Jules Verne has been a strong contender for the title of "Father of Science Fiction", thanks in large part to the widespread popularity of his works, after all, according to UNESCO statistics, Verne's works are the second most translated in the world, after Agatha Christie.
Recently, the first season of the TV series "Around the World in Eighty Days", adapted from the novel of the same name and released by PBS, was launched, which received good response at home and abroad, and also focused people's attention on the French science fiction writer again. "Around the World in Eighty Days" can be described as well-known to women and children, perhaps many people have read the translations previously launched by the China Youth Publishing House, and they are familiar with the content of the novel, but perhaps not too many people know that it is Verne and "Around the World in Eighty Days" that have opened the process of Chinese translation of Western science fiction works.
Poster for the first season of the 2022 TV series Around the World in Eighty Days
Verne's science fiction writing began around the time of Edgar Poe's influence. Thanks to the efforts of translators, Poe's influence in France even surpassed that of the United States, and his science fiction novels such as "Hypnotic Apocalypse", "The Adventures of Hans Pfal", "The Story of the Future", etc. certainly aroused Verne's interest, and the former's reproduction of scientific details and the imagination of the future society became the characteristics that the French writer tried to emulate. So when Verne's science fiction writing was just beginning, he wrote several Edlen Poe-style novels, such as Verne's "Five Weeks on the Balloon", which can clearly echo Poe's short story "Balloon Scam". It was after reading the manuscript of Five Weeks on the Balloon that Hetzel, the Parisian publisher at the time, decided to sign a contract with Verne, not only to publish the feature, but also to promise a future series of "Voyages Extraordinaires", asking him to write a two- or three-volume novel a year. So in the decades that followed, Verne devoted himself to science fiction and was extremely productive throughout his life.
Although Verne was not the absolute originator of science fiction, he was still comfortable with specific science fiction narratives. He revived a novelistic model that seemed obsolete at the time, a travelogue-style adventure story: according to contemporary technological conditions, Verne conceived of a bizarre journey to mysterious lands. In the writer's pen, these adventures can better accommodate scientific discourse, to tell the adventure of Aronnax and his party in the Nautilus through the unknown sea, not only conducive to compiling interlocking plots, but also convenient for Verne to intersperse various geographical, oceanographic, and biological knowledge. In the eyes of some, it is these materials extracted from textbooks that give Verne's novels an educational function. Another major feature of Verne-style science fiction adventures is that fantasy is restrained and never exaggerated: the attention to scientific details allows him to imagine every trip, always based on the level of technological development at the time, cautiously inferring the possibility of human beings going to the secret realm, such as the aerospace knowledge of the 19th century is not enough for people to conceive of a real moon landing plan, so in "From the Earth to the Moon", Verne can only focus on the design and construction of "spaceships" (in essence, a cannonball of a giant cannon), and the entire novel is also in "spaceships". The launch and rotation around the moon came to an abrupt halt, and there was no writing about landings and lunar surface expeditions, let alone meetings with the alien race "lunar people".
Verne's adventures are generally considered to be entertaining readers and have no particular connotations, but his novels are always in contact with the political situation of the world in the 19th century. Whether it's "Captain Grant's Children" placing the ocean in the context of the Scottish independence movement, or "Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea" constantly depicting Captain Nemo's sympathy for oppressed nations and attacking imperialist ships—most prominently, "The Nameless House," released in 1899, a novel dedicated to the Canadian national independence movement of 1837, which has nothing to do with science fiction—we can see that Verne's concern for the political realities of the times was often expressed as a (even implicit, implicit, Silent) protest. If the writer himself has such a level of political consciousness when he writes, then some of his novels can obtain symbolic interpretations, such as "Around the World in Eighty Days", where "the most personable gentleman of British high society" Phyllis Fogg set out to travel around the world because of a gamble, and finally managed to catch up in eighty days: only the British, not the French or the Germans, have the ability to travel around the world, which essentially alludes to the political situation of the global expansion of the British Empire in the late 19th century. This is especially true given fogg's footprints in the British colonies of Mumbai, Kolkata, and Hong Kong. The same innuendo appears in Captain Grant's Children, where the Duncan travels the globe and "the British flag flutters on the slanted pole of the tail tree."
Jules verne
For decades, the collaboration between Verne and Hetzel has been a great success for both sides. This is due in part to the publisher Hetzel's clear business plans: Hetzel believed that Verne's "Strange Travels" series of novels should be read by children and young people, and when Verne wrote some dystopian manuscripts, Hetzel would simply refuse to publish them, instead suggesting that he write more traditional adventure stories. Verne was also the lead contributor to the Illustrated Magazine of Education and Entertainment, founded by Hetzel, whose name encapsulates the publisher's tone and the overall style of Verne's many works. It's hard to say whether Hetzel's decision was correct today, but the results of the publishing partnership eventually made Jules Verne famous all over the world. However, even Verne himself may not have expected that in the last years of his life, his novels would set off a science fiction fever wave in distant China.
