Jules Verne Forum

<jvf@Gilead.org.il>

JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec 19961997199819992000200120022003200420052006200720082009

Re: From the Earth to the Moon--Does it require a sequel?

From: thomas mccormick <tom_amity~at~hotmail.com>
Date: Fri, 03 Mar 2006 04:13:51 +0000
To: jvf~at~Gilead.org.il

Brian Taves wrote -

"Reading FEM and AM together results in emphasizing the science, just as
making the background of Captain Nemo concrete in L'Ile mysterieuse robs 20K
of its ambiguity and universality of experience." Brian also remarks that
Maitre du monde doesn't properly clear up the mystery of Robur but
exacerbates it.

As a rule I agree with Brian's assessments re Verne, but I'm not sure I
properly appreciate this one, at least in regard to Mysterious Island. My
understanding is that Verne's design in 20,000 Leagues
was to make no mystery of Nemo's background at all, but rather to portray
him as a freedom fighting Polish aristocrat; the fact that his identity
remains a question mark is entirely the result of Hetzel's meddling. Thus,
it seems to me that Verne's final revelation re Nemo reflects simply a
delayed fulfillment of his original intention to provide Nemo with a
background.

It is true that this fulfillment is only partial, since Verne is still
prevented from describing Nemo as a Pole, so that Verne makes a virtue of
necessity and uses the Captain to express his negative feelings about
British imperialism in India. Nonetheless, his original intention shines
thru: Nemo is still an aristocrat who led his people against an occupying
power in a great national rebellion wherein his wife and two children
perished, and so on, just as in 20,000 Leagues. I disagree with folks who
see an inconsistency here (other than the chronological inconsistency, that
is, and the fact that Hetzel's interference forced Verne to change the
locale from Poland to India).

