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Resolving Alleged Chronological Discrepancies In L'Ile Mysterieuse

From: thomas mccormick <tom_amity~at~hotmail.com>
Date: Thu, 08 Jun 2006 00:36:59 +0000
To: jvf~at~Gilead.org.il

Dear friends,

I have been musing about the famous question of alleged chronological
discrepancies between The Mysterious Island (MI) and the novel to which it
is a quasi-sequel, Twenty Thousand Leagues (20TL). It seems to me that
although there are chronological complications and obscurities in MI, they
are not as formidable, or as impossible to resolve, as many have suggested.
So I wished to share my ideas, and I hope this forum is not too
inappropriate a forum for doing so.

I invite those of you who are interested to see whether any of this makes
sense to you. I apologize in advance for the length of this email.

Here are my thoughts:

In Part 3, chapter 16 of Mysterious Island, Captain Nemo tells the six
American colonists the story of his life. The story Nemo tells is confusing
to some readers, because certain parts of his story seem to contradict not
only the novel to which MI is a quasi-sequel, but also some other parts of
Nemo's story itself. But there is a method to Verne's apparent madness, and
it seems to me that the contradiction may be only an apparent one.

The fact is that Nemo's narrative is told in terms of two two interwoven but
different timelines, which I will call Timelines 1 and 2 (hereinafter T1 and
T2), which have distinct purposes in the narrative and which invariably use
their respective and very distinct formulae for dating the events of Nemo's
life. T1 and T2 are interwoven in a way that recalls the biblical story of
the Great Flood in the Book of Genesis, in which two versions of the Flood
legend are "shuffled together" so as to form one narrative while leaving
contradictions (on the literal level) in place. It is impossible not to
notice which timeline is being employed at the expense of the other at a
given place in Nemo's narrative. Aas I have said, the formulae used in the
respective timelines are entirely distinct from each other.

T1 is intended to aid us in understanding the continuity between MI and
20TL. T1 is not intended to be taken literally. We know this because Verne
warns us obliquely, in a famous or infamous "Editor's Note", that the dates
in 20TL, of which those in T1 are an elaboration, are "false" dates, and
that readers will "later" understand why the falsity was necessary. T1
accepts the "false" chronology of 20TL for the sake of argument, to tell the
story of Nemo's life for the benefit of that vast majority of readers who
are familiar with that novel. The dating method used by T1 consists of
straightforwardly telling us the year, or the date, in/on which a given
event took place, by using the phrases "in the year 1849", "in 1857",
"during the night of the 6th of November, 1866", and "one day, June 22nd,
1867". Allowing for the fact that Verne has made a slip in the
last-mentioned two paired dates -- the kind of slip Verne makes repeatedly
in MI, where he loses a day of the month at least four times, bounces on one
occasion from November to December and back again, and still elsewhere
identifies as a Sunday a day which ought to be a Friday -- the chronology is
consistent with, and perhaps required by, the plot of 20TL.

T2, by contrast, is intended to represent the "real" chronology of Nemo's
life, which Verne's "Editor's Note" tells us "could not be employed until
now". Unlike T1, T2 attaches no actual dates to events. Rather, it counts
backwards from October 16, 1868, the date on which Nemo is speaking, and
uses the phrases "for thirty years", "sixteen years ago", "from the age of
ten to thirty", "Captain Nemo was then sixty years old", and "for six
years".

T1, to recapitulate, is the chronology of 20TL, which, as Verne specifically
warns us in his "Editorial Note", is (in a literal sense) false; T2 is the
"true" chronology, which "could not be given until now.". The only thing the
two timelines have in common is that both T1 and T2 are allowed to date one
event apiece by "cross-indexing" that event with of Nemo's age at the time
of that event. This gives each of the two timelines its objective reference
point, in the following terms.

T1 tells us that Dakkar/Nemo "returned to Bundelkhand in the year 1849", and
since we have already learned that he returned at the age of thirty, we may
compute his age at each of the dates mentioned in T1. Meanwhile, T2 tells us
that Nemo piloted the Nautilus to her final berth at Lincoln Island when he
"was . . . sixty years old", and that he witnessed the arrival of the
American castaways (which we know to have taken place in 1865) "after six
years", wherefore we can similarly calculate his age at any of the other
times mentioned in T2.

Thus, we can arrive at the following respective chronologies for T1 and T2.
We will be uncomfortable with T1 because it makes the events of Mysterious
Island chronologically impossible. We will also be uncomfotable with T2,
because its dating of Aronnax's arrival and departure is so different from
what our reading of 20TL has accustomed us to assuming. But in regard to the
latter, we must again remember that Verne has peremptorily told us that the
chronology of 20TL (which M1 reflects and expands) is simply wrong.

