The Adventures Of Captain Hatteras (2005) - Plot & Excerpts
Fiction. Written during a time when there were still blank spaces on the map, when Verne could slap a volcano down on the North Pole and no one could call him on it, The Adventures of Captain Hatteras might seem fantastic to us today with its temperate polar waters teaming with wildlife (and flying penguins!), but back then, an open polar sea was widely accepted science. In 1864, the Franklin Expedition had just recently been declared lost with all hands. Attention was beginning to shift from the Passage to the Pole, and men were, once again, heading North with no real idea of what to expect once they got there. Verne, seemingly having read every primary source on the subject available to him in a French translation (he didn't read English and the majority of explorers were English), decided to pour it all into a book, the first of what would become his Voyages Extraordinaires series.I was kind of amazed by how easy this is to read. The last novel I read that involved the North Pole was Frankenstein and that was a torturous nightmare. And not because of the monster. Verne, in contrast, seems to have a pretty light hand when it comes to prose and I found myself smiling several times at his whimsical descriptions. For the most part the writing doesn't get in the way of the story, except for when the reader runs face first into a dense block of infodump, usually brought to us by the venerable Dr. Clawbonny. Clawbonny was my favorite. He's friendly and enthusiastic, if also the appointed know-it-all, so he does spend a great deal of his time lecturing the others about Arctic history and science, getting many of the dates wrong thanks to Verne, and a lot of the science wrong thanks to the nineteenth century, but if you can look past that, he's a warm, likeable character and I enjoyed his energy and humor. The narrator seems fond of him, too, which makes him even more adorable.Hatteras himself is one of those obsessive sea captain types, and not likeable at all. I didn't even find him admirable. He's a cold, internal sort and Verne doesn't develop him beyond that. The rest of the crew fits into two barrels: Good Apples and Bad Apples, and there's never any confusion which is which. Besides Clawbonny, the only other character that displays any personality is the dog, and while in the beginning I enjoyed his assumed authority with its touch of the supernatural, later he turns into the Platonic ideal of Dog, so strong, so brave, so loyal. Like those fictional children who never make a mess and always behave reasonably, a dog like that arouses extreme skepticism in the reader.Truthfully, the characters are mostly there to give the plot a reason to happen. What really drives the book is its mix of adventure and science. The descriptions of the Arctic are detailed and realistic, and if they seem familiar it's because, as the translator William Butcher points out, most are plagiarized from the published diaries of Arctic explorers. Verne has taken entire paragraphs from other writers, often traceable because he duplicates unique phrases or mistakes in spelling. In his explanatory end notes, Butcher also indicates inaccuracies in dates, names, and coordinates (of which there are many), (homo)sexual innuendo (the only kind you can have when there isn't a woman anywhere in the entire book), and things Verne seems to have made up wholesale. Verne was not a meticulous writer. He would frequently give the date within the narrative, only to give a wildly different date several lines later even though only a few days had passed. If I hadn't had the translator on my side, I would have thought I was losing my mind.A version of this is available for free at Gutenberg, but the English translation is based on a flawed text, so I'm glad I went out of my way for the new translation. The Oxford edition comes with valuable translator's notes, a timeline of Arctic expeditions, some introductory essays about Verne and his writing, and the original ending from Verne's manuscript, which I greatly preferred.The plot is kind of a mess, riddled with failures in logic (why didn't Duke recognize the captain earlier? if the polar bears weren't interested in eating the dogs, why would they be so quick to pursue the fox?), and the end is visibly disjointed, elements of the original climax still haunting the revised conclusion. And much of the science will make you roll your eyes. But it's a product of its time, which is why I read it as part of my Polar reading project, to give me an idea of what it would be like to live on a planet that wasn't entirely known, and the stories people made up to fill those gaps.Three stars. Relevant to my interests, easy enough to read, and exciting in parts. Contains animal harm and unmitigated nationalism.
An extraordinary novel, written at a time when Arctic exploration was still almost a thing of fantasy, and when patriotism ran thick in the veins of Englishmen determined to claim some crown, like Captain Hatteras in the novel. Isn't Captain Hatteras just the most fascinating of Verne's characters? Impassive and driven entirely by loyalty to his country, abandoning a fortune in favour of the discovery of the North Pole, he is a character not to be reckoned with, and one that captivated me all the way through. I, as many readers, might have to quibble with the lengthy "info-dumps" with which Verne presents us at intervals. I read this book first in French, and more often than not skimmed entirely over them rather than stumble through something that was near-incomprehensible even when translated. But otherwise Verne shines in this book, employing magnificent description to raise the wild lands of the north from the very pages; and the plot glides along, sweeping us across the ocean and through the icy country that is nearly the downfall of the Forward and its crew. (view spoiler)[I sped up, reading faster and faster as the intrigue became almost too much, becoming truly involved with the adventures of the eventual crew of five, and following closely the changes in Hatteras's character, as well as the marvellous light relief provided by that wonderful personage of Dr Clawbonny. I did not expect to be so thoroughly moved at points, but there I was almost crying over Hatteras's reconciliation with Altamont, and again at the end when the man is driven to insanity by the sheer force of his ambition and its finale. That finale! That ending! What soul can deny being struck by the bleakness of the last few chapters, by the tragic downfall of our title character and the grief of his friends? One could call the madness a masterstroke in this respect, destroying all but Hatteras's body and leaving him an empty shell; I myself might have preferred Verne's intended ending, which resulted in the death of Hatteras as he threw himself into the mouth of the volcano, but as it stands it never fails to move me. (hide spoiler)]
What do You think about The Adventures Of Captain Hatteras (2005)?
