July Cooling (Theophile Gautier on Captain Hatteras, 1866)

Men of the Belgica wintering in Antarctica, 1898



When the alcohol in the thermometer . . . . pushes its red thread [to the maximum] . . . . it is best . . . . to read in the half-darkness . . . . some pleasant and refreshing book, for example the imaginary journeys of M. Jules Verne . . . . The British at the North Pole and The Desert of Ice . . . . especially, are excellent today. . . . . These Arctic books come at the right time.  When you hold them, they almost give you frostbite:  you can see your breath stretching out as fog while an invisible snow falls on your shoulders.  Like doctors, M. Jules Verne knows how to make ice at the heart of a white-hot tomb.  There exists an extensive collection of imaginary journeys, ancient and modern: from Lucian's True History to Gulliver's Travels, the human imagination has revelled in wild fantasies where, on the pretext of excursions to unknown lands, authors with more or less talent develop their utopias or exercise their satirical verve.  The journeys of M. Jules Verne belong to neither of these categories.  If they have not really been carried out -- even if they could not yet be done -- they present the most rigorous scientific possibilities, and the most daring are only the paradox or exaggeration of a truth soon to come.  Here the chimera is written and guided by a mathematical spirit.  It is the application to an invention of all those true, real, and precise details that produce the most complete illusion.  There is more Edgar Allen Poe and Daniel Defoe than Swift in M. Jules Verne -- or rather he has found his method on his own and at the first attempt taken it to the highest degree of perfection . . . .


. . . . When Hatteras shoots the sun, no naval captain could find the least error, and the same applies to the tiniest details.  Only Robinson Crusoe's diary by Defoe reaches this degree of verisimilitude.  But in addition, M. Jules Verne, who does not neglect the human and cordial side, ensures his characters are liked, and, above all on days as hot as when this article is written, he creates the desire to go and spend a few hours with those good companions in the snow-house in the desert of ice!



     ---  Theophile Gautier, Les Voyages Imaginaires de M. Jules Verne (16 July 1866), published in Le Moniteur universel, p. 197

Theophile Gautier photographed by Nadar, 1856  






Note:  Reading Theophile Gautier's contemporary review of Jules Verne's The Adventures of Captain Hatteras yesterday evening struck a chord because I also had been reading the novel partly to moderate my internal thermostat as Pennsylvania's summer swelters mounted their cruel annual assault.  I mentioned this to a friend, a psychotherapist much concerned with behavioral cues and tics the other day (under a high, beating sun; over cooling mango drinks), and it provoked a lively conversation.


The weather here has already become much too "close", as it was during Gautier's July 150 years ago.  "Plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose", as the man said.

The Belgica in port of Antwerp, 1897, prior to voyaging

Consequential (Northern Arcadia)

          

Polar hares

          Whilechatting, the huntsmen, now converted to naturalists, continued on their way,and reached a sort of vale, without surrounding hills, at the bottom of whichsnaked a more or less unfrozen river; because of its southern exposure there grew some vegetation on the banksand a certain way up the slopes.  Theground displayed a veritable desire to be fertilized;  with a few inches of topsoil, it would haveasked for nothing better than to produce. The doctor pointed out these manifest tendencies.

        ‘Look, couldn’ta few enterprising settlers settle in this valley, if they had to?  With hard work and perseverance, they wouldtransform it; not to a temperate countryside – I wouldn’t go so far – but atleast a presentable patch of land.  If I’mnot mistaken, over there are even a few four-legged inhabitants!   Suchfellows know all the best places.’

Polar hare  

        ‘Goodness,they’re polar hares!’ exclaimed Altamont, loading his gun.

         ‘Wait,’ criedthe doctor, ‘wait, you crazy huntsman! The poor animals aren’t about to flee. Come on, leave them be;  let themcome to us!’

            In factthree or four young hares, gamboling in the thin heather and new moss, wereapproaching the three men, whose presence they did not fear;  they ran up with beautiful naïve airs, whichhardly managed to disarm Altamont.

