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Re: Capt Grant's Children

From: Alex Kirstukas <infernalnonsense~at~yahoo.com>
Date: Sun, 28 Aug 2011 08:36:37 -0700 (PDT)
To: Jules Verne Forum <jvf~at~gilead.org.il>
Cc: "rick1walter~at~comcast.net" <rick1walter~at~comcast.net>

Hi Rick,

Thanks so much for the feedback! I'm a young Verne student who was introduced to JV studies by the 1993 WJM-FPW 20L, so your input is very much appreciated. It is indeed a big task, but so far I'm finding it a fun and rewarding one, and I'm determined to bring it to completion.

Is the CG MS available on the Nantes site yet? I was planning to create an account there as soon as that particular MS was digitized, but I don't see it in the catalog.

Again, thanks so much!

Alex


________________________________
From: Rick Walter <rick1walter~at~comcast.net>
To: Jules Verne Forum <jvf~at~Gilead.org.il>
Sent: Saturday, August 27, 2011 6:20 PM
Subject: Re: Children of Capt Grant


>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 along 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           
Received on Sun 28 Aug 2011 - 18:36:44 IDT

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