… e Dan Simmons col suo libro The Terror?Per un pensatore, per un filosofo, la partenza di un bastimento ha sempre qualche cosa di commovente: l’immaginazione volentieri si fa strada e lo segue nelle sue lotte con le onde, nelle sue battaglie con gli uragani, nella sua avventurosa corsa, che non sempre si conclude nelle acque di un porto; e per poco che la fantasia se la figuri alle prese con un incidente imprevisto, quella nave si presenta sotto una luce fantastica, anche se la mente non e’ disposta alla fantasia. (14)Nel luogo stesso ove Franklin e i suoi compagni passarono pieni di energia e di speranza, non rimaneva per memoria che un gelido marmo. E nonostante questo lugubre avvertimento del destino, il Forward si lanciava ciecamente sulle orme dell’Erebus e del Terror! (104)Hatteras era quasi invisibile, non prendeva parte ne’ alle cacce ne’ alle perlustrazioni, non s’interessava dei fenomeni meteorologici che erano la passione del dottore. Egli viveva con un’unica idea che si poteva riassumere in tre parole: il Polo Nord. (127)- Si conosce la forza di resistenza del ghiaccio? - chiese il vecchio marinaio, sempre avido d’istruirsi in compagnia del dottore.- Perfettamente, - rispose questi. - Che cosa si ignora ormai di cio’ che nel mondo puo’ venir misurato, tranne l’ambizione umana? (178)Il capitano Hatteras camminava invariabilmente verso il nord. (309)
—Graziano
Kniha byla rozdělena na dvě části. První jsem přelouskala za dva týdny, věřte nebo ne. nebyla dlouhá, ale nudná.Samé geologické údaje, názvy, roky....Prokousávala jsem se jen tak tak. Ale pak už to šlo.Druhá část byla konečně napínavá. Bylo to nejen pro silné žaludky, ale prostě v tom bylo určité kouzlo.Kniha mi dala zabrat, ale zvládla jsem to. Verne je úžasný a zároveň nudný spisovatel.Mimochodem, ten konec je moc smutný. Moc :( Byla jsem na spisovatele tak naštvaná, že to tomu určitému člověku způsobil...Ale nic :)
—Zoey
Cuarto libro en su orden de publicación del Maestro Julio Verne.Desde las primeras lineas de esta aventura comencé a sentir ese "no se que" interno que me auguraba una lectura sin desperdicios. Esto no suele sucederme muy a menudo pero cuándo pasa, casi nunca falla. Y es así como fuí avanzando a lo largo de esta obra, siempre con expectativa de algo mas.El punto mas fuerte quizá sea su comienzo ya que logra captar y generar expectativa de lo porvenir sin excesivos detalles "técnicos", cómo si se dió en De la Tierra a la Luna, lo que hace no nos perdamos si no estamos familiarizados con ellos pero que a la vez nos otorga un conocimiento suficiente para saber de que se está hablando. Luego el desarrollo de la aventura a lo largo de la obra es magnífico, introduce constantemente retos que salvar y situaciones heroicas y también muy humanas.Los personajes son magníficos. Tanto el protagonista el Capitán Hatteras, un hombre con una determinación de hierro y una pasión sin límites, como su gran amigo el Doctor, el cuál dota a la obra de esa calidez de las buenas relaciones del ser humano, son los pesos pesados de la obra y en los cuáles gira toda la aventura. Ninguno podría subsistir sin el otro, y así lo da a entender el final de la misma.Que decir del final, sólo que no te lo esperás hasta que sucede. Un final digno de esta aventura y su personaje.Como solo un apunte se hace una leve relación al libro Viaje Al Centro de La Tierra, ya que esta historia transcurre unos 3 años después que el viaje de Hatteras y sus amigos.En resumen, una obra que desconocía y que me trajo muchísima satisfacción leer.Seguiremos con el próximo sin ninguna duda...
—Christian
