Around the Moon

This illustration is a response to those who call the Moon ‘cheese’.

In Jules Verne’s (1828-1905) novel ‘Around the Moon’, three travelers journey around the Moon inside a giant cannon shell and see it up close for the first time. Two of the travelers are Americans and are busy measuring the Moon: to them, the Sea of Clouds is nothing more than a large hollow. When one of them sees the surface riddled with craters, he brings up the name the English have given the Moon: ‘green cheese’.

The third traveler, the Frenchman Michel Ardan, jumps to his feet. Many peoples had viewed the Moon as a goddess for thousands of years, and Ardan lists the names given to her one by one: “So this is how the Anglo-Saxons of the nineteenth century treat the beautiful Diana, the fair-haired Phoebe... the queen of the night!”

The French artist Émile Bayard (1837-1891), who illustrated the book, did not draw craters for this moment. He depicted the Moon as Ardan saw it - as a goddess. The beginning of Ardan’s line was also written beneath the illustration: “Voilà donc comment”, meaning “So this is how”. Verne had given this chapter a title that captures both perspectives: ‘Fantasy and Reality’.

Throughout the journey, these two perspectives intertwine. One of Ardan’s dogs is named Satellite. The dog is injured in the jolt of the launch and dies; the travelers put it out into space. But it does not fall behind - it continues to fly alongside the projectile (See image 2). The name Ardan gave it has become a reality.

One of the Americans surveying the Moon, when things go wrong, also blames it as if it were a person. When the projectile enters the Moon’s shadow and is plunged into darkness, the American captain pins the blame on the Moon: “C’est la faute à la lune”, meaning “It’s the Moon’s fault” (See image 3).

The Moon, however, remains distant to the very end. The passengers fire their rockets in a last-ditch effort to land on it (See image 4). Moments later, the face of a passenger looking out the window turns pale: “We’re falling!” “To the Moon?” “To Earth!” The projectile finally lands in the Pacific.

Nearly a century later, in December 1968, the three astronauts of Apollo 8 actually made this journey: like Verne’s passengers, they launched from Florida, orbited the Moon, and returned without landing, splashing down in the Pacific (See image 5). Seven months later, Neil Armstrong, the first man to set foot on the Moon, opened his final broadcast from space on the return trip with these words: “A hundred years ago, Jules Verne wrote a book about a voyage to the Moon”.

The Moon’s face · image 1