Brian
Taves
Jules Verne's Paris in the
Twentieth Century
Jules Verne.
Paris in the Twentieth Century. New York: Random
House, 1996. Translated by Richard Howard, introduction by Eugen Weber. xxvii+223. $21.00
Jules Verne's novel Paris in the Twentieth
Century, just published by Random House, is simultaneously less significant than some
publicity has implied, while still a work of inestimable historical importance. Purely as
a work of literature, Paris in the Twentieth Century lacks the qualities of the
best novels that have insured Verne's reputation for over a century. Nonetheless, Paris
in the Twentieth Century will be of interest to readers for two primary reasons,
because of its prophecies, but even more because of its early position in the development
of dystopian science fiction.
The saga of the discovery of the manuscript of Paris
au XXe Siècle, and its publication in France in the fall of 1994, were widely
chronicled all over the world. In the United States, at the time, the story was told on
network news shows, National Public radio, and periodicals from the New York Times
to the National Inquirer, as well as such scholarly journals as Science-Fiction
Studies (Arthur B. Evans, "The 'New' Jules Verne," SFS 22:35-46, #65, March
1995). Paris au XXe Siècle was quickly translated and published in many
countries in the intervening two years, although the English translation has been one of
the slowest to appear. The sensation created by the novel can be noted by the fact that it
has already been adapted into a stage play, in the Netherlands.
On the most basic, surface level, Paris in
the Twentieth Century is an astonishing book for its depiction of the modern age.
Written in 1863, the story is set in the Paris of the 1960s. Paris in the Twentieth
Century concerns a 16-year-old, Michel Dufrénoy, who graduates, with a devotion to
literature and the classics, but finds they have been forgotten in a futuristic world
where only technological writing is favored. The officially sanctioned creativity is
government sponsorship of the arts, resulting in lowbrow theater for the masses, composed
along the lines of the mass-produced collaborations of the 1930s Hollywood studio system.
Dufrénoy's alienation is, in fact, inspired by Verne's own situation; at the time, to
support his family, he was writing in the mornings before spending his days working at the
Paris Stock Market, which he loathed.
Dufrénoy determines to be an artist, working on
his own, but finds that his book of poetry is impossible to sell, and soon he is starving
in the winter's cold, one of the few forces of nature that science has yet to overcome. In
despair, he spends his last sous to buy violets for his beloved, but finds that she has
disappeared from her apartment, evicted when her father lost his job as the university's
last teacher of rhetoric. In a moving but excessively melodramatic climax, the heartbroken
Dufrénoy, bereft of friends and loved ones, wanders through the frozen, mechanized,
electrical wonders of Paris. The subjectivity becomes steadily more surreal as the dying
artist, in a final paroxysm of despair, unconsciously circles an old cemetery. Dufrénoy
encounters the modern tool of criminal execution--the electric chair (yet another
scientific prediction, opposed to the guillotine of Verne's time)--before freezing to
death.
The macabre imagery of this peroration to Paris
in the Twentieth Century may be inspired by Edgar Allan Poe. Poe was one of Verne's
principal models as a writer, and was also the subject of Verne's only literary
essay--written at the time of Paris in the Twentieth Century. Poe may have also
provided direct impetus for the characterization of Dufrénoy. Like his portrayal of
Dufrénoy, Verne believed that Poe's potential creativity had clashed with the uncongenial
background of an industrial, material society in America. The strange end of Poe's life,
when he wandered for several days, lost, before his death, may even have provided the idea
for the bizarre climax of Paris in the Twentieth Century and the death of
Dufrénoy.
This climax also has a timeless impact; Verne
clearly foresaw the growth of teen rebelliousness in his portrayal of Dufrénoy. Had the
Verne family safe been opened thirty years ago, and Paris in the Twentieth Century published
in the time of its setting, the 1960s, it would surely have become a cause célèbre among
a generation of youth in revolt. The novel would have been regarded as a paean to their
cause, and Dufrénoy a model of their disenchantment.