T1 yields us the following chronology:

1819: Born in Bundelkhand as Prince Dakkar.
1829 (age 10): Goes to live in Europe.
1849 (age 30): Returns to Bundelkhand.
1857 (age 38): Participates in rebellion; wife and children killed.
6 Nov. 1866 [slip for 1867] (age 47 [48]): Aronnax and party come aboard the
Nautilus.
22 Jun. 1867 [slip for 1868 (age 47 [48]): Aronnax and party escape from the
Nautilus.

Missing from T1 are the dates for (a) building and launching the Nautilus,
thus becoming Nemo, and (b) piloting the Nautilus to her final berth on
Lincoln Island.

T2 yields us the following chronology:

1799: Born in Bundelkhand as Prince Dakkar.
1809 (age 10): Goes to live in Europe.
1829 (age 30): Returns to Bunmdelkhand ("From the age of ten to thirty . .
.")
1838 (age 39): Becomes Nemo, builds and launches the Nautilus.
1852 (age 52): Aronnax and party come aboard the Nautilus.
1853 (age 52? [53?]): Aronnax and party escape from the Nautilus.
1859 (age 60): Pilots the Nautilus to her final berth on Lincoln Island.

Missing from T2 is the date for Dakkar's participation in national
rebellion. One might speculate, however, that since there is a twenty-year
descrepancy between the same events on the respective timelines, the
rebellion might by analogy be dated in 1837. It would then not have been the
best-known "sepoy rebellion", but rather an earlier one, perhaps a
ficticious one. (In this connection, however, it is interesting to remember
that Verne originally intended to portray Nemo as a Polish patriot in
rebellion against Russian tyranny. As we know, under editor Jules Hetzel's
iron hand Poland became Bundelkhand; the Russians who murdered his wife and
two children, British; and the Polish rebel aristocrat, the Hindu Prince
Dakkar. Nonetheless, there was indeed a great Polish revolt against Russia
in 1830, one year after T2's Dakkar returned to his homeland.)

To accept the chronology of T2 as providing "the real dates", as Verne
intends us to, is difficult for two reasons. First, we must reject a
chronology to which we have become accustomed. Secondly, we must assume in
advance that the same mysterious necessity for disguising "the true dates"
-- a necessity which Verne assures us we will understand in the sweet by and
by -- will require us to assume that many of the details, events,
scientific advances and persons mentioned in 20TL are likewise false,
because of necessity anachronistic. For example, Abraham Liincoln is hardly
possible as the name of a U.S. Navy vessel in the 1850's.

On the other hand, to accept the chronology of T1 and reject that of T2 in
defiance of Verne's directive would leave us in a perfectly absurd
situation. This is so because T1 places Aronnax's sojourn on the Nautilus
from Nov. 18, 1866 to June 6, 1867. Could Nemo have absented himself and his
ship from Lincoln Island during this period, long enough to interact with
Aronnax? In favor of the idea, it might be pointed out that Nemo does not
intervene in the lives of the colonists between Oct. 18, 1866 (when he saves
the otherwise trio, as they return from Tabor, by lighting them an electric
beacon) and the same day in 1867 (when his mine destroys a hostile ship
anchored at Lincoln Island), so that his presence is not required for that
purpose. But if we take the T1 dates as a year earlier than they ought to
be, which we surely must, any such absence is impossible because the ninth,
tenth and eleventh of Nemo's twelve interventions take place during that
time. And in either situation, Nemo has three other alibis: both timelines
tell us that the Aronnax episode took place several years before Nemo's
final voyage to Lincoln Island; his crew have long since died; and the
Nautilus' means of leaving Lincoln Island is blocked.

Verne is clearly in the right: we must accept T2, and we must reject the
chronology of the earlier book (T1, in other words). Indeed, there is one
final reason why the action of 20TL could not have taken place in the latter
half of the 1860's as depicted in M1 or in 20TL from which M1 derives. That
reason is: Smith and Spilett are familiar with the events of 20TL, having
read the book. This cannot be so, assuming that the T1 chronology is
correct, because the castaways were exiled from civilization since 1865 and
could not have read 20TL unless the events had already happened, and the
book already been written, prior to their departure from Richmond. (They
must, however, have wondered why Aronnax set the story in the future!
Assuming that the dates needed to be falsified, need the teller of the tale
make his falsification so obvious?)

Thus, Mysterious Island is not in fact as chronologically self-contradictory
as it seems. But perhaps I in fairness report to readers an equally
plausible theory propounded by a young friend of mine, who like many
youngsters is fond of Verne: the Nautilus, in addtion to being a submarine,
is a time machine!

Indeed, there are at least two directions in which to pursue any
chronological problem. We must surely ponder the words of Groucho: Time
flies like an arrow, but fruit fries prefer a banana.

Tom McCormick

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Received on Thu 08 Jun 2006 - 03:37:16 IDT

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