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Re: Children of Capt Grant

From: Craig Weatherhill <craig~at~agantavas.org>
Date: Sun, 28 Aug 2011 07:31:27 +0100
To: Jules Verne Forum <jvf~at~gilead.org.il>

Wonderful. Thank you, Bill. I now have a clear conscience about
calling him Thomas Ayrton in "Nautilus".

Craig




On 28 Est 2011, at 06:51, wbutcher wrote:

> It's Tom Ayrton in the book (II vii).
>
> Bill
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-jvf~at~Gilead.org.il [mailto:owner-jvf~at~Gilead.org.il] On
> Behalf Of
> Craig Weatherhill
> Sent: 28 August 2011 13:36
> To: Jules Verne Forum
> Subject: Re: Children of Capt Grant
>
> I have never been fortunate enough to locate a copy of this novel so
> perhaps
> you gentlemen could answer a question. In CG, is Ayrton given a
> forename?
> In The Mysterious Island, he is referred to only his surname. The
> 1961 film
> referred to a Thomas Ayrton, but may have been invented by the
> script-writers.
>
> Regards,
> Craig
>
>
> On 28 Est 2011, at 00:20, Rick Walter wrote:
>
>>> I'm working on a new annotated English translation myself, which I
>> hope will give the book some of the Anglophone renown it's richly
>> deserved for the last 150 years.
>>
>> Alex,
>>
>> Thank you, thank you, thank you !!!
>>
>> Captain Grant's Children is indeed a marvelous book, one of the
>> several masterworks from Verne's first decade with Hetzel. Giving
>> it a
>> complete, accurate translation will be a huge task, but I'm SO
>> relieved you're looking after it! Have you been consulting the MS at
>> http://www.bm.nantes.fr/ ? In any case, if there's ever anything I
>> can do to help, don't hesitate to let me know.
>>
>> Very warmest regards,
>>
>> Rick
>>
>> Frederick Paul Walter
>> Albuquerque, New Mexico
>>
>>
>> ----- Original Message -----
>> From: Alex Kirstukas
>> To: Jules Verne Forum
>> Sent: Saturday, August 27, 2011 8:02 AM
>> Subject: Re: Children of Capt Grant
>>
>> Hi everyone,
>>
>> I'm delighted to see Captain Grant come up on the Forum again - I
>> believe it's one of the most underrated of the Voyages
>> Extraordinaires, especially in the English-speaking world. That Verne
>> thought enough of it to make it his longest work, to adapt it for the
>> stage, and to link it with two other masterpieces (20L and
>> MI) certainly speaks in its favor, and in the original French it's a
>> glorious comic adventure with some extraordinary protofeminist,
>> religious, and political undercurrents.
>>
>> A note on translations: the Routledge version ("Voyage Round the
>> World") is definitely the best of the three existing English
>> versions,
>> but it does have its problems. Volume 1 is very lively and readable,
>> but messes up some of Verne's descriptive passages; volume
>> 2 is a little more clumsily written, but still pretty good; and
>> volume
>> 3, which is drastically abridged and full of errors, seems to have
>> been translated by a different writer altogether. All three volumes
>> also carry the usual problems of Victorian translations - most of the
>> facts, figures, proper names, and historical details haven't been
>> researched, leading to some unfortunate mistranslations and
>> omissions.
>>
>> The one-volume Vincent Parke version (available on the JVC, Project
>> Gutenberg, and elsewhere as "In Search of the Castaways, or, the
>> Children of Captain Grant") is based on the Routledge translation,
>> but
>> goes much further from Verne's intentions, making additional drastic
>> cuts and importing irrelevant, non-Vernian chapter headings from the
>> appallingly bad Lippincott translation.
>>
>> That said, Captain Grant is definitely worth a look in any language;
>> I'm working on a new annotated English translation myself, which I
>> hope will give the book some of the Anglophone renown it's richly
>> deserved for the last 150 years. That's a long time to wait for a
>> complete and researched edition - but as Paganel says in Part One,
>> "It's never a bad time to learn."
>>
>> Alex
>>
>>
>>
>> From: "rfbagby~at~aol.com" <rfbagby~at~aol.com>
>> To: jvf~at~Gilead.org.il
>> Sent: Saturday, August 27, 2011 7:35 AM
>> Subject: Re: Children of Capt Grant
>>
>> I'm pretty sure this is best known in Russia, the 1930's Soviet film
>> there having the same classic reputation as the Disney 20K or the
>> Todd
>> 80 DAYS, so there have been several remakes both film and TV.
>> (Some may recall when a Russian extreme sports team contacted us some
>> years back seeking sponsorship for a Reality Show re-enactment of the
>> adventure route.) I myself recall my childhood puzzlement when
>> MYSTERIOUS ISLAND took familiarity with this work as a given in its
>> own plot!
>> Ross
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Garmt de Vries-Uiterweerd <garmtdevries~at~gmail.com>
>> To: Jules Verne Forum <jvf~at~Gilead.org.il>
>> Sent: Sat, Aug 27, 2011 3:05 am
>> Subject: Re: Children of Capt Grant
>>
>> Harry, perhaps you know the novel under its more common English title
>> "In Search of the Castaways"?
>>
>>
>>
>> And I can confirm that Grant is indeed something of a classic on the
>> continent. Speaking at least for the Netherlands, the general public
>> is not as aware of this Verne story as it is of classics like Centre
>> of the Earth, 20K, Strogoff or 80 Days. On the other hand, there
>> are a
>> few series that contain 10-15 volumes and these invariably include
>> Grant. During my book hunts throughout Europe, I've always had the
>> impression that Grant was one of the most common titles.
>>
>>
>> As for age, I would guess that readers pick it up at the same age as
>> Verne's other famous stories.
>>
>>
>> Cheers,
>> Garmt.
>>
>> On 27 August 2011 08:15, Harry Hayfield
>> &lt;harryhayfield~at~gmail.com&gt; wrote:
>> Well, I have to say that you will probably debate my status as a
>> Vernian when I say that I have never heard of the Children of Captain
>> Grant before, but do remember being in a television shop one day
>> debating the virtues of changing from a normal set to a HD set when
>> to
>> demonstrate the difference the sales assistant switched from
>> Channel 4
>> SD to Channel 4 HD when the film was being shown and thought "Mmm,
>> why
>> does that ring a Vernian bell?"
>>
>> From: "Brian Taves" &lt;briantaves1879~at~yahoo.com&gt;
>> To: jvf~at~Gilead.org.il
>> Sent: Saturday, 27 August, 2011 2:54:09 AM
>> Subject: Children of Capt Grant
>>
>> I am reading again after decades this novel, in the translation by
>> Routledge recommended by Art Evans.
>>
>> This seems to be highly readable version and the story is, with
>> only a
>> few exceptions, a fast-paced adventure.
>>
>> Sadly, tho, if it is known at all today to English-speaking readers,
>> it is through the Disney connection.
>>
>> My impression is that it is still widely read on the continent,
>> however, and occupies something of the status of a classic. Is that
>> correct? At what age might readers be tackling it?
>>
>>
>> Brian Taves
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>
> --
> Craig Weatherhill
>

--
Craig Weatherhill

Received on Sun 28 Aug 2011 - 09:31:36 IDT

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