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Re: new 20K

From: thomas mccormick <tom_amity~at~hotmail.com>
Date: Fri, 14 Oct 2005 00:41:49 +0000
To: jvf~at~Gilead.org.il

Of course, we must bear in mind that this sort of discussion about
20,000Leagues-in-English will be otiose in a few years. By that time we will
have a new cohort of students and Vernophiles, whose impressions of 20,000
Leagues will be gathered from good translations (such as Miller's or
Butcher's), and when they want more of Captain Nemo they'll have Kravitz or
Stump or whatever. A debate about the merits and demerits of Lewis will be
regarded as a quaint period piece, of interest only to philologists. Most of
Verne's readers will be too busy being entertained and moved by his works to
care about the fate of flawed translations, which they will jump over or
blow up.

Tom McCormick


>From: Walter J Miller <wjm2~at~nyu.edu>
>Reply-To: Jules Verne Forum <jvf~at~Gilead.org.il>
>To: Jules Verne Forum <jvf~at~Gilead.org.il>
>Subject: Re: new 20K
>Date: Wed, 12 Oct 2005 12:20:53 -0400
>
>
>
>Ron and all: A little background on this Mercier Lewis-Annotated 20K
>discussion.  When I felt that my 1965 essay "Jules Verne in America: A
>Translator's Preface" had failed to rouse publishers/readers to strive to
>rehabilitate Verne in the anglophone world, my editor at Crowell---the
>great Hugh Rawson---suggested that we do an annotated edition of the
>"standard" [Lewis] edition and (1) annotate all his errors and (2) fill in
>the gaps with my translation of the 23% Lewis had omitted---and annotate
>the reasons maybe for the omissions!  I think that this Crowell edition
>('76) did more than the Washington Square Press edition ('65) to get things
>moving.  And you are right, Ron, to wonder why we did not take the other
>route: Many readers asked why did you not just correct and fulfill the ML
>version.  Rawson thought the other route would be more dramatic, and I
>think that on the one hand he was right for THE TIME, but that actually
>the!
> other route should also be tried.  Of course, one would have to feel, as
>Ron does, that ML has intrinsic values, which I don't, obviously.  I think
>his only value to us THEN was that he typified the whole Verne-translation
>scandal and  had to be exposed as such in great detail. So now, with your
>Unicorn edition, we have both routes traveled, but clearly better
>treatments were called for, and I think that the Miller-Walter USNIP and
>the Butcher Oxford versions were inevitable----one on the big hardcover
>level, the other on the mass paperback level.  I will still order the
>Unicorn (amazon.com?) just to see how the "other route" that Rawson and I
>considered has worked out.  And incidentally, it was not the word
>"bullshit" that I regarded as a critique but the words "non sequiturs."
>"Bullshit" alone would be "intellectual bullying," but "non sequiturs" are
>a serious intellectual concern.Cheers!  Walter James Miller----- Origina!
> l Message -----
>
>From: spaceart~at~att.net
>
>Date: Tuesday, October 11, 2005 12:09 pm
>
>Subject: Re: new 20K
>
>
>
> > I'm glad you realize that I meant no insult to you or your own
> > work (or anyone else's for that matter). Perhaps I took your word
> > "bullshit" a little too seriously---though I have to admit it is
> > not quite what I am used to hearing refered to as a "critique".
> >
> > In any event, I hope that through my subsequent comments I have
> > managed to make myself clearer. And that everyone will enjoy the
> > coming reissue of the (much improved) Unicorn edition. Many people
> > have asked me about doing this sort of thing over the past several
> > years and I'm very glad to have finally found a way to gratify
> > these requests.
> >
> > I hope, too, to be seeing everyone in Norfolk...though it seems
> > that there may be a conflict with a book deadline. I hope not!
> >
> > Ron
> >
> > --
> > Black Cat Studios
> > http://www.black-cat-studios.com
> >
> >
> > Ron et al.--- I am glad that my one-sentence critique of your
> > third paragraph produced so much interesting reaction by Tom
> > McCormick & Ralf Tauchmann. I had not taken your announcement as
> > directed at my (and Frederick PAUL Walter's) editions, not at all.
> > I was not insulted. I think your edition (which you and I once
> > discussed as you drove me to your house) is one of many valuable
> > ways of approaching the problem of making Verne available in
> > English. Yesterday I was just protesting the non-sequiturs in
> > said graf, and it seems others have had similar reactions. Thanks
> > for quoting from my various editions and thereby reminding us all
> > that the typos were my sole complaint about the original Unicorn
> > edition. I assume I'll see you in Norfolfk? Cheers! Walter
> > James Miller---- Original Message -----
> >
> > -------------- Original message ------------------!
> ----
> > From: Walter J Miller <wjm2~at~nyu.edu>
> >
>
> >
> >
> >



