a review/synopsis:

"At the beginning of the sixty day voyage, European opinion is divided concerning the migration. Missionary doctors and clergymen admit they have encouraged it and are vaguely gratified to be carried along by a grand revolution. Among the media “ ..[There was] no lack of clever folk, willing from the start, to spread endless layers of verbal cream, spurting thick and unctuous from the udders of their minds. ... Eternal France, in keeping with time-honored custom, owed it to herself to stand up, solo, and squeal out sublime and noble notes of love.” Grandest of the rhetoricians is Orelle, a government official who has won a literary prize, who intones: “All the privileged nations must stand up as one, must lend a solemn ear to the eternal question, ”Cain, where is Abel thy brother?” Among the journalists, there is a race activist, Dio, who has made a career of blowing up minor racial incidents into scandals. There is an impoverished, alert, skeptical fellow, Machefer, who asks embarassing commonsense questions of the idealists. There is Durfort, a noisy and brainless idealist-leftist. There is Vilsberg, whose favored pose is as Deep Thinker who can never make up his mind. The idealists and activists (Dio and Durfort) make lots of money while Machefer just scrapes along, but he at least is devoted to truth and common sense...

French public opinion begins to turn to self-destructive after Dio publishes a long article, “Civilization of the Ganges”. “Arts, letters, philosophy ...” Here were “all the wonders that the Ganges had bestowed on us already ... how could we manage without these folk any longer!” - The Pope publishes tear-jerking messages. Socially-minded bishops call for something in spirit of Vatican III. The International Ganges Rescue Commission is formed from old hands with UNESCO and UNICEF -- “veterans in the rat race to gnaw the UN cheese”. The change in attitudes is overwhelming when Australia is vilified as racist simply for pointing out its right to exclude foreigners."

(https://xoxohth.com/thread.php?thread_id=4302173&forum_id=2#38527180)

How did he even do the research for the book's characters when redditors wouldn't be invented for decades?

(https://xoxohth.com/thread.php?thread_id=4302173&forum_id=2#50039166)