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Re: An early interview

From: Christian Sánchez <chvsanchez~at~arnet.com.ar>
Date: Mon, 5 Feb 2007 03:10:39 -0300
To: "Jules Verne Forum" <jvf~at~Gilead.org.il>

I typed it from http://archive.quincylibrary.org/Repository/ml.asp?Issue=QDW/1887/08/13&ID=Ar00700&Mode=Gif&Locale=english-skin-custom.

If the interview deserves it, perhaps Zvi could include it in his site.

Best regards,

Christian Sánchez
chvsanchez~at~arnet.com.ar
Rosario, Argentina
  ----- Mensaje original -----
  De: BGYKrauth
  Para: Jules Verne Forum
  Enviado: domingo, 4 de febrero de 2007 6:22
  Asunto: Re: An early interview


  Interesting. Can you give more detail about the publication as where did this Quincy Daily Whig appeared, what page of the paper and maybe - if you found it online - where? Or does anybody else knows about this text? On a fast look I couldn't find any text like that in this period.

  Brgds

  Bernhard

   

  mail from:
   
  Bernhard Krauth
   
  have a look at:

  www.jules-verne.eu

  www.jules-verne-club.de
   
  www.bernhard-krauth.de
   
  www.bremerhavenpilot.de

    ----- Original Message -----
    From: Christian Sánchez
    To: Jules Verne Forum
    Sent: Sunday, February 04, 2007 6:27 AM
    Subject: An early interview


    This interview appeared in The Quincy Daily Whig (Date: Aug 13, 1887).

    Highlights:

    "Ah! the dates! they give more trouble than you can imagine."

    "I regret my ignorance of the English language."

    "I always give the Americans my best parts."

    ...a planisphere upon which M. Verne has traced in lines of different colors the voyages of his heroes.

    ------

    JULES VERNE AT HOME

    THE BEGINNING OF HIS CAREER AS A WRITER OF ADVENTURE

    He Owes a Great Deal to Poe and to Cooper - How He Writes a Story - A Terror to the Proof Reader - His New Novel.

    Jules Verne was born at Nantes, in 1828; to be precise, Feb. 8. He wears lightly his 59 years of life. His hair and beard are white, but his face is young, unfurrowed, and there is an expression of frankness in it, and in his clear, calm blue eyes, that always won a heart. Being a Breton, he was born with a profound admiration for the sea; at 12 he had read "Robinson Crusoe", and had begun to think of writing stories of shipwrecks.

    He studied law, was graduated at the law school, went into the stock exchange, not as one of the venerable institution created by an ordinance of Philippe le Bel, but behind the scenes, in it but not of it, like the gulf stream in the ocean.

    It had flashed his mind that he might go to California and seek a gold mine and find it, and then devote himself to literature; but as he was writing constantly, the Gymnase playhouse found something to accept in his mass of manuscripts. It was a comedy in verse, in one act, "Les Pailles Rompues", and it had been written with Alexandre Dumas fils as a co-laborer. Dumas is his friend. Mark this, for Dumas is not a prodigal of his friendship, and is a perfect miser at praising the work of others. I have heard him say of Jules Verne that if he were a foreigner there would be nothing too good for him in France. Jules Verne says that he has been fortunate in the friendship of Dumas and of an editor, Hetzel, who coached him, kept him in line, prevented him from making excursions in the domain of Balzac, ever since the day of his first novel, "Five Weeks in a Balloon", made him able to live by his pen. That was in 1862. Since then he has written fifty volumes, two every year.

    SOURCES OF INSPIRATION

    Had he caught his inspiration from Edgar Poe, whose influence, in the vivid translations of Baudelaire, has been great on French men of letters? Were the impressions of the brothers de Goncourt in 1856 similar to his own? M. Verne said yes, that he owed much to Edgar Poe and much to Fenimore Cooper, of whom he is an ardent admirer.

    His object was to write books that the young could read with profit. He had no pretensions to being a savant, a man of science. He read incessantly. Whenever he was in doubt he went to town to one he knew. Joseph Bertrand, of the institute, had been his adviser on many occasions. He would make errors, perhaps, but not very grave ones. I asked him if his stories were not worked backward, like Gobelin tapestry. He said that he never commenced to write a story without knowing how it was going to end. He writes the plot, then studies the details. The results of his studies are in notes of one word in columns, on sheets of paper, letter size. These words refer to books on his library or to other notes of ideas or facts. When he has become familiar with his notes, he writes the story. His manuscript is remarkably neat, on the left of a letter page, leaving a wide margin at the right for the dates. "Ah! the dates! they give more trouble than you can imagine." And the names? His proof reading costs a good deal of money to the editor, he says. He sends the original manuscript to the printer without an erasure, and there are eight successive proofs to be corrected by him. He is fastidious in the extreme with regard to style; that has to be absolutely faultless.

    HIS NEW NOVEL

    He goes to bed at 8 o'clock, gets up early and is at work until midday in his cozy workshop on the second floor, from which we saw a parade and review by the division general of the whole garrison. The men march with a swing of the arm that gives them dash and light airiness, something that makes you feel that their heart is in it or that they would throw it over an obstacle as a rider does to make the horse leap.

    "What made you write 'North and South'" I asked.

    "Fifty lines out of a few pages of the Comte de Paris' history of the civil war in America. The Comte de Paris and I have always entertained pleasant, friendly relations, and I was in sympathy with the north at the time of the war.

    "What material did I use? Everything and anything that I could find. I regret my ignorance of the English language. I have to use translations and translators. The story is interesting because it rests upon alibis and the key is at the end of the story. I have another work under way. I have thought that there was room for another Robinson. There is 'Robinson Crusoe', 'Swiss Family Robinson', the 'Mysterious Island'. The first Robinson is alone, the second has a family, the third is a company of engineers, men of learning. I am writing the story of a boarding school for boys. There are eighteen of them; fifteen of them are English, two French and one American. I shall place them upon a well fitted yacht, that shall be shipwrecked upon an island that is not well known, but exists. The eldest boy 14 years of age, the youngest 8. They shall have all the necessary tools to take care of themselves."

    "I trust you will make the American boy a fine fellow."

    "I always give the Americans my best parts. I have a profound veneration for the American people. I wanted to see it landed as it deserves to be. The American is to be the practical, progressive boy of the party."

    In the hall that leads from the stairway to the work room is a large chart of the world, a planisphere upon which M. Verne has traced in lines of different colors the voyages of his heroes.

    His entire work, when completed, is to be the amusing description of the earth's geography. - Paris Cor. New York Mail and Express.
Received on Mon 05 Feb 2007 - 08:31:50 IST

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