Paris in the Twentieth Century by Jules Verne

A quick and interesting read. Jules Verne wrote this story in 1863 of a Paris of the future, but his editors deemed this tale too unlikely and rejected it. 130 years later, one of his relatives found his manuscript in a lock and it was published.

The story takes place in the Paris of 1960, and Jules Verne extrapolates from the technologies available in his time to construct this Paris (as the introduction of this edition details in-depth). 
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Verne's Paris is an expansive metropolitan area, a city of electric lights, a city connected by an expansive metro system, while on the roads there are horseless carriages "invisibly powered by a motor which operated by a gas combustion" (p. 24)--a surprising double of the modern city.

The values of Verne's Parisians in 1960 are what interested me the more. Verne's Paris is a city where industry, commerce, and scientific progress are dominant and have stifled the arts; everything exists through a utilitarian logic. In this world, protagonist Michel Dufrénoy is a poet; he wins first prize for Latin verse among lycéen graduates; the uncle, aunt, and cousin who he lives with are ashamed. Verne was prescient here as well.

Through his characters, Verne communicates his own artistic tastes. Verne is horrified with Wagner and would have been doubly so with Schonberg ("in his [Wagner's] day, melody was already being suppressed, and he decided it was appropriate to get rid of harmony as well"). Quinsonnas (through whom Verne expresses his opinions) also says this about music in his day: "a score now consists of only a single phrase--long, loopy, endless"--an interesting description that conforms to music like Philip Glass and ambient music, like that of Brian Eno. His conservatice tastes in music are extended to the arts and literature; he would have disliked the Impressionists, Hemingway, films (too spectacular), etc.

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