2024 Author: Leah Sherlock | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 05:25
If you ask a modern reader about what is the most famous work written in the style of Robinsonade, then after the Defoe novel itself, Jules Verne, "The Mysterious Island", will undoubtedly be named. The content of the novel is known to almost everyone and needs no additional publicity.
Actually, in modern literature, Robinsonade is understood as any work where the characters are placed in conditions under which they need to rely only on their knowledge and skills to survive. This trend got its name from the work of Defoe, which tells about a shipwrecked sailor named Robinson Crusoe. The popularity of this novel turned out to be so great that the name Robinson became a household name and gave rise to an endless chain of sequels and imitations.
Did not stand aside and Jules Verne. "Mysterious Island" is still an almost perfect Robinsonade. The word "almost" here is not at all accidental, since this work is not at all a survival guide, but isjust an adventure novel with fantasy elements. The fantasy of the work lies in the fact that such an island simply cannot exist in nature, just as the achievements of the islanders in terms of scientific and technological progress cannot be carried out by four even very knowledgeable and able people.
But that's why he and Jules Verne. The Mysterious Island is written so convincingly that you begin to think about the impossibility of all these accomplishments only after reading the novel. And during the process itself, you do not pay attention to the fact that only robots can organize a forge in two days from scratch and smelt metal for it.
The author of the novel at one time gave rise to many disputes about whether he is a specific person, or a group of scientists is hiding under this pseudonym. Even now it is hard to believe that such a huge amount of science fiction works were written by one person, and even in those days when there were no computers. Today you can get any information by simply clicking the mouse several times, and the speed of typing on a computer is an order of magnitude higher than writing the same volume by hand. But Monsieur Verne did not even have a ballpoint pen at his disposal and was forced to write with a pen. And he did it really masterfully.
True, there is a significant flaw in the novel, which does not make it a Robinsonade in the full sense of the word. Jules Verne did not pull this genre in full. "The Mysterious Island", whose heroes so quickly began life on the island without a single match,yet they did not master the industrial base on their own. They were thrown almost everything they needed by Captain Nemo. However, Robinson also received by the will of his author a gift of fate - a chest with items necessary for a normal existence. In the same way, Captain Nemo, at a critical moment, first gives our islanders medicine for Herbert, and then completely provides them with guns, cartridges, kitchen utensils, clothes and a camera.
The fact is that at first the novel was conceived as a separate work, and only later the author decided to make it part of a trilogy, combining it with other novels. Yes, the transitional romance between The Children of Captain Grant and 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea did not fit Jules Verne very well here. "The Mysterious Island" would have looked better as a separate work, but nothing can be changed - everything was the author's will.
But all this does not detract from the merits of the novel. It is interesting not only for the description of creating certain ordinary things from scratch, especially since these descriptions are often incorrect (this is indicated in the editors' comments), but also for the fact that friendship and cooperation are glorified in it. And also the desire of the heroes to know and be able to know as much as possible.
It's hard to say exactly how many boys and girls began to recklessly study school subjects, inspired by the erudition of Cyres Smith, Gideon Spilett and Herbert. And Jules Verne is "guilty" of this. "Mysterious Island" has become a real hymn to Knowledge.
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