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Verne query (fwd)

From: Brian Taves <btav~at~loc.gov>
Date: Tue, 9 Sep 2003 19:04:06 -0400 (EDT)
To: jvforum <jvf~at~math.technion.ac.il>

This recently came up on SF-Lit. Here was my response there:

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Wed, 30 Jul 2003 19:29:58 -0400 (EDT)
From: Brian Taves <btav~at~loc.gov>
To: Science Fiction and Fantasy Listserv <SF-LIT~at~loc.gov>
Subject: Verne query


> Date: Mon, 28 Jul 2003 17:56:57 -0700
> From: Dennis Fischer <fischerfact7fiction~at~YAHOO.COM>
>
> Dear Prof. Taves,
>
> I remember how surprised I was when I read Verne's Off
> a Comet and discovered what appeared to be virulent
> anti-Semitism. Having read only a fraction of the
> master's output, was this typical of him? Where did it
> come from? Given the Dreyfus case, I suspect that it
> may have been quite common in the French society at
> the time, but as a scholar of Verne, I would enjoy
> getting your take on it.

The original title of this novel was HECTOR SERVADAC, 1877. The
characterization of Isaac Hakhabut in the story should be read in the full
context. The book shows two classes of people who are reluctant to unite
when a piece of the earth is swept off into the solar system on a
comet. First is Hakhabut, a moneylender, who finally capitulates and
joins the others. Second is the British colony at Gibraltar, who refuse
to believe the mother country will not shortly relieve them, and their
part of the comet breaks off, wandering off into space.

So you can see Verne was making some very pointed barbs in the book.
Certainly Hakhabut is in the tradition of Shakespeare's Shylock.
However, it is an anomaly in Verne's writing.

At the time of drafting the book Verne had been deeply offended by the
baseless "revelation" in the equivalent of the tabloids of the day that he
was actually not French, but a Polish Jew--a rumor that persisted decades,
and continued to be reprinted upon his death.

Verne was anti-Dreyfuss, and had to regret it because his leftist son was
very adamantly pro-Dreyfuss. Jules and Michel Verne became collaborators
in the father's later years.

Similarly, Verne did not regard himself as a feminist, but some of his
books, most notably the newly translated MIGHTY ORINOCO, find a strong
feminist strain in his writing.

Verne assumed a bourgeois mask toward society, yet his books are peopled
with outcasts, outlaws, and revolutionaries. One of his primary themes
was the questioning of colonialism and race; Captain Nemo supplies Greek
rebels and is himself an exile from the 1857 Indian mutiny. Or, to pick
another well-known example, the stiff Englishman Phileas Fogg discovers
love with the Indian widow Aouda. Verne's portraits of colonial peoples,
including people of color, are sympathetic, although with a few
exceptions. And it is these failings that remind us that Verne couldn't
always break out of his time; and that's the sense in which the Hakhabut
character has to be read.

Rather than race or ethnicity, the most common stereotypes in Verne deal
with nationality: his disgust with British arrogance, German militarism,
together with his admiration--with qualifications--of the United States.


Brian Taves
Kluge Staff Fellow
Office of Scholarly Programs
Library of Congress
101 Independence Avenue, S.E. Washington, D.C. 20540
Telephone: 202-707-0187; 202-707-3595 (fax)
Email: btav~at~loc.gov
                                                              
                                                              
Disclaimer--All opinions expressed are my own.
Received on Wed 10 Sep 2003 - 02:06:11 IDT

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