules Verne, but allusions to his work everywhere, in many street names such as ‘Boulevard Michel Strogoff’ (one of my personal favourites of his novels, a wonderful adventure set in Russia), ‘Avenue de l’Ile Mysterieuse’ (The Mysterious Island being one of his early novels) and lots more of that sort, but also giving his name to bus routes, cinemas, and more! His grave in Amiens cemetery is reverently maintained and restaurants all over the city offer ‘Jules Verne menus’! 

Now as we were going around the museum/house, and amongst all the glowing tributes to Verne, the paraphernelia associated with him and his fame, and the big part played in it by his equally energetic publisher Hetzel, I noticed something strange: though there was quite a bit about Verne’s birth family, his parents and siblings, and photos of them, as well as portraits of his wife, I could see very little of his children. At first thought maybe the couple did not have any, but then read a passing remark about his daughters and son. We’d been not long before to Victor Hugo’s house in Paris, which focusses a lot on the writer’s children, particularly his beloved eldest daughter, and this aspect of it was quite a contrast in Verne’s case–especially after reading in one part of the museum that Michel Verne, the writer’s only son, actually directed several films based on his father’s work. My novelist’s instincts and suspicions were aroused—I sniffed some family drama connected with this silence. And later, reading a life of Jules Verne, I realised that my suspicions were right. The great writer and energetic public figure did not have a happy family life.

Like many men of his day in France, he had a mistress—or two. His wife put up with it as was expected at the time, and she was quite close to her children, especially her daughters, who do not seem to have caused any particular trouble. But Michel Verne was a different matter. He was a naughty boy who grew into a delinquent who caused so much trouble that as a teenager he was even placed by his father in a ‘maison de redressement’ or what in Australia we’d call ‘juvie’–a juvenile detention centre, a kind of boot camp for troublesome kids. He grew into a man who had a troubled personal life, marrying and divorcing (a scandal at the time of course), having children with different women, trying and failing at many different business ventures (including films) and having to be bailed out financially more than once by his father as an adult. 

It is the classic tragic case of ultra-famous father breeding ultra-troubled child—a child who desperately wanted to please a father who had little time for him and did not understand him at all (some of the things Verne is known to have said about his son are very harsh indeed) and who to get some attention played up constantly. It’s clear too that while Verne’s daughters were spared the heavy pressure of trying to measure up to their father’s creative talents, Michel wasn’t, as is evidenced by his increasingly desperate attempts to make some mark in the creative field. Alas, though in the museum his film-making attempts are mentioned, they’re not even listed by name. In the end poor Michel is reduced to being only a fleeting ghost in his father’s passing parade.

Sophie Masson has published more than fifty novels internationally since 1990, mainly for children and young adults. A bilingual French and English speaker, raised mostly in Australia, she has a master’s degree in French and English literature. Her most recent novel, The Madman of Venice, was written for middle school children, grades ~6-10.
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