Verne's prophecies of the world to come in Paris
in the Twentieth Century, both in technical and cultural terms, are breathtaking in
their extent and nearly unerring accuracy. Virtually every page is crowded with evidence
of Verne's ability to forecast the science and life of the future, from feminism to the
rise of illegitimate births, from email to burglar alarms, from the growth of suburbs to
mass-produced higher education, including the dissolution of humanities departments. The
accuracy of the prophecies cannot be overstated, and I would estimate that nearly 90% have
come to pass. Perhaps Verne's most amusing error was in anticipating that the government
would conduct itself in such a businesslike way as to show a dividend.
However, Verne's publisher, Pierre-Jules Hetzel,
rejected Paris in the Twentieth Century as simply unbelievable. He also
disapproved of the pessimistic, dystopian tone of the novel, believing that it would not
attract readers and might potentially destroy Verne's promising career after the
publication of his first scientific adventure and popular success, Cinq Semaines en
ballon [Five Weeks in a Balloon]. As a result of the rejection, Verne not
only locked away Paris in the Twentieth Century for the remainder of his life,
but avoided fiction with a futuristic setting. Instead, he wrote of advanced technology in
his own time, a pattern that gives his writing today the unique quality of science fiction
set in the past. Even Paris in the Twentieth Century displays this same
propensity: its modern marvels were set amid a Paris where 1860s readers would have
recognized contemporary monuments represented as decaying a century later. Perhaps Verne
himself was equally uncertain about setting a novel in the future, considering how easily
he was dissuaded from the idea. Certainly at this early stage in his career, he did not
want to endanger the commercial success offered by his association with Hetzel.
However, not all of Hetzel's judgments were so
questionable. He also recognized that from the standpoint of the requirements of novel, Paris
in the Twentieth Century was structurally weak, particularly in the narrative
elements Hetzel believed were so necessary in speculative fiction. While characterization
was seldom Verne's strength as a writer, usually the fault was obscured by the context of
the story, with an adventurous, scientific, fantastic, or comedic setting. In Paris in
the Twentieth Century Verne centers his narrative, for the only time, on
self-consciously artistic characters--and the results are noticeably neither credible nor
intriguing.
Hetzel's stroke of genius was in urging Verne to
wed science fiction with the plot formula of an adventure story, a marriage that dominated
the genre into modern times. For instance, Five Weeks in a Balloon told not only
of a new aerial navigation device, but its use in a voyage of discovery across Africa.
Instead of Paris au XXe siècle, Voyage au centre de la Terre [Journey
to the Center of the Earth] became Verne's second full-length published novel. Journey
to the Center of the Earth utilizes the same pattern as Five Weeks in a Balloon:
the chronicle of an incredible quest for the Earth's core, a trek that is simultaneously
an initiatory, first-person account of a youth's coming-of-age. The other work-in-progress
which Hetzel accepted at the time, called Voyages et aventures du Capitaine Hatteras
[Journeys and Adventures of Captain Hatteras], an imaginary account of the first
trip to the North Pole, also fit the generic melding that Hetzel sought.
Paris in the Twentieth Century was not
the only early Verne work rejected by Hetzel because it did not fit the genre he was
hoping to establish for a series of "Voyages Extraordinaires." Voyage à
reculons en Angleterre et en Ecosse (translated in 1992 as Backwards to Britain),
another recently discovered Verne text that Hetzel had turned down, indicates what the
addition of adventure meant for Verne's narratives. Backwards to Britain is a
dry, mundane travelogue, without the combination of an adventurous plotline that would
make such later Verne works as Le Tour du monde en 80 jours [Around the World
in 80 Days] into enduring classics. Although Verne internalized many of Hetzel's
strictures, as late as 1870, after seven popular "Voyages Extraordinaires,"
Hetzel would reject l'Oncle Robinson [Uncle Robinson] (published in
France in 1992 and not yet translated into English), which Verne reconceived as L'Ile
mystérieuse [The Mysterious Island] and several other later castaway
stories.
