Jules Verne
Published on Feb 9, 2008 at 2:31 pm.
3 Comments.
Filed under books, history, science fiction.
One of the first introductions that most people have to science fiction, including myself, is the work of Jules Verne. He was born 180 years ago, yesterday, on February 8, 1828. Though he was originally writing for adults, his work is often seen as children’s fiction. That is a shame, because he really did quite good work and adult readers often steer away from work marketed for childred (despite the popularity of the Harry Potter books with some adult readers). Recently I reread his 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. It is the story of Captain Nemo’s submarine Nautilus. This amazing craft was completely self sufficient, and powered by, as Nemo explains, the energy mechanism of the Sun. Readers today will see parallels to today’s nuclear submarines. In fact, the parallels were so strong that it was natural for the world’s first nuclear submarine to be named Nautilus. The striking thing about Verne’s story is that he wrote 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea many years before submarines became more than curiosities and nearly a century before the first nuclear submarine. Extending the science of the day in his story made the novel science fiction.
But, Verne also wrote other stories that would fit in the genre of science fiction. He wrote several space novels including Off to a Comet and From the Earth to the Moon. These works included the idea of space travel, long before the first rocket ever blasted off into space. In fact, Verne was speculating on space travel at a time before anyone even had any idea of how to get into space.
Apparently, in the early translations of his work to English, the people doing the translation did not properly understand the units that he used. Verne used the new “metric” system that had recently been employed in France. In translating to English, early translators either converted the values to Imperial units incorrectly or, worse, simply substituted Imperial units for the metric names. Verne thought through his extensions of scientific and technological advancements. That is how he was able to envision things that today seem pretty straight forward. And, he was quite well informed, too. His computations were very careful and, to the best of his ability, accurate. The sloppy job of translating made his figures look like just so much mathematical gibberish to educated readers of English translations. That may be one reason that he wasn’t as well regarded as the later writer H. G. Wells. Still, Verne was very good.
I have always enjoyed science fiction, and I fondly remember reading several of Verne’s books growing up. Now, decades later, I find that I still enjoy his work, and I find new things in his writings that I missed years ago.
-Astroprof
Image Credit: Wikimedia
dad2059 on February 9, 2008 at 6:43 pm: 1
I have read that Verne was the first writer to actually study scientific papers to base his stories on, much like today’s sci-fi authors do. It’s no surprise that most of Verne’s story topics have come to pass 180 years later.
He might’ve seen an actual submarine that the French built for the U.S. Navy during the 1860s: http://americancivilwar.com/tcwn/civil_war/naval_submarine.html
He was at the same school that De Villeroi was the rumor goes.
Bruce on February 10, 2008 at 8:34 am: 2
This triggered memories of reading Jules Verne when I was in fourth grade, “Earth to Moon,” “20,000 Leagues,” and “Mysterious Island” (I recall reading that in a hospital - can’t remember why I was there). It was my earliest SF for sure and tied in with my excitement about the Mercury space program (this was 1962-63). Thanks!
Astroprof’s Page » Jules Verne about to launch on March 7, 2008 at 11:37 am: 3
[…] Nearly a month ago I wrote about the author Jules Verne. Today, I am writing about another Jules Verne. Only this one is not a person. It is the European Space Agency’s (ESA) Automated Transfer Vehicle (ATV). […]