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Re: Children of Capt Grant

From: Brian Taves <briantaves1879~at~yahoo.com>
Date: Sat, 3 Sep 2011 12:36:21 -0700 (PDT)
To: Jules Verne Forum <jvf~at~gilead.org.il>

Hi Alex,
I'd just like to add to the chorus of well-wishes and encouragement on your project.  It sounds like a great place for your energy and skill, and is certainly and under-appreciated novel in the English-speaking world.
 
As I read the Routledge edition, I notice that having the engravings, even the very small engravings, is a real advantage, and I hope that the eventual publication will be able to utilize them.  They enrich the text and reading experience, and will provide a more attractive book.
 
Given the different quality of the three parts, I wonder if maybe part 3 was taken from a different translation altogether?  I recall that happened periodically, in various editions, as has been noted in some of our Forum discussions.
 
I do think the fact that this story should have an added attraction for youth, and Anglo readers, given the characters, should add to its commercial prospects.  And with the relatively short chapters, reading provides the constant feel of progress, despite the overall length.  Although publishers often underestimate the skill and attention span of readers, I don't think beginning teens and even before would have any problem with it. 

Brian

From: Alex Kirstukas <infernalnonsense~at~yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: Children of Capt Grant
To: "Jules Verne Forum" <jvf~at~Gilead.org.il>
Date: Sunday, August 28, 2011, 2:01 PM


Hi Bill,

Thanks for the good wishes! So far, the work is a labor of love, but I do hope to find a publisher; as a budding Verne scholar I can't get commissioned on my reputation alone, so it's unlikely I can land a publishing job until I have something impressive to show for it. Also, what with the amount of research necessary and the degree I'm working on at the same time, I don't want to make any promises yet about the completion date. I have my hopes, though--I've already made some very interesting discoveries about the text, and I'm determined to finish the work.

Concerning the Routledge translation: it sounds like you're referring to the Vincent Parke version, which as I said is severely abridged. The original three-volume Routledge edition, published in 1876 as "Voyage Round the World," has the right number of chapters and much more of the text (though many details, including some quite significant ones, are still missing or mistranslated).

Yes, I'm aware that there's never been a good critical edition of CG in French--evidently much work still remains to be done even in the novel's home country. However, I am committed to using the "definitive" text (or the closest thing to it), so I've been proofing and preparing a new text based on the Hetzel grand-in-8s as I go. When I have a little more time on my hands, I hope to compare it line-by-line with the manuscript(s), and if possible also the serialization and the in-18s. As I say, plenty of research to do...but I've made a good solid start, and I'm enjoying it.

Alex


________________________________
From: wbutcher <wbutcher~at~netvigator.com>
To: 'Jules Verne Forum' <jvf~at~Gilead.org.il>
Sent: Saturday, August 27, 2011 8:49 PM
Subject: Re: Children of Capt Grant


Hi Alex,

I hope you’ve found a publisher, as it would be a shame to do all that work without finding the wide audience the novel deserves. Curiously enough, I was contacted recently as a publisher on this side of the Pacific was interested in CG: is a film planned or something?

The Routledge translation, while the least bad, can hardly be considered up to scratch, as it seems to be missing about three chapters and 50,000 words.

While you won’t go far wrong using any of the recent French editions, a translator, and especially an annotator, should be aware that the novel has never been properly edited ie published to a high standard. So I wish you luck!

Bill

From:owner-jvf~at~Gilead.org.il [mailto:owner-jvf~at~Gilead.org.il] On Behalf Of Alex Kirstukas
Sent: 27 August 2011 22:03
To: Jules Verne Forum
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: "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 Sat 03 Sep 2011 - 22:36:39 IDT

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