Jules Verne Forum

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Re: Green Politics

From: Ralf Tauchmann <ralf.tauchmann~at~t-online.de>
Date: Tue, 4 Jul 2000 10:41:16 +0200
To: jvf~at~math.technion.ac.il

Davor Sisovic schrieb:
> > Would Verne be a Green if he were alive today? When I think of
> > Captain Nemo,
> > I can not do otherwise than be of the opinion that there is a Verne-Nader
> > connection here, in spirit if in nothing else? Can someone
> > enlarge on this
> > question, please?
> > Carter Kaplan
> >
>
> Once I discussed a similar subject in some newsgroups, and I had to fight
> against the opinion that Verne would, in some today's novels, glorify the
> nuclear plants in every village... I tried to explain how wrong it is to
> consider Verne as glorificator of technology and machines, but actually I
> saw that Verne's antiutopian novels are not known so well,

Dear fellow Vernians,

This touches the point whether or not Jules Verne is a man of literature or a
man of technology. In my view, Jules Verne is first of all an author with a
special interest in the actual theatre stage from his childhood. Technology,
geography, and history are the the main settings of his theatre-like plots
(Vaudeville minus sexual desire [because of the adolescents as a target group] -
as Jules Verne complained about himself in a letter to Hetzel with regard to
Mathias Sandorf, if I remember well). I'd like to repeat here that I think
Mathias Sandorf is among the great books of Jules Verne (not only in volume).

In terms of technology, the late XIXth century is the scenery of rapdily
growing industrialization. When looking at the illustrations of some of the
books (where Jules Verne exerted a big influence, as we know), we will see : the
more steam and smoke - the more progess.

On the other hand, we have the hygienic model town of France-Ville in contrast
with Stahlstadt (although the original story is not by Verne himself, but by an
ex-Communard). Jules Verne defends the aboriginals in "Captain Grant",
describes ending resources and dying infrastructure in the "Underground City"
(Les Indes noires).

But - that is my point - Jules Verne is neither defender nor enemy of industry,
he "collects" the knowledge of his time and thereby becomes kind of a mirror of
his era. He was a friend of the established order and we find everything in his
books, a very blunt example is the chapter "cachalots et baleines" of "20000
Leagues under the Sea", where Nemo on the one hand blames Ned Land for killing
whales until possible extinction (yes - JV could be a Green), but draws a
line between worthy and unworthy lives when killing cruelly the cachalots (no -
he would not be a Green). We had a very brief discussion some time ago on this
list (in French), whether JV was antisemitic. My belief is that JV was as
antisemitic as his time, i.e. he adopted this view without deeper reflection.

The original question raised by Carter is of course purely hypothetical. I even
dare say that Jules Verne, today, would be no novelist, but probably a writer
for the film industry. My conclusion is that it is not possible to stick today's
labels to Jules Verne.

Nemo's killing of the cachalots immediately after morally reproaching Ned Land
for hunting whales is so hypocrite that my only consolation is that Jules Verne
is only a mirror of his epoch. I see no way how to understand Jules Verne
without his time in mind.

Kind regards,

Ralf Tauchmann
Received on Tue 04 Jul 2000 - 11:43:37 IDT

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