The Mysterious Island. Jules Verne
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territories, and increasingly with social, political, and historical issues, in novels like Mathias Sandorf (1885), set in the Mediterranean, or North against South (1887), about the American Civil War. Other novels cover ground anew: three novels visit interplanetary space, three the Poles, half a dozen the air, and at least four the heart of Africa. Verne’s “Robinsonades,” or desert-island stories, are particularly numerous, including of course “Uncle Robinson” (“UR”) and MI, but also The School for Robinsons (1882), Two Years Vacation (1888), and Second Homeland (1900), as well as major parts of The Boy Captain (1878), “Edom” (1910), and “In the Magallanes” (1987).
The transition between periods is evasive, however. Around the World in Eighty Days (1872) forms both a last fling and a sign of the constraints of the new order. But it is itself a repetition, as Captain Grant’s Children and Twenty Thousand Leagues had already gone round the globe. Even while writing MI, Verne was working on The Chancellor (1874), which he describes as the archetypal shipwreck story, and Hector Servadac (1876), an inter-planetary Robinsonade. MI perhaps constitutes the final cul-de-sac of the exploration phase, for it represents an escape to the south Pacific but is enclosed in a island. The novel thus not only provides a gripping conclusion to the eight-volume trilogy started with Captain Grant’s Children and Twenty Thousand Leagues, but echoes all the preceding works and resoundingly closes the cycle.
At the time of composition, 1871–74, Verne’s life was turbulent. The Franco-Prussian War and occupation of 1870–71 had caused tremendous damage to the physical structure and confidence of France. Verne even thought of giving up literature, according to a letter to his publisher of 22 July 1871. Also, MI was his first book to be entirely written in Amiens, away from the bohemian stimulation of Paris where he had spent most of the previous twenty-three years.
Even before his first novel for Hetzel, in about 1862, Verne is reported to have said that he was going “to continue the tradition of Robinson Crusoe. It’s modern, it’s new, it’s scientific magic. If it succeeds, I’ll give everything up.”4 MI is the work with the longest incubation, the one Verne worked hardest at, and the longest in his series of the Extraordinary Journeys.
Although it reproduces the history of mankind, from living in caves to the most recent technology, MI can in no way be considered a science-fiction novel, if only since no new science is involved. The best pigeon-hole for it is simply Literature (French) (Nineteenth Century). The main interest of the novel derives indeed from its specifically literary interpretation—and undermining—of the Robinsonade, with repeated echoes of The Swiss Family Robinson (1812). The writer himself said: “MI must have been begun because I wished to tell the young boys of the world something about the marvels of the Pacific.” (Textes oubliés (1979), 385)
Verne’s sources are a complex area. Nor is this simply an exercise for academics keen to rescue obscure works from oblivion, since MI is defined by its relationship with its predecessors. The novelist is invariably writing “against” his influences as much as he is writing any positive “message”: imitating and “modernizing” his predecessors only in order to ironically show them up, as he himself emphasized.5 Indeed the previous Robinsonades include his own earlier works, but even earlier parts of the same work. MI is only one in a series of Vernian desert-island works that parody and satirize previous writers, each other, but above all themselves.
This introduction will study the correspondence during the difficult gestation period from 1865 to 1871; the manuscript of “UR” in relation to MI; Hetzel’s critical comments on MI; and the understanding of the novel generated by the knowledge of its writing. The characters will be studied, then the Island itself: first in terms of its shape and naming, then its ideological and geographical aspects, and lastly its many implausibilities. Finally, an attempt will be made to pull the threads together and make sense of the novel as a whole.
The correspondence between Verne and Hetzel is vital for understanding the novelist’s intentions and the often difficult relationship. Substantial extracts will accordingly be cited here, so that we can study the sequence of events:
[18 September 1865] I’m dreaming of a magnificent Robinson. It is absolutely necessary for me to do one, it’s stronger than me. Some wonderful ideas are coming to me, and if … it succeeds in bringing in just three times as much as The Swiss Family Robinson, you’ll be happy, and I will as well. If it isn’t for us, let it be for our children, and still we won’t complain … I’m thinking enormously of this new machine and I’m taking notes. (Corr., 35)
[14 July 1869] Next year, we’ll see, either I’ll begin the modern Robinson, or … (115–16)
[25 July 1869] As for the five Robinsons of M. Helouis, that doesn’t specially bother me. There have already been fifty Robinsons, and I believe [I] will stay outside of everything that has been done. (118)
[17? February 1870] I’m completely in the Robinson. I’m finding astonishing things …! I’ve plunged into it body and soul, and can’t think of anything else. (131)
[25? February 1870] If you want to announce some new Verne to the readers of the MER, can’t you do it without giving the title? … We’re snowed under, and my feet are frozen. The Robinson is going well, and it’s great fun to do. (132)
[14 May 1870] I’ve entirely written the 1st volume of “Uncle Robinson.” I’m in the middle of recopying it. (138)
On 20 June 1870, Hetzel announced publication in the MER for, we can deduce, the period 1871 to 1873:
“Uncle Robinson”—by Jules Verne / / We are happy to be able to announce to our subscribers that in addition to The Exploration of the World: Famous Travels and Travelers, M. Verne was preparing a surprise for us. / Under the title “Uncle Robinson,” the author of Captain Grant’s Children will give us in due course, so as to follow Twenty Thousand Leagues, a work destined to complement Captain Grant’s Children. For a truly original writer, exhausted information does not exist … It is evident that a modern Robinson, au fait with the progress of science, would solve the problems of life alone quite differently from Robinson Crusoe, the model for all those that followed him. / We do not wish to say any more about M. Verne’s book. Our readers will be able to read between the lines that on such a subject this inventive mind has been able to find and create new things of the most varied sort.
Hetzel’s evasive presentation in fact preceded his reading of the manuscript. Then came a twin thunderbolt. On 21 July 1870, the publisher wrote a 1,000-word letter, announcing the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian War and his opinion of Verne’s long-cherished project: “it’s a sketch, but the clay is too soft and too gray … [the characters] are not at present interesting … suppose Hugo doing this scene … your people get out of situations worse than the most innocent robinsons [sic] of the past” (Corr., 143–46).
Verne changed tack:
15 [February 1871] It’s not the Robinson that I’ve continued with. I need to discuss it with you again. You know that I stick to my ideas like a Breton. Yes, Paris did a Robinson on a grand scale. But that is the business of my second and third volumes and not the first. When you have three volumes to do … if you do not husband your effects and your climax you are lost. (154)
The correspondence, then, gives us important information about the desert-island project in its initial stages. We will now look at the resultant changes in the four drafts of the novel. These are of exceptional importance, since for Verne’s other novels the manuscripts seem to most accurately reflect his wishes, more than the serial and, a fortiori, the book versions. The publisher frequently had preconceptions as to the readership his novelist should be aiming for, the nature of what he should be writing, and its political, religious, and moral ideology. Many of the ideas even originated from Hetzel. We must, in other words, assume that the many changes, even those in Verne’s handwriting, were made under pressure. In any case, it is surprising that modern publishers have invariably followed