Magellania [Hardcover]

 

 

Create your own review

Jules Verne's "Magellania" is a fascinating glimpse into looking at life in an idealized, libertarian society. Here he has one of his most charismatic figures since Captain Nemo in the figure of the expatriate European Kaw-djer (name means "benefactor" in the local American Indian language) who forsakes his monastic existence to help a shipwrecked colony of nearly one thousand immigrants. Eventually he agrees to become their leader, judiciously ruling during times of famine and strife caused by a gold rush on the island. This translation is among the most lyrical I have read of Verne's works, yet I agree that the story often resembles more an outline for a great novel than a slender, well-written tale. Still, this is one of Verne's most interesting works since it is a fictious examination of his political philosophy, which was apparently a lot more libertarian in scope than many have regarded previously.

Jules Verne, the ardent supporter of capitalism? That is the greatest surprise in Magellania, the newly translated original text of the book previously known as The Survivors of the Jonathan. The latter was enlarged by roughly 60% from the text bequeathed to Verne's son and literary executor, Michel, prior to its 1909 publication (with the English-language appearance not occurring until 1962). In guiding to posthumous publication six of his father's completed novels, Michel altered all of them, but none so substantially as Magellania. The extent of Michel's intervention was unknown until the manuscripts in the elder Verne's hand were unearthed in France in the 1980s. ...
Magellania and The Survivors of the Jonathan relate the building of a new society on an island, but only three themes are treated in the same way by Michel and Jules Verne: the kindly attitude toward the Fuegians (including intermarriage with an Anglo Canadian woman), the valuation of national independence, and the horror of gold fever. Nonetheless, the introduction to Magellania by Olivier Dumas, president of the French Jules Verne Society, makes the case against The Survivors of the Jonathan with excessive vehemence. Although Michel's The Survivors of the Jonathan is a reflection of his own views, not those of his father, it is also a vivid, literary novel which comprehensively develops its many ideological crosscurrents.
The elder Verne's Magellania, by contrast, reads like an outline rather than a polished book. Half of Magellania, one hundred pages, pass with little happening, before the shipwreck that triggers the main plot. Too often the narrative is told, rather than shown through characters and events--and Michel's determination (along with that of his publisher, Louis-Jules Hetzel) to "flesh out" these limitations of the novel is understandable. Some of this same problem plagues other manuscripts that Verne completed but which neither he nor Michel saw into print, such as Journey to England and Scotland (translated as Backwards to Britain) and Paris in the Twentieth Century. Verne himself commented, "I consider that my real labor begins with my first set of proofs, for I not only correct something in every sentence, but I rewrite whole chapters. I do not seem to have a grip of my subject till I see my work in print," and Michel thought he had to interpret what his father would have changed in this phase.
For all the faults of Magellania, this is an important publication in English, elucidating the actual political thought of Jules Verne. A shipwreck of immigrants turn the unpopulated shore of Hoste Island into a prosperous colony. They overcome strife caused by radicals, the depredations of a gold rush, and most importantly, initially fail in self-government, turning to a benevolent dictator. Michel saw the inevitable outcome as bloodshed and discord in The Survivors of the Jonathan.
In Magellania, Jules Verne portrays his hero, the Kaw-djer (a local Indian term for benefactor), as leading the successful creation of a small, free nation along the lines of Verne's earlier Robinsonade novels The Mysterious Island, Two Year Holiday, and his Swiss Family Robinson sequel, Second Homeland. No less important is the Kaw-djer's commitment to free trade as a means of attracting business, while the taxes and restrictions imposed upon a neighboring island by Argentina hamper development. Hoste Island becomes a literal new beacon of hope and freedom in the New World, economically and politically. The novel ends on the beams flashing out from the Cape Horn lighthouse, built according to the Kaw-djer's vision to save ships from future wrecks in the region. Verne also lauds the nationalism of Hoste Island and its commitment to self-determination; Michel had portrayed these as failed goals in The Survivors of the Jonathan. Both versions of the story decry Argentina and Chile's imperialist assertions over the islands of Cape Horn.
Many scholars, most particularly Jean Chesneaux, suggested that The Survivors of the Jonathan indicated Verne had a sympathy for anarchism. This seemed plausible, given the inclinations of such classic scientific Verne heroes as Nemo and Robur, who share a similar fate with the Kaw-djer in Michel's version, in which he returns to his original convictions and an isolated life. However, Magellania proves that Jules Verne thought the opposite. Although the Kaw-djer began as an atheist and anarchist, whose beliefs made him a refugee from Europe, the demands of governing force him to renounce such impractical theories. Fleeing the territorial claims of Chile and Argentina, he had been on the verge of suicide at the time of the shipwreck. However, in guiding its outcome, creating orderly government and discovering a dawning faith in God, the Kaw-djer discovers fulfillment. Verne, who also served on the council of his home town of Amiens, may have felt much the same.
Ironically, with the debate over the merits of anarchism having lost cachet since the composition of Magellania in the 1890s, concerns over nationalism and free trade remain, and it is these aspects that give the novel its greatest relevance to modern readers. The translation, by Benjamin Ivry, seems to be faithful to the text, although I will defer to the more exacting judgement sure to come from the growing community of Verne translators. Fortunately, a number of parenthetical notes, some from the French edition, have been included. The Dumas introduction was poorly edited, confusing the titles of books and retaining outdated information only relevant to the original French edition; it should have been modified and updated to add the necessary information for English-language readers. Most of all, Magellania requires what the French edition included: a map of the region, with Hoste Island itself. The dust jacket offers a faux map-style cover, when an actual map page (such as given in Wesleyan University Press's new editions of The Mysterious Island and The Invasion of the Sea) would have been more useful. Nonetheless, Welcome Rain publishers must be lauded for undertaking the very first translation of the posthumously published Verne novels rewritten by Michel, and hopefully other such projects will follow.

This book did not resemble 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea. In fact, I would hazard to guess that it is a different book entirely. Still, I give it three stars because I am afraid of Jules Verne's vengeful ghost.

Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review

› See all 3 customer reviews on Amazon.ca

 

Search Customer Reviews
Only search this product's reviews

Search Listmania!