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Re: Les enfants de Capitaine Grant

From: Superonline <neckobay~at~superonline.com>
Date: Sun, 18 Apr 2004 22:39:53 +0300
To: "Jules Verne Forum" <jvf~at~Gilead.org.il>

One for you Mr. Harpold! An excellent critical reading of of the opening of
EG.

Best,
Nejat.

----- Original Message -----
From: "Terry Harpold" <tharpold~at~english.ufl.edu>
To: "Jules Verne Forum" <jvf~at~Gilead.org.il>
Sent: Friday, April 16, 2004 9:04 PM
Subject: Re: Les enfants de Capitaine Grant


> On Friday, April 9, 2004, ithompson~at~geog.gla.ac.uk writes:
>
> >I am grateful to Doug. Henderson of the National Marine
> >Aquarium for the following information on the Balance
> >Fish/Hammerhead Shark. "The species (of Hammerhead) most
> >likely to be seen is Sphyrna zygaena, which occasionally
> >occurs in northern European waters. Wheeler (1978) says
> >"recorded 5 times in the present century in northern
> >European waters, and at least 7 times in the 19thC". I can
> >find no reference to any further North than South Wales.
> >Hence while a sighting (in Scotland) is feasible, it is
> >pretty unlikely". To return to Sid's point, it looks as
> >though out of the 29 species of sharks recorded in UK
> >waters, Verne chose the least likely one to be found in the
> >Clyde.
>
> Very nice bit of research. The very improbability of the catch confirms, I
think, the textual significance of this object at the center of the opening
chapter of the novel: "le poisson-balance des Anglais, le poisson-juif des
Provençaux" (EG, I, i, p. 5 in the LdP edition).
>
> Verne must have been more interested in the evocations of these "fishy"
names than in zoological accuracy: the action of the novel tips, turns, etc.
on the "balance" of the fish's unlikely capture (and the more unlikely
contents of its gut, far removed from where they must have been consumed?);
the fish is, literally, a Wandering Jew [juif errant], and will induce
others to wander aimlessly. The opening of _Captain Grant_ is, I think,
repeated in a sense in the opening of _Le Chateau des Carpathes_, in which
another figure of the Wandering Jew (the itinerant merchant) introduces the
novel's main characters to an unlikely "insight"...
>
> TH
>
> --------------------------------
> Terry Harpold
> Assistant Professor
> Department of English
> University of Florida
>
> tharpold~at~acm.org
> tharpold~at~english.ufl.edu
> http://www.english.ufl.edu/~tharpold
>
>
Received on Sun 18 Apr 2004 - 22:38:58 IDT

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