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Re: Interviews

From: Garmt de Vries <G.deVries~at~phys.uu.nl>
Date: Wed, 28 Jun 2006 22:23:30 +0200 (CEST)
To: Jules Verne Forum <jvf~at~Gilead.org.il>

Dear Volker,

> as Jean-Michel writes in his introduction, he took only the texts
> included in the Slatkine anthology of 1997. If we add other texts we
> would have to change the structure (that's no problem, I guess), but we
> must discuss the authenticity of each text. As I wrote in my
> Bulletin-introduction, some of these textes are surely due to
> plagiarism.

And even some of the interviews in Jean-Michel's "Entretiens" are fake.
Yes, this is a problem. But I don't see it as more problematic than the
authenticity of novels and other texts. "Prodigieuse decouverte" and other
apocrypha are listed in the bibliography, and I think that's a good thing.
People who run into one of these texts, and don't find it in the
bibliography, may think the bibliography is incomplete. If you include the
title, and clearly explain that it was written by someone else, you
educate the visitor a lot more.

The thing with the interviews is, of course, that it's often harder to
assess their authenticity than it is for novels or short stories. Also,
there are far more fake interviews than fake novels.

> The other real problem is that I don't think that interviews are parts
> of an author's work, but a part of the writing ON him.

This is a more fundamental objection, and I tend to agree with you.
Verne's words that are reported in an interview are written down by the
interviewer, and not by Verne. Technically speaking, an interview is not a
work by Jules Verne.

I think the translations of interviews are interesting enough to be
mentioned in my database of translations, but whether they should be part
of a bibliography of JV's works is not so sure.

> I agree to list one day all "interviews" we know, but we should indicate
> in same time if hey are authentic or not. That's a great deal, and needs
> much discussion.

One might get started with a list of all known interviews, and over time
add notes on their authenticity. No comment means it might be authentic or
it might be fake.

Since there's no copyright on these old texts anymore, it might even be a
good idea to put all these interviews online, so Vernians can discuss
them.

Cheers,
Garmt.
Received on Wed 28 Jun 2006 - 23:23:39 IDT

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