Paris in the Twentieth Century will most
disappoint readers because its plot is thin and lacks substance. The story consists
largely of loosely related episodes, in almost a drawing room style, constructed to
facilitate a catalog of prophecies about life in the metropolis of the 1960s. Perhaps some
of the intrinsic weakness in the plot might have been diminished had Verne proceeded with
the sort of extensive final rewriting that he always gave his published works. The
minimalist quality of Verne's storyline may also be regarded as another aspect of its
prophetic view. In contrast to the 19th-century style that dominated most of his writing,
Verne presents here a more modernist narrative, concentrating on a veritable free-flow of
minimally-motivated events that befall the hero.
In rejecting Paris in the Twentieth Century,
Hetzel advised Verne to try a futuristic theme again when he had reached greater maturity
as a writer. However, all of the tales of this type that Verne would eventually produce
were short stories and novelettes, where the length could conceal the flimsy plot in a way
that the longer novel form in Paris in the Twentieth Century had highlighted, to
its own detriment. "Une Ville Idéale" ["An Ideal City"], an 1875
forecast of Amiens in the year 2000, and "Au XXIXeme Siècle: Journée d'un
journaliste américain en 2889" ["In the 29th Century: The Diary of an American
Journalist in 2889"] (written primarily by Verne's son Michel) are, like Paris in
the Twentieth Century, similarly slight in their plot, with events arranged to
showcase a series of predictions of the distant future. And, unlike Paris in the
Twentieth Century, both of these stories are optimistic in their tone. Only in
Verne's last such futuristic work, the novelette L'Eternel Adam [The Eternal
Adam] (probably authored by Michel using his father's name), set many millennia from
now, did Verne offer a forecast even more bleak than Paris in the Twentieth Century.
On the basis of Michel's involvement in the creation of "2889" and Eternal
Adam, the belief had arisen among Verne scholars that futuristic speculation was
primarily interpolated into the father's oeuvre by the son; Paris in the Twentieth
Century for the first time confirms that Michel derived inspiration from Jules in
this regard.
Woven into Paris in the Twentieth Century are
countless allusions to individuals, works, and events of mid-19th century France. Sadly,
while these might have been clear to Verne's intended contemporary readers, much of
Verne's satire and irony is lost today to any reader without a specialized background.
Some long portions of Paris in the Twentieth Century, such as Chapter 10, are
basically extended literary commentaries by Verne on the authors of his day, expressed
through the dialogue of his characters. Several pages of notes at the conclusion of the
book explain only a small portion of these allusions, frustrating the scrupulous reader.
In fact, the English translation contains only a fraction of the number, or depth, of the
notes appearing in the French edition. As a result, for an English-language audience, some
of the possible impact of Paris in the Twentieth Century is lost.
Paris in the Twentieth Century was
translated into English by Richard Howard, previously familiar to Vernians for translating
into English the essays of Roland Barthes on Verne. Like these earlier essays, Howard's
work is to be lauded. Howard's translation of Paris in the Twentieth Century is
literal, faithful to the wording and syntax of Verne, to the point of preserving Verne's
sometimes convoluted style, which makes Paris in the Twentieth Century often flow
in an unwieldy manner for modern readers. There are some occasional questionable
translations, such as "Société Générale de Crédit instructionnel" into
"Academic Credit Union," or the occasional odd choice of words, such as having
Verne observe that many ancient languages, including French, had become obsolete, when
Verne actually seems to say they were sacrificed (page 7). Most evident are a number of
format changes, such as inserting breaks in chapters where there are none. Howard also
occasionally merges short paragraphs into fuller paragraphs, or consolidates brief,
single-phrase sentences into longer, more properly grammatical sentences. However, by
doing so, Howard loses some of the intended staccato effect of Verne's style and the
meaning it creates; for instance, the impact of Dufrénoy expiring in the snow is lessened
by combining into a single paragraph the final, closing lines of the novel.
Unfortunately, Howard offers a translator's note
that treats the assignment lightly, choosing to tell the reader how he first discovered
Verne while a child of alcoholic parents, but relating nothing about how the translation
was done or the challenges it posed. In an interview published by Random House, Howard
said that since the novel was such an early Verne book, he did not try to make the style
consistent with other Verne translations--a fortunate decision, although it does not seem
that Howard investigated what such a step would have meant. Previously, many if not most
translators had been unable to avoid the temptation to alter Verne's literary style to
make it more easily digestible by the widest possible audience, frequently resulting in
outright distortions or abbreviated versions of the original text. In this respect, Paris
in the Twentieth Century follows the precedent of the 1993 Oxford University Press
publication of another recent translation (by Evelyn Copeland) of a Verne book never
previously published in English, Verne's only fairy tale, Aventures de la Famille
Raton [Adventures of the Rat Family], with its highly faithful translation.
