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Re: Les Indes noires

From: Ian Thompson <ithompson~at~geog.gla.ac.uk>
Date: Fri, 27 Aug 2004 12:11:25 +0100
To: "Jules Verne Forum" <jvf~at~Gilead.org.il>

Dear Lionel,
I read your essay on Les Indes noires in which you ask for comments. On a factual level, Nell is the grandaughter of Silfax, not the great grand daughter as you state on page one.
I agree with a lot of your comments and personally feel that it is the most challenging of the Scottish novels. I do however feel that Verne underplays the misery of the conditions of miners and their families in nineteenth century Scotland. We know that he never visited a Scottish mine....he saw one from a distance at Oakley (Voyage à R.) but declined the offer to visit. In fact conditions for mining families, including women and children, were atrocious. It was virtually a slave system in which the miners had few civil rights. The miners worked in dangerous conditions (I have looked at the records of the Oakley mines owned by the brother of the "Reverend Mr S." and fatalities and severe injuries were commonplace). Verne tends to stress the dangers of supernatural beings rather than physical hazards and in fact paints quite an agreable picture of the mine, with the Starr family living in their "cottage", the chapel beside Lake Malcolm and the tourist attraction of Coal City. The reality of the mid nineteenth century was very different!
Obviously, the existence of a mine at Aberfoyle was geologically impossible although curiously the National Archives in Edinburgh contain a document describing a very small coal deposit at Inversnaid ( where Verne drank a whisky in 1859!). It had no commercial value and Verne would not have known of its existence.
In total, Verne spent only about three hours in the Loch Katrine area, and never visited Aberfoyle (which in 1859 was an insignificant settlement). He "recycles" his own journey of 1859 for the route followed by Nell et al, but otherwise it is a work of fiction and should be analysed as such.
Cordialement,
Ian Thompson.
Received on Fri 27 Aug 2004 - 14:11:31 IDT

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