>From: Walter J Miller <wjm2~at~nyu.edu>
>To: Jules Verne Forum <jvf~at~Gilead.org.il>
>Subject: Re: new 20K
>Date: Tue, 11 Oct 2005 15:04:28 +0000
>
>
>Ron et al.--- I am glad that my one-sentence critique of your third
>paragraph produced so much interesting reaction by Tom McCormick & Ralf
>Tauchmann.  I had not taken your announcement as directed at my (and
>Frederick PAUL Walter's) editions, not at all. I was not insulted. I think
>your edition (which you and I once discussed as you drove me to your house)
>is one of many valuable ways of approaching the problem of making Verne
>available in English.  Yesterday I was just protesting the non-sequiturs in
>said graf, and it seems others have had similar reactions.  Thanks for
>quoting from my various editions and thereby reminding us all that the
>typos were my  sole complaint about the original Unicorn edition.  I assume
>I'll see you in Norfolfk?  Cheers!  Walter James Miller---- Original
>Message -----
>
>From: spaceart~at~att.net
>
>Date: Monday, October 10, 2005 10:47 pm
>
>Subject: Re: new 20K
>
>
>
> > I take it you took offense at what I said, which I certainly did
> > not intend. I recognize that there have been several much better
> > researched and scholarly translations of 20K since the 1987
> > Unicorn Press edition, which I thought I had clearly acknowledged.
> > But I don't think anyone can deny that many of these modernized
> > much of the language, or recast Verne's phrasing into that of the
> > translator. That is, they were 20K retold. This makes the books
> > more accessible to late 20th century readers, and I readily
> > acknowledge the rationale behind that, too. But I have always felt
> > that something of the character of reading a Victorian novel was
> > lost in the process. This opinion is not meant to cast any
> > negative aspersions on any other versions of the book. If you took
> > it that way, I am sorry.
> >
> > At the time the Unicorn Press edition, which was publishe!
> d in
> > 1987, there had not been many new 20th century translations of
> > 20K. There had been Anthony Bonner's 1960 edition, Mendor
> > Brunetti's 1969 effort and your 1965 work. The faults of the
> > former two books are neatly outlined in your introduction to the
> > Naval Institute Press edition. In the preface to the 1965 20K, you
> > say that "where a literal translation would be unfair to Verne"
> > you "recast a passage to communicate its spirit" and that you felt
> > free to "gloss over" things you felt would not be of interest to a
> > 20th century reader. I find no fault with this: at the time the
> > book was instrumental in rekindling my interest in Jules Verne.
> >
> > So I stand by my statement that when the Unicorn Press edition was
> > published, it was the most complete version of the book published
> > up to that time. It was a position that was, of course, superceded
> > by later!
> editions---yours and Paul's especially. But I also stand
> > by
>my statement that I took great care to retain the character and
> > style of the language and deliberately made no attempt to
> > modernize it.
> >
> > Since 1987 there have been at least three superb new translations
> > that have, at least for scholarly reasons if no other, superceded
> > my own version of 20K, including the one that you and Paul did---
> > which in my opinion is the best of the lot.
> >
> > In your introduction to the Naval Institute Press edition, you
> > described your 1965 translation as being a revised and restored
> > version of the Mercier 20K. Following your lead, and the
> > possibilities broadly hinted at in your Annotated 20K, I only
> > carried that process further. In fact, it was wondering why you
> > didn't merely fix the Mercier translation outright rather than
> > employ the method you chose to use in the Annotated 20K that got
> > me thinking about doing that !
> very thing myself: that is,
> > correcting and completing the Mercier version. As I said, this
> > required more than 3000 individual corrections above and beyond
> > the missing text that was replaced. The only complaint you made in
> > the introduction to the NIP edition about the resulting Unicorn
> > Press book was that it had been "sabotaged by careless
> > typesetting"...a fault I admit to and which I have taken some
> > pains to correct.
> >
> > RM
> >
> > --
> > Black Cat Studios
> > http://www.black-cat-studios.com
> >
> > -------------- Original message ----------------------
> > From: Walter J Miller <wjm2~at~nyu.edu>
> >
> >
> >

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Received on Fri 14 Oct 2005 - 02:42:01 IST

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