Arctic fox

           Soon theywere between the doctor’s legs, who stroked them, saying:

            ‘Why useshots for those who seek caresses?  Thedeath of these small creatures wouldn’t serve us.’

              ‘You’reright,’ cried Hatteras, ‘their lives should be spared.’

           ‘Like thoseof the ptarmigans flying toward us,’ exclaimed Altamont, ‘and the sandpipersadvancing gravely on their long stilts.’

Arctic Ptarmigan

          A wholefeathered race was approaching the huntsmen, not suspecting the danger thedoctor had averted.  Even Duke, holdinghimself back, watched in admiration.

Arctic sandpiper

          It was acurious sight to see the pretty animals running, jumping and leapingtrustingly;  they landed on the goodClawbonny’s shoulders; they lay down at his feet;  they spontaneously offered themselves to theunaccustomed caresses;  they did theirutmost to welcome the unknown guests; the many birds, joyously chirping, called to each other and came fromall points of the valley;  the doctorresembled a veritable charmer.  Thehuntsmen continued their journey by climbing up the soggy banks of the stream,followed by this friendly group;  at abend in the valley they spotted a herd of eight or ten reindeer, grazing onsome lichen half-buried under the snow, charming animals to look upon, graciousand calm, the females bearing antlers as proudly as the males.  Their wooly hides were already exchangingwintry whiteness for the brown and dull grey of summer;  they appeared no more frightened and no lesstame than the hares or birds of this peaceful country.

Arctic reindeer

          Suchmust  have been the relationship betweenthe first man and the first animals when the world was young.

Dr. Clawbonny, Duke, Captains Hatteras and Altamont in Northern Arcadia

Text excerpted from:  Jules Verne, The Adventures of Captain Hatteras (1864).  Trans. William Butcher.  Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2005.

Graduation In Zion

        

        A cry of terror escaped from every breast.  All fled to starboard.

       But suddenly the ship was totally eased.  She was carried away and floated in the air for an imperceptible moment, then leaned over, fell on the ice floes, and there she underwent a rolling motion which made her rails crack.  What was happening?

        Lifted by the rising tide, pushed on by the blocks attacking her from behind, she was crossing the uncrossable ice-pack.  After a minute – a century – of this strange navigation, she had traversed this obstacle and fell back down on an ice-field; her weight made her pass through, and soon she was back in her element.  

        “We’re past the ice-pack!” exclaimed Johnson, rushing to the front of the brig.  

        “Thank God,” replied Hatteras.

      In effect, the brig was in a basin;  ice surrounded her on all sides and although her keel was in water, she could not move; but although she remained motionless, the field was moving for her.

         “We’re drifting, captain,” cried Johnson.

         “Let it happen.”

        I’ve been re-reading Jules Verne’s The Adventures of Captain Hatteras lately, so it’s probably not surprising that when I slept (and woke and slept and woke) last night, my dreaming and waking assumed the form of a ship navigating an ice-pack, continually rising and falling, being trapped and occasionally sliding free.  It’s nice finally to be awake with good morning light flowing in.  Soon, the dogs will want to go out.

        I fell asleep watching the CNN Republican candidates "debate", which was ok, but from what I saw, tending toward the predictable as entertainment fare, so sleep must have taken over early because the first time I woke up it was only just past 11 pm.

        Somewhere amid all the being trapped-in-ice sensations that Verne’s book (I know the dialogue seems creaky, but it’s really excellent and unique in my experience; it was a great favorite of Alfred Jarry’s also and contributed to his creation of Dr. Faustroll) prompted, which simply amplify other things I’ve been feeling, I also had a wonderful memory yesterday of an evening about 10 years ago when Caroline and I had drinks on a screened porch in the summer and watched a small spider construct a web for a couple of hours.  I know I’ve never seen anyone work so patiently, purposively and expertly, or convey a greater feeling of freedom.  He reminded me of those pictures of Jackson Pollock painting and of Jane silently creating one of her many art projects.

