Jules Verne Forum

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Re: Well, one tribute is that we are still posting to it

From: Nadav Har'El <nyh~at~math.technion.ac.il>
Date: Wed, 4 Feb 2009 23:17:25 +0200
To: Jules Verne Forum <jvf~at~Gilead.org.il>

On Tue, Feb 03, 2009, wbutcher wrote about "Re: Well, one tribute is that we are still posting to it":
>> From: Harry Hayfield
>> As I have mentioned before, it was "Around the World with Willy Fog" that
>> got me interested in Jules Verne and yesterday evening as I going through my
>> things I found a sticker album about it that I bought online and wondered to
>> myself, I wonder if there would be a market for a novelisation of the story
>> aimed at children aged between 5 and 11 (which is the age range that the
>> programme was orginally aimed for in the first place).
>
> Not in my view, since it would be too far from Verne's work, which Zvi
> strove to commemorate.

Hi,

First of all, I'd like to thank you all for remembering my father, Zvi.
Indeed, a year as passed (or a two weeks less than a year, if you consider
the Jewish year), and we, his family, still can't believe that he's gone.
We still miss him like he was just here with us yesterday.

Like the subject of Harry's mail says, the fact that my father's site, and
especially this forum, is still useful to so many people, is indeed a
tribute to him and I'm sure it would have made him very happy to know that.
He would be also very proud to know that Verniana, the journal he helped
found, will be out with another (virtual) issue in a few days, thanks to
Jean-Michel Margot and a few other dedicated people that my father always
thought of as his friends.

I would like to comment about Harry's idea. I don't know what my father
would have thought of it, but I wouldn't be suprised if would have liked it.
While he had a serious side, and always despised badly-abridged and badly-
translated version of Verne's books, my father actually loved collecting
everything somehow related to Verne, and not just the original Verne books.
He had (as most you probably know) stamps, medals, memorabilia related to
Verne or his protagonists (like a cologne called "Phileas" and ads for a tour
boat called "Jules Verne"). And of course, he also had all sorts of movies,
in VHS and DVD, made after or inspired by Jules Verne's work. Among these,
he also had "Around the World with Willy Fog".

I don't know what his exact thoughts were regarding the quality of this
series, but I do know one thing: A month before his death, he was in hospital
for a week, and was quite bored and sad (a hospital was no place to celebrate
his 58th birthday...). He had his laptop with him, so I asked him which DVDs
I can bring for him to watch. What he asked for (and I got him) was: "Around
the World with Willy Fog".

I think he liked it, even though it wasn't 100% true to the source, because
such movies showed that the general public took some interest in Verne, his
favorite author.

When I watched "Journey to the Center of the Earth" in 3D earlier this year,
I couldn't stop thinking what my dad would have thought of it. I believe
that he would have liked it, because despite deviating from the original
book, the movie showed respect to Verne and his work. The (very large)
deviations from the original story were purposeful and thoughtful - not
merely caused by trying to "improve" on Verne's writing, or by ignorance.
You might say that that movie (Journey to the Center of the Earth) was not
a version of Verne's book, but rather a tribute to Verne, almost an
"advertisement" saying "Verne wrote great books - go pick one up and read it!".

By the way, one of my first childhood memories of Jules Verne was watching
(on Israel's then single TV channel) an animated series dubbed into Hebrew
inspired by (but not following exactly) Around the World in Eighty Days.
I believe it was this 1972 series: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0364783/.
I think that if the series is done well (and that one was, in my child
eyes) it can do wonders to get children interested in Verne, despite not
following the original story and only being "inspired" by it.

Thanks you all again for remembering my father and for reminding us of how
much he meant to all of you,

        Nadav Har'El.

-- 
Nadav Har'El                        |   Wednesday, Feb  4 2009, 11 Shevat 5769
nyh~at~math.technion.ac.il             |-----------------------------------------
Phone +972-523-790466, ICQ 13349191 |Willpower: The ability to eat only one
http://nadav.harel.org.il           |salted peanut.

Received on Wed 04 Feb 2009 - 23:17:29 IST

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