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No Jules Verne? I guess he's not very popular in the states, and thus my Soviet upbringing is showing, but I can't imagine growing up without him. I learned pr
by YuriNiyazov 15y ago
No Jules Verne?
I guess he's not very popular in the states, and thus my Soviet upbringing is showing, but I can't imagine growing up without him. I learned pretty much all of the geography that I know from him.
- mindcrime 15y agoYeah, Jules Verne was awesome. His stuff is fairly popular here in the US as well, although I can't compare to how popular he was elsewhere. I read several of his books when I was younger. The Mysterious Island was always my favorite.
- YuriNiyazov 15y agoI can speak for how popular he was during the Soviet Union. As a pre-teen male, you were less than human unless you've read the Nemo/Grant/Island trilogy.
- officemonkey 15y agoVerne suffers from a lack of good translations in English. Most of them are abridgments of public domain Victorian translations. They get the science wrong, they introduce British 19th-century racism, they rename characters for no reason (Axel -> Harry, Lidenbock -> Hardwigg), and they eliminate Captain Nemo's anti-British rant because after all, he's a wog. That being said, no child's education is complete without "Around the World in 80 Days" and "Journey to the Interior of the Earth."
- simonw 15y agoI had no idea - that's fascinating. Do you know of any translations that don't have those problems?
- officemonkey 15y agoThere's a F.P. Walter translation of "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea" which is both modern and donated to Project Gutenberg. The North American Jules Verne Society has a list of works, a determination of which are the best translations, and links to Amazon here: http://www.najvs.org/works/index.shtml http://www.najvs.org/works/index.shtml