Notes:

1.  Text excerpted from Jules Verne, The Adventures of Captain Hatteras (trans. William Butcher).  Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2002.

2.  Top photo:  Belgica trapped in ice near Antarctica.  1899

3.  Second photo:  Gauss trapped in ice, Antarctica, March 29, 1902.  Hot-air balloon employed for aerial photography at right-hand side of photo. 

4.  All images enlarge when left-clicked.

Uni-Polar: The Adventures of Captain Hatteras

     

         This unique journey, without precedent in the annals of history, summed up all the previous discoveries done in the circumpolar regions; it united the expeditions of Parry, Ross, Franklin, and McClure; it completed the map of the hyperboreal lands between the hundredth and hundred-and-fifteenth meridians; and it culminated at that point of the globe inaccessible until then:  at the very Pole.

        Never, no, never did such an unexpected piece of news explode across a stupefied Britain!

        The British are excited by great geographic accomplishments; they felt moved and proud, from the Lord to the Cockney, from the merchant prince to the dockworker.

        The news of the great discovery ran down all the telegraphic wires of the United Kingdom at the speed of lightning; the newspapers inscribed the name of Hatteras in their titles, like that of a martyr, and Britain trembled with pride.

        The doctor and his companions were feted, and formally presented to Her Gracious Majesty by the Lord Chancellor.

        The government confirmed the name of Queen’s Island for the rock at the North Pole, Mount Hatteras for the volcano, and Altamont Harbor for the port of New America.

        Altamont remained with his companions in misery and glory, and became their friend; he went with the doctor, Bell, and Johnson to Liverpool, which acclaimed them on their return, after believing them long dead and buried in the eternal ice.

    But Dr Clawbonny always gave the glory to the man who deserved it above all others.   In his account of the journey, entitled The British At The North Pole and published the following year by the Royal Geographical Society, he presented John Hatteras as the equal of the great travelers, the successor of those daring men who indefatigably sacrificed themselves for the advancement of science.

        Meanwhile, this sad victim of his sublime passion was living peacefully at Sten Cottage Nursing Home, close to Liverpool, where his friend the doctor had personally placed him.  His madness was of the gentle sort, but he did not speak, he no longer understood, for power of speech had apparently departed at the same time as his reason.  Only one emotion linked him to the external world, his friendship for Duke, from whom it had not been thought wise to separate him.  This disease, this polar madness, thus quietly followed its course, not presenting any special symptoms.  But while visiting his poor patient one day, Dr Clawbonny was struck by his gait.

        For some time Captain Hatteras had been walking several hours each day , followed by his faithful dog, who gazed at him with soft, sad eyes; but it was invariably in a particular direction along a certain avenue at Sten Cottage.  Once the captain reached the end of the avenue, he would retrace his route, walking backwards.  If somebody stopped him, he would point to a fixed spot in the sky.  If someone tried to make him turn round, he would flare up, and Duke, sharing his anger, would bark back furiously.

        The doctor attentively observed such a strange mania, and soon understood the reason for such a singular obstinacy;  he guessed why the walk followed a fixed direction, under the influence, as it were, of a magnetic force. *

        Captain John Hatteras marched constantly north.

From Chapter 27,  The Adventures of Captain Hatteras by Jules Verne (1864).  Translation with an Introduction and Notes by William Butcher.  New York, Oxford University Press, 2005.

*  Note:  Verne was influenced by Franz Friedrich Anton Mesmer (1734 – 1815), a Viennese doctor who used magnets to explore human sensitivity to the “magnetic fluid”, an idea not totally discredited today, and one which led to Charcot’s work on hysteria and to Freud.

** Note 2:  The Adventures of Captain Hatteras illustrations from various sources.  Please note that most of the images enlarge with a mouse click.  Verne's map is really impressive to behold.

Mesmer's Baquet, Musée d'Histoire de la médecine et de la Pharmacie, Lyon, France.

Mesmerism: The Operator Inducing a Hypnotic Trance, engraving after Dodd, 1794. Plate from Ebenezer Sibly's book, A Key to Physic, 1794.