Missing the point by a mile - or leagues, rather

[bellatrys]

Or, Did Alan Moore even read Jules Verne?

The theme of this year's International Blog Against Racism is "Intersectionality" which ought to be a snap for me, but as usual I'm behind and disorganized but thanks to shewhohashope and oyceter both posting about steampunk and colonialism, I remembered something which I've been meaning to try to examine in greater detail,

Comments

[nenya_kanadka]

Sudden urge to fangirl Captain Nemo, of whom I've only heard through other fen....

[evilstorm]

Ditto! Christ, now I have to read those novels too, I guess.

And omg, yes, that Seraphim story. Socute, ahahaha.

[nenya_kanadka]

He sounds really quite gorgeous from P@L's description!

I've only read I think two Jules Verne stories--Five Weeks In A Balloon, I *think*, and Around The World In Eighty Days, the latter of which I've seen in various film versions and may possibly have even read.

This is bad, since Dr. Emmett Brown is my hero.

(Volunteering at library means I'm confronted frequently with the idea that I can read books I don't have money to buy, though! Hurrah.)

[evilstorm]

He does, doesn't he. Damnit.

I don't even remember if I've read any Verne stories, considering the fact that if it happened, it was at that age where I ripped through books at an insane rate and everything...blurs, after a while. I think I might've read Journey to the Centre of the Earth. Hm.

Of late I seem to have drifted from my SFF roots, strangely enough. The latest books I've bought/borrowed are--uh--Seize the Fire, an awesome book on Nelson, two books on Turandot, and Thus Spake Zarathustra. Yeah.

[rozasharn]

I never read 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. I had no idea Captain Nemo was so cool. I can't think of any actors I'd trust to portray him: Hollywood doesn't cast a lot of dreamily-handsome, romantic, tragic, humanist, poet-warrior science geniuses of any ethnicity.

Beautiful essay.

ooohh...

[bellatrys]

The first picture I found he looked way too cheerful to be our brooding Captain, but I found others and he seems like he can pull off the brooding/angsty/sensitive angle, *and* brawny enough to plausibly KO Ned Land with a single punch, too - and the review excerpts I found of his acting say he can *act* and not just stand around being a hunk, either. You've given us an excellent candidate, thanks! (fans self)

[glaurung_quena]

Yes, when I read League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, I remember thinking that these characters weren't very faithful to the originals.

It's been a few years since I read a whack of Haggard novels for a PhD field exam, but I seem to remember that Quatermain is portrayed as very far from the square-jawed alpha male hero archetype. He's depicted as flawed, both physically and morally, IIRC - he's made out to be something of a coward, and also physically we're told he is like an ape, a sort of brutish and not totally admirable hero.

As for Nemo, are you aware of the issue with the piss-poor translations of the novels he appears in? The 19th century (public domain) translations that are the most often reprinted were done by a Englishman who felt free to abridge Verne's works as he translated, and who was also, ahem, uncomfortable with the politics of Nemo's portrayal (a colonial subject who takes vengeance against the British Empire - can't have that, after all, we know those Indians ought to be grateful for how we have civilized them

[jenny_islander]

I was starting to wonder whether I was hopelessly old fashioned in disliking Moore. The sources I was reading all seemed to love his stuff. The general impression I got from LXG was, "Everything is ugly, everyone is angry, the utter scumbag sociopaths get most of the screen time and the best lines (bleach please for the Hyde flashbacks and something for the nausea too) and nobody ever stops to just enjoy anything, even a cup of tea." This I should read for escape

[evilstorm]

That would be Fables, which...is pretty damn dark, yeah. I've never read it, but it's apparently pretty good.

[anna_wing]

Robin McKinley's versions are pretty good. I liked both her versions of "Beauty and the Beast" (Beauty and Rose Daughter) and "Sleeping Beauty" Spindle's End. Deerskin might actually have been less nasty than the original.

What did you think of Tanith Lee's fairy-tale anthology "Red AS Blood"?

[jenny_islander]

Eh. I read a few pages, couldn't get into it, and forgot about it.

[evilstorm]

Oh, yeah--what didn't you like about V For Vendetta? Out of curiosity.

[anna_wing]

Me, I did not care for the degradation of all of the significant female characters (including the villainous one).

[evilstorm]

Agreed, Anna Wing. I just found the comic's treatment of women and gay people... well, slightly offensive, seeing how it was supposed to be such a progressive story.

What anna & anon said

[bellatrys]

There was just so much prurience and exploitativeness under the guise of "oh, see, aren't the fascists bad, they exploit women?" but from that male-gaze, enjoying while they condemn it skeeziness. Like that Kyle Payne creep. There's ways to show that a society is sexist and exploitative without revelling in it under the pretext of pointing a condemning finger at it. It got totally distracting from the plot which was already complex enough to follow.)

(Also, the lettering was really hard to read, which didn't help, and the scratchiness of the art contributed to the problem.)