Tom

>From: Brian Taves <btav~at~loc.gov>
>Reply-To: Jules Verne Forum <jvf~at~Gilead.org.il>
>To: Jules Verne Forum <jvf~at~Gilead.org.il>
>Subject: Re: From the Earth to the Moon--Does it require a sequel?
>Date: Thu, 2 Mar 2006 19:33:02 -0500 (EST)
>
>The only version in print of either lunar novel in modern translation is
>Lowell Bair's softcover of FEM, which Art Evans gives low marks to in his
>translation guide.
>
>On Thu, 2 Mar 2006, Walter J Miller wrote:
>
> >
> > Thanks for the compliment about my FEM. Is this novel OP in English? >
>I'm still hoping to get to pushing Harper/Collins to put out a new
> > edition. Just busy as hell. Rehab takes up 3 mornings a week, really
> > breaking up my work time. I'm asking people to write to HarperCollins
>to
> > ask why they're not reissuing this....after all, there's a Japanese
> > translation of my AJV:FTETTM and no English version of it. If I
> > anticipate your answer correctly, there is no other English version in
> > print....? Cheers! WJM----- Original Message -----
> >
> > From: Brian Taves <btav~at~loc.gov>
> >
> > Date: Monday, February 6, 2006 7:33 pm
> >
> > Subject: From the Earth to the Moon--Does it require a sequel?
> >
> > >
> > > The cartoon image of the lightbulb appearing above a character's
> > > head is
> > > familiar to all of us, and is in fact to my mind a rather amusing
> > > but also
> > > accurate portrayal of how a fresh idea may suddenly illuminate our
> > > thinking.
> > > Such occurred to me, a few days ago, and I'd like to share it with
> > > the Forum
> > > for the reactions of others.
> > >
> > > I first read a (no doubt watered-down) Scholastic Press version of
> > > From the
> > > Earth to the Moon as my first Verne book, in the fifth grade, age
> > > ten, in the
> > > spring of 1969. I found it singularly unsatisfying; nowhere in
> > > the little
> > > paperback was there any mention of a sequel. Nonetheless, some
> > > months later, I
> > > had entered my own lifelong thrall to Verne and discovered Around
> > > the Moon,
> > > discovering that the story of FEM had a more satisfactory conclusion.
> > ! >
> > > Yet, in subsequently realizing the five year span between the
> > > compositionof the two stories, something has always remained
> > > unsatisfactory about the
> > > relationship between the two works. And it may be linked to that
> > > need for
> > > closure, for "a happy ending" that AM offers. Judged purely as a
> > > literaryachievement, FEM outweighs AM, when the two are measured
> > > as separate
> > > novels.
> > >
> > > Much has been written on this Forum about Verne's choice of a
> > > cannon, and
> > > whether he was indeed likely aware that his solution to the
> > > problem of lunar
> > > travel was ultimately no more practical than that of Poe's Hans
> > > Pfaal.
> > >
> > > That, however, seems to me a matter of secondary interest. More
> > > to the
> > > point, as highlighted in Walter James Miller's Annotated JV
> > > translation of
> > > FEM (the fabulous version I have just been re! reading), is the fact
> > > thatthe whole background of artillery s erves as a perfect launch
> > > pad for
> > > Verne's own ironic commentaries on militarism, nationalism,
> > > capitalism,and sectionalism. FEM may be best understood as
> > > satire, rather than, more
> > > conventionally, a scientific novel.
> > >
> > > And it is with that in mind that it seems to me it is quite
> > > possible to
> > > read FEM, not as the first part of the story of a lunar journey
> > > that it
> > > became, but a stand-alone volume. One which is open-ended, yet
> > > seems to
> > > indicate that nature has intervened and the ambition of man has been
> > > thwarted. Just as Herr Schultz sought the destruction of
> > > Franceville and
> > > instead launched a satellite, so too did the Gun Club fail in
> > > their aim,
> > > instead creating yet another satellite. The Club has failed, just
> > > as they
> > > will again in the ultimate volume of the trilogy, which returns to the
> > > tone of F! EM. A later team of American astronomers hunting for a
> > > meteor--whether or not having the help of an interfering French
> > > scientist--similarly find nature overwhelming their dreams.
> > > Thanks to
> > > modern literary reappraisals of Verne, we can recognize in him a
> > > writer of
> > > much greater depth, and the seemingly sudden, "surprise ending" of
> > > FEM is
> > > indeed inevitable, and the implied death of all the protagonists
> > > (despitethe hopes of Maston, who has been foolish throughout the
> > > novel), an
> > > experiment with a different type of ending. So too were such
> > > other early
> > > Verne novels as Hatteras and Paris au XX Siecle intended to end in the
> > > death of the protagonist.
> > >
> > > Vernian sequels don't always merge together easily Indeed, the
> > > addition of
> > > Around the Moon rather distorts FEM, losing the materialist view of
> > > American culture that for! med the first volume. The futher
> > > adventures of
> > > the G un Club to change the Earth's axis lacks the lightness of
> > > FEM, or
> > > Around the Moon. Reading FEM and AM together results in
> > > emphasizing the
> > > science, just as making the background of Captain Nemo concrete in
> > > L'Ilemysterieuse robs 20K of its ambiguity and universality of
> > > experience.
> > > Maitre du monde does not answer the questions raised by Robur le
> > > conquerant; instead it multiplies them, and if it ends the life of
> > > Robur,it leaves his true motivations and background never to be known.
> > >
> > > Perhaps, then, it is not so unfortunate that at least in English,
> > > FEM has
> > > often appeared separately, far more times than its sequel has, and
> > > indeedthe two are surprisingly rarely published together.
> > >
> > > Given the above, I see that my own one-time belief that FEM
> > > demanded a
> > > sequel may have been a result of an incorrect reading, or only one
> > &gt! ; way of
> > > reading of FEM. Perhaps a sequel was possible, but certainly not
> > > essential, from a literary standpoint, any more than L'Ile mys.
> > > had to
> > > resolve the open ends of 20K and Les Enfants du Capitaine Grant. My
> > > assumption has always been that Verne always planned FEM to have a
> > > sequel,but I open the question to our expert biographers on that
> > > more practical
> > > point. And, I would suggest the notion that FEM is indeed a singular
> > > volume, able to stand alone.
> > >
> > >
> > > Brian Taves
> > > Motion Picture/Broadcasting/Recorded Sound Division
> > > Library of Congress
> > > 101 Independence Avenue, S.E. Washington, D.C. 20540-4692
> > > Telephone: 202-707-9930; 202-707-2371 (fax)
> > > Email: btav~at~loc.gov
> > >
> > >
> > > Disclaimer--All opinions expressed are my own.
>
>

_________________________________________________________________
Express yourself instantly with MSN Messenger! Download today - it's FREE!
http://messenger.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200471ave/direct/01/
Received on Fri 03 Mar 2006 - 06:14:05 IST

JV.Gilead.org.il
Copyright © Zvi Har’El
$Date: 2009/02/01 22:36:11 $$