by Duane Spurlock
Journey Through the Impossible by Jules Verne (Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 2003.)
Here’s an authentic piece by that French writer known for sending characters under the sea, to the moon, and around the world. This is a play, not a novel (Verne had several successful plays based on his prose works -- in fact, he made more money from his theatrical work than he did from his novels, thanks in part to the details of his contract with his publisher, Hetzel), and this particular work was considered lost for many decades. A copy was found in the 1970s. The introduction to this volume, by Jean-Michel Margot (the president of the North American Jules Verne Society), claims this edition is the first full translation into English of this work.
Verne’s novels are today considered forerunners -- perhaps making Verne the grandfather -- of modern SF. However, it might be better to consider him more closely linked to hard SF than science fantasy (of the sort Edgar Rice Burroughs, Ralph Milne Farley, A.A. Merritt or others crafted). While there was much in his novels that seemed fantastic at the time, there was no real element of the fantastical -- all were based in real-life extrapolation of science known at the time. Much of this was due to the strictures placed on Verne by his publisher, Pierre Jules Hetzel, for the series of VOYAGES EXTRAORDINAIRES, the umbrella title under which Verne’s novels were released. In Journey Through the Impossible Verne got to shake loose some of the limitations imposed by his publisher. He brings together settings and characters from some of his most popular books -- 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea; Journey to the Center of the Earth; From Earth to the Moon -- and features as a primary character George Hatteras, the son of the hero from The Adventures of Captain Hatteras and The Sphinx of the Ice-Fields, along with Dr. Ox and others. He also entered an element of fantasy -- the characters move from one setting to another thanks to a mystical potion; they encounter the ghosts of the populace of lost Atlantis; they visit a planet far beyond our solar system; a character is raised from the dead. In this way, the journey is not simply extraordinary, as in the case of Verne’s novels, but Impossible.
Verne also took the opportunity to rewrite a character’s history from what publisher Hetzel demanded: Hatteras, hero of The Sphinx of the Ice-Fields, survived the end of the book at the publisher’s urging. Not so in Verne’s original manuscript. And Verne’s original fate for Hatteras is restored in recounting the story to the play’s hero, son George.
The play is interesting reading as a piece of Verne’s oeuvre -- and in some degree, as a comment by Verne upon his own prose works. However, it lacks that certain spark of vigor that imbues his best novels, a lack noted by the two reviews of the play, written contemporarily to its performance. The introduction by Margot is interesting, and the many footnotes annotating the work are valuable to Verne fans. The period-style illustrations by Roger Leyonmark are amusing and help lend an air of verisimilitude to the work.
Links:
Journey Through the Impossible is available at Amazon.com. Learn more about the book by clicking here.
Visit the website of the North American Jules Verne Society [http://www.najvs.org/] to check out links to a number of online essays by its members.
You'll find an online listing of Verne's Les Voyages Extraordinaires by clicking here. And for a look at scans of all the maps that were included in the original editions of Jules Verne’s novels, click here to visit the site of Verne collector Garmt de Vries.
For more information about Verne available at The Pulp Rack, click here.
Posted by ds at April 29, 2007 11:14 PM
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