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Re: Annotated Earth to the Moon

From: Ron Miller <rmiller~at~crosslink.net>
Date: Wed, 2 Feb 2000 13:51:59 -0500
To: Jules Verne Forum <jvf~at~math.technion.ac.il>

> Yesterday, Feb.1, Ron Miller wrote the Forum about The Annotated FROM THE
> EARTH TO THE MOON of NYU professor, Walter James Miller (no relation).
>
> Ron wrote: "The only faults I've found . . . have mostly to do with
> Miller's unfamiliarity with astronautics. For one example, he seems
> extremely confused as to what "g" or "g force" means and most of his
> references to it make no sense. And trying to make a 900-foot hole in the
> ground into a phallic symbol... one hardly knows what to say."
>
> I'm sorry that Ron has returned to his old malicious sniping at Walter
> Miller. And, as in the past, Ron's haste and compulsive hostility have led
> him into making silly blunders. To wit--

I see nothing compulsively hostile in my remarks, particularly given
that this is the first criticism I've offered in half a decade--and the
first regarding this particular book--other than the publication a
couple of years ago of a possible source for Verne's reference to an
8-armed squid. I can only suppose that Rick's definition of "sniping"
includes anything he might interpret as being critical.

> 1) WJM's description of GEES ACCELERATION is on p. 114, (with backward
> references on pp. 131 & 163), and I'd always thought it eminently clear,
> straightforward, and inoffensive. As a double-check I shared it this
> morning with one of my contacts at NASA--who declared it admirably
> accurate. Ron seems to be the one who's "extremely confused."

I admit, with apologies to Mr. Miller, that I had allowed my
recollection of his almost universal use of the phrase "gees
acceleration" to color what I remembered of his explanation of
acceleration--which was, as Rick points out, perfectly correct. But .
. . the fact still remains that there is absolutely no such thing as
"gees acceleration" and I've failed, in a library of several hundred
volumes on astronautics, to find such a phrase. The unit is "g", for
"gravity". (Writing "gee" is rather like writing "vee" for "volt", or,
worse, "vees electromotive force".) Since g is a measure of
acceleration the phrase "gees acceleration" is simply redundant. I
admit that I overstated the case when I said that Miller's
explanation was confused--it's not--when I meant that his
terminology was idiosyncratic.

> 2) As for making the 900-foot-deep Columbiad "into a phallic symbol," Ron's
> memory is playing tricks on him. On pp. 93 and 163, WJM's notes call it a
> WOMB symbol, and French critics have made the same connection. Surely, as a
> married man, Ron knows the difference between a phallus and a uterus.

The passage I refered to reads, verbatim: "Verne explores basic
dream and sexual symbolism. He names Barbicane after a
commanding tower, he makes Nicholl feel impotent and jealous
when Barbicane erects his 900-foot tube." (p. 162) I can hardly
imagine a reference clearer or less arbitrary than this. The
reference to "womb" on p. 193 is without any stated connection to
the cannon at all. I suppose, at worst, Miller can only be accused
of mixing his metaphors--and Rick of missing one of the only two
unambiguous references.

> Almost exactly 5 years ago, I asked Ron how this kind of gratuitous
> negativity could "further the appreciation of Jules Verne." He still hasn't
> come up with an answer.

The answer is the same as it was then: the negativity is in the eye
of the beholder. I broached exactly the same objections to Walter
Miller personally and he found nothing offensive whatsoever in them-
-indeed, we had a very amicable and amusing discussion in which
he himself laughingly wondered where he had ever come up with
the idea of a 900-foot hole as a phallic symbol. It would appear that
Mr. Walter (who is in any event not the author of the book under
discussion) is finding offense on behalf of Mr. Miller, who, as I just
said, found nothing at all wrong with my remarks.

Ron
Received on Wed 02 Feb 2000 - 20:57:21 IST

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