"Nothing can surprise an American. People often say that the word 'impossible' isn't French; clearly, those people have misplaced their dictionaries. In American, everything is easy; everything is simple -- mechanical problems die before they are even born.....Something said, something done."
"As Americans, they had no other ambition than the take possession of this new continent in the air and to plant at its highest peak the star of the United States of America."
Jules Verne wrote these (in French, of course) in 1869 in his novel From the Earth to the Moon. I'm currently reading his book to work on my French, and it's startling to see these stereotypes of Americans appearing almost 150 years ago -- more chilling is that Verne's depiction of Americans as single-minded, bellicose, jingoistic people with an appetite for conquest still seems to ring true.
To me, it's surprising to see such an impression, as I think of the America of 1869 as rather isolationist. Sure we had Manifest Destiny and the Monroe Doctrine, but those related purely to North America. Roosevelt's Great White Fleet, the Truman Doctrine, the UN, and the Cold War were all yet to come. In my mind, America had not yet entered the world stage as a prime mover and shaker. We always seemed more of a backwoods nation concerned with its own internal squabbles.
Verne's book is interesting to read for a few other reasons: it reads like a newspaper or historical account of the event and there is a surprising amount of technical details. Verne includes many footnotes and asides about American words (e.g. "club" or "mile") or bits of culture (e.g. West Point or self-government) that don't translate into French. This lends an air of verisimilitude quite different from, but as effective as, the first person or other types of narratives. Verne also peppers his writing with technical details about astronomy, physics, and engineering. This is befitting as the protagonists are engineers by trade and working on a highly technical project. Verne, in fact, had all his calculations checked by a friend who was the Secretary for the Academy of Science. To me, it's refreshing and fascinating to see a popular work of fiction containing such an abundance of math and science -- and to have it be right!
If you have an interest in science (or the history of science fiction), enjoy books that capture a zeitgeist far removed from our own, or have fun seeing parallels in history to modern times, I think you might like From the Earth to the Moon -- try it in French, if you can!
But you don't have to take my word for it.....
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