A number of other notable translations have appeared in recent years as well, correcting
and re-translating classic Verne works that had been victimized by dismal 19th century
renderings into English, most notably Verne's Journey to the Center of the Earth and
his Vingt mille lieues sous les Mers [Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea].
Sadly, in other ways the American edition of Paris
in the Twentieth Century shows signs of hasty construction, despite Random House
having spent two years on the effort. The half-dozen minimalist line drawings serving as
illustrations are, in a word, pathetic. Five Weeks in a Balloon is twice misdated
as having been published in 1853, not 1863.
Paris in the Twentieth Century is billed
on the cover as "the lost novel;" in fact it is only the latest "lost"
Verne work to surface in the last decade. In addition to Backwards to Britain and
Uncle Robinson, a third novel has been published in France, Un Prêtre en
1839 [A Priest in 1839], written before Verne was twenty. A number of short
stories and novelettes have also been discovered and published for the first time. Many of
the novels issued after Verne's death turned out to have been rewritten and in some cases
created by his son Michel, and the original texts by the senior Verne have also been
recently published. Paris in the Twentieth Century has earned more publicity than
these others simply because it is the only book never before published in any form to be
science fiction, associating the author with the genre with which he is best known.
Most regrettably, the scholarly preface to the
original French edition by Piero Gondolo della Riva was not utilized for the English
translation. Gondolo della Riva is a noted Verne authority who owns the Hetzel letter
refusing to publish Paris in the Twentieth Century, a document which helped to
authenticate the novel. Gondolo della Riva's preface discussed the origin of Paris in
the Twentieth Century, why it was lost for over a century, and how the aborted effort
impacted other Verne stories. Instead, Random House commissioned an introduction by Eugen
Weber, an expert in French history.
Weber's meandering, unfocused piece contains a
number of factual errors, and contributes little context or understanding of the novel.
For instance, Weber fails to understand that the giant ledger at which Dufrénoy works is
not a prophecy, but a symbol of the oppressive dominance of commercialism. He seems
unaware that the "Voyages Extraordinaires" are full of social satire, with the
most relevant counterpoint to Paris in the Twentieth Century being L'Ile à
hélice [Propeller Island], another story of an apparent municipal utopia
gone awry. There are also such minor errors as giving the date of Verne's death as 1904
instead of 1905, and describing Georges Méliès's version of Verne's lunar novels Le
Voyage dans la Lune [A Trip to the Moon] (1902) as "one of the first
French films made," when in fact France was already a world leader in filmmaking
throughout the 1890s.
Weber says that Verne has been translated on 224
occasions in 23 countries. Considering that there are more than that number of
translations of Verne into English alone, and (as Weber himself later notes) that 30
translations have recently been made of Paris in the Twentieth Century, Weber's
estimate is clearly inadequate. Verne's works have, in fact, been translated into some 150
different languages in over a century, making him the most enduringly popular author of
fiction in the world, according to UNESCO surveys.
All in all, Paris in the Twentieth Century is
an important book for historical reasons, but probably readers should be pleased that
Verne followed Hetzel's advice and concentrated on adventurous science fiction.
Previously, readers have been able to see Verne's pre-Hetzel work in short stories and
novelettes of adventure and fantasy, but not in science fiction. As Verne's first science
fiction story written on his own, Paris in the Twentieth Century demonstrates
that even in the genre that ultimately made his reputation, his success was due in no
small measure to Hetzel's influence. Without it, the other great classics that have
secured Verne's immortality in the literary pantheon, such as De la Terre à la Lune [From
the Earth to the Moon] or Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, might never
have been written. Rejected and unpublished, this early seed of futuristic and dystopian
science fiction that Jules Verne's Paris in the Twentieth Century represents in
the evolution of the genre would be cultivated and brought to fruition only by Verne's
successors.
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