The Wrong Planet

I distinctly remember bawling in the shower about five years ago upon termination from a job. When that sort of thing occurs I focus on all my failures and on the ways I fail to fit into the conventional world of work. I remember asking God why I was even created, since I don't see how my efforts add much to the world. So when I read the following from Jules Verne, it sounded a chord of recognition.

The book is Paris in the Twentieth Century, The Lost Novel, an early satire which was never published until the manuscript was found in the effects of the author more than a century later. The author at this point had published one work, but he was far from the enormous success he eventually attained, and I can't help wondering how much of Jules Verne is in his main character, however silly he may have written him. From the vantage point of 1863, the very year Baha'u'llah in another country was declaring His Mission, Jules Verne was envisioning life in Paris in 1960, a materialistic society dedicated to industry and money making, and shunning or bastardizing the arts.

In the Paris of 1960 there are fax machines, internal combustion automobiles, giant computers, and an elevated train run on compressed air. And quill pens, as well as the cessation of warfare.

Into this brave world he plants a young poet, Michel Dufrenoy, who, by his artistic nature and lack of pragmatism, fails in the banking industry and even in modifying plays to suit the pedantic tastes of the times.

"My dear Jacques," Quinsonnas observed, "by introducing you to Michel Dufrenoy I allowed you to make the acquaintance of a young friend who is one of us--one of those poor devils Society refuses to employ according to their talents, one of those drones whose useless mouths Society padlocks in order not to have to feed."
"Ah! Monsieur Dufrenoy is a dreamer," Jacques replied.
"A poet, my friend! and I wonder what in the world he can be doing here in Paris, where a man's first duty is to make money!"
"Obviously enough," Jacques replied, "he's landed on the wrong planet."

[Copyright 1994, Random House, New York.]