They will remark on this occasion, as well as later, some discrepancy in the dates but later again, they will understand why the real dates were not at first given. The events which have just been briefly related are taken from a work which some of our readers have no doubt read, and which is entitled, Captain Grant’s Children. Verne and his publisher included this footnote in the text: (Not just less than 2 years, as simple subtraction would indicate.) Ayrton states he was abandoned 12 years earlier, in March 18 55. However, in The Mysterious Island, the castaways find Ayrton in December 1866. In the subsequent novel Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, three main characters are taken aboard the Nautilus in November 1867. In Verne’s novel In Search of the Castaways (also called Captain Grant’s Children), the main characters abandon the traitorous Tom Ayrton on a deserted island in March 1865. Jules Verne tried to tie three of his novels together, recognized the chronological errors, attempted to explain them away, and ended up confusing things even more. Just ask the creators of Star Trek, Star Wars, and the writers of just about any long-running comic book series. Sometimes an author belatedly tries to force-fit two or more stories into the same world timeline, but it doesn’t work well.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |