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Re: Myths

From: Garmt de Vries <G.deVries~at~phys.uu.nl>
Date: Sun, 3 Apr 2005 21:58:43 +0200 (CEST)
To: Jules Verne Forum <jvf~at~Gilead.org.il>


Hi Jan,

> 1) That Verne visited Slovakia in 1893 to find inspiration for Le
> Château des Carpathes (which he actually wrote much earlier). This is
> myth is alive in Slovakia, of course. Few monts ago I reported it to the
> Forum with further details.

Nice point. Nejat and Ariel reported similar myths, so I'll take them all
together as "Jules Verne visited country X, where he found the inspiration
for novel Y". In the discussion, I can then list several countries that
Verne allegedly visited. We must be careful, though, not to list too many
places, but only those that have widely been stated as placed visited by
JV.

> 2) That Verne was a visionary, even an inventor, that the machines in his
> novels were his own predictions of future. I don't know how much alive is
> this myth abroad, but I was striken, how much it is in our country.

I think this is, worldwide, the most recurrent myth about Verne. In one
newspaper article in the Netherlands, the author makes a point of how much
Verne was a 19th-century man, and how his "inventions" were based in
reality. A very nice article, but guess what caption they put underneath
Verne's portrait? "Jules Verne, a man far ahead of his time". Sigh...

From your suggestions, it becomes clear that there are myths with varying
levels of widespreadness and stubbornness. Ideas like Verne as an inventor
or Dore having illustrated some Verne novels are quite common among the
general public, but most Vernians know better. That Verne's study was
located in the tower of his house, is something that quite a few Vernians
readily believe from what they read, but if you've been in Amiens or read
the interviews given by JV, you know it's not true. Finally, myths like
Verne being a coastguard or the translations in 200 languages are repeated
even in serious publications by JV experts. Perhaps the "seriousness" of
the myths should be indicated?

Cheers,
Garmt.
Received on Sun 03 Apr 2005 - 22:58:55 IDT

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