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Re: Hector Servadac

From: Chris Moser <crmoser~at~shaw.ca>
Date: Wed, 05 Sep 2007 05:15:54 -0700
To: Jules Verne Forum <jvf~at~gilead.org.il>

The question of Verne's attitude towards Jewish people can not be separated
from his relationship with Hetzel . Given Hetzel's significant involvement
in the editing of Verne's works and Hetzel's close personal relationship
with Verne I have always thought that the racist comments in the Eglish
editions were placed there by the translators.

Chris
----- Original Message -----
From: "Jan Rychlík" <jan.rychlik~at~seznam.cz>
To: "Jules Verne Forum" <jvf~at~Gilead.org.il>
Sent: Wednesday, September 05, 2007 1:07 AM
Subject: Re:Hector Servadac


> Dear Norm,
>
> I think it should be noted that Munro translation is probably based on the
> Magasin version of the novel. See Vol. 1, end chpt. 18:
>
> Munro translation:
>
> "In fact, captain," replied Count Timascheff, "there are, on this fragment
> of our old globe, the nations of France, Russia, Italy. Spain, England,
> and Germany. As for the last, it must be allowed that she is very badly
> represented by this Jew."
> " No, I do not think so," replied Captain Servadac.
>
> Ellen Frewer's translation:
>
> “True, captain,” answered the count; “we have only a fragment of a world,
> but it contains natives of France, Russia, Italy, Spain, and England. Even
> Germany may be said to have a representative in the person of this
> miserable Jew.”
> “And even in him,” said Servadac, “perhaps we shall not find so
> indifferent a representative as we at present imagine.”
>
> conform to the French book version:
>
> – En effet, capitaine, répondit le comte Timascheff, il y a, sur ce
> fragment de notre ancien globe, des nationaux de France, de Russie, d’Italie,
> d’Espagne, d’Angleterre, d’Allemagne. Quant à celle-ci, il faut convenir
> qu’elle est assez mal représentée par ce renégat!
> – Ne nous montrons pas trop difficiles!» répondit le capitaine Servadac.
>
> Sincerely
>
> Jan
>
>> ------------ Původní zpráva ------------
>> Od: Norm Wolcott <nwolcott2ster~at~gmail.com>
>> Předmět: Hector Servadac
>> Datum: 04.9.2007 22:12:51
>> ----------------------------------------
>> By now I am sure everyone has looked at the Munro version of Hector
>> Servadac on the Library of Congress web site. However, the magazine is
>> a little difficult to read online, and so I have posted a preliminary
>> version of chapters 1-5 on ibiblio at
>>
>> http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/docs/books/sherwood/Servadac_001-005.htm
>>
>> As is known the Sampson Low translation by Ellen Frewer , although it
>> follows the story line faithfully, is defective in that it paraphrases
>> much of the action and conversations, and much of the detail is lost.
>> In addition she seems almost to be trying to explain the story to the
>> English readers as if afraid they will not get the point at all if
>> translated literally. That may be true. We do not have to venture very
>> far into the novel to see how much of the original flavor has been
>> lost in the Frewer version. Miss Frewer has also softened down much of
>> Verne's descriptions of Isaac Hakhabut perhaps noting a little
>> overkill.
>>
>> The Munro translation about which I shall have more to say later is
>> much more of a literal translation giving us the unvarnished Verne.
>> Unfortunately there is much error in the typography requiring much
>> editorial redaction, in addition to the normal OCR difficulties and
>> spelling variations from page to page.
>>
>> One interesting feature of the Seaside Library edition is the
>> confusion of "u" with "n". These two letters are identical
>> typographically, but there are notches indicating the top and bottom.
>> It appears that after typesetting a junior or apprentice distributed
>> the type into the type boxes, carelessly confusing several "u"
>> 'sand"n" 's. There was obviously not much opportunity for proof
>> reading in this high speed operation.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> Norman Wolcott, nwolcott2 at post.harvard.edu
>>
>>
>>
Received on Wed 05 Sep 2007 - 15:16:20 IDT

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