Science fiction in the 19th century is still largely a new thing in Western culture, but the Chinese of the late Qing Dynasty and the early Ming Dynasty have successively translated them. This was not because of any particular penchant for science fiction, but because they believed that science fiction— commonly called "science fiction" at the time— had a transcendent effect of enlightening people's minds. Since Liang Qichao shouted the slogan "If you want to improve the rule of the masses today, you must start from the revolution in the novel industry", many intellectuals in the late Qing Dynasty and the early Ming Dynasty have made it their career to translate foreign novels and want to spread the achievements of Western civilization to the Chinese. Science fiction can obviously meet this requirement, after all, in the eyes of people at that time, this genre not only contains advanced technical knowledge, but also advocates the exploration spirit of "Mr. Sai", so some people say: "Today's improvement of novels, we must first change its purpose, think that the social standard, for the purpose of the magic ... However, the remedy must begin with the import of political novels, detective novels, and science novels. In the Chinese novel, there is no such three nature, and these three, especially the key to the whole novel. "Only cultural anxiety and too much haste will elevate the status of science fiction: if the public can't understand the direct introduction of scientific theory, then wrap it up with a story." Just as Lu Xun said when translating Verne's "Journey to the Moon" (that is, "From the Earth to the Moon"), science novels are not as boring as simple scientific knowledge, and they are a little more interesting, without using their brains, reading and reading, they can unconsciously break superstitions and cultivate advanced cultural concepts.
It is generally believed that Chinese translation of the first science fiction novel was Verne's "Around the World in Eighty Days". In 1900, the Jingshiwen Society published a translation of the novel "Eighty Days of Travels", written by Fang Zhulishi and translated by Xue Shaohui. Xue Shaohui was a famous literati in the late Qing Dynasty, the earliest female translator in China, who participated in the founding of the first self-run girls' school "Women's Society" and the first women's newspaper "Women's Journal", and wrote the "Biography of Foreign Women" to systematically introduce the lives of Western women.
Xue Shaohui, translator of "Eighty Days of Travels"
The Eighty Days of Circumnavigation was co-translated by Xue Shaohui and her husband Chen Shoupeng (an oral account by Chen Shoupeng and Notes by Xue Shaohui), but was not literally translated from French, but was translated from the English translations of the British geographers M.Towel and N.D. Anvers. The novel adopts the text of the text for translation, and adjusts to the pattern of chapter back, the whole book 37 times, corresponding to the 37 chapters of the original work, the review is two sentences of seven-word poems (such as the fourth time "two people with felt bags on the road to the train friends to send off", the fifth time "newspapers are strife to fight for gambling tickets, telegrams urgently catch pedestrians"), which is to cater to the reading habits of Chinese at that time. The names of the main characters were also different from the common translations today, with Jean Passepartout being called "Arong" and Aouda being called "Adele". There are many Western place names, customs, and allusions in the original work, fortunately, Chen Shoupeng has traveled to Britain, France, Japan and other countries, so the translation is also interspersed with quite a few notes, such as the fourteenth chapter that Fug and his party bid farewell to Sir Francis Colomarty, and Madame Aouda performed a veneer ceremony with him, and the translator commented on the side that "the western men and women are kissed as a courtesy, and the second is to snuggle their faces, and they want to kiss without kissing, that is, they kiss their mouths."
Although "Journey around the Eighty Days" has been published for more than a hundred years, it can be said to be very far away, and it is even translated in Chinese, but this does not mean that we cannot reread this translation today, because it has a very rare quality at that time - faithful to the original text. Due to the limitations of the translator's own knowledge and foreign language level, many translations in the late Qing Dynasty and early Ming Dynasty were not small differences from the original works, and mistranslations, omissions, additions and deletions could be seen everywhere, which was a common disease at that time. However, Xue and Chen's "Journey Around the Eighty Days" rarely have these problems, and most of the time, every word of the translation can correspond to the original text. Compare the same passage in verse 37 of the novel to see how different the old and new translations are:
Translated by Xue Shaohui and Chen Shoupeng:
Fogg: "Saturday? Outrageous! Ah Rong shouted, "Yes, yes, yes." Ershi miscalculated a day. We have arrived before fourteen o'clock in the dark, and there are still ten minutes left in the meantime. "Ah Rong said, looking at his master, his intentions were particularly yin, his feelings were extremely urgent, and he could not go down and say more. Fogg drank like a stick, had no time to think, hurried out of the door, jumped into a car, promised a hundred gold pounds, that is, the royal restoration clubhouse, and its shortcut was just like two dogs pulling five cars (Xiguocheng language). The bell in the meeting will be one moment before nine o'clock, and he will arrive in the hall, which is the period of fogg's eighty-day tour. And the gamble of twenty thousand gold pounds was finally fog's income. Fufuge waited for this person's ear, returned yesterday, thinking that the time had passed, remorseful, hu for today's dial, and just happened to be yay! Before and after are different, lost and regained, so that the one who miscalculates a day, and rests in Yahweh?
Translated by Zhao Kefei, People's Literature Publishing House
"Saturday? No way! ”
"It's Saturday, it's Saturday, yes, it's Saturday!" Let Almighty say out loud, "You got the day wrong!" We arrived twenty-four hours early, but now there are only ten minutes left! ......”
Let the universal grasp the collar of the master's neck and pull him up with all his life's strength!
After being pulled up like this, Phyllis Fogg did not have time to think, so he left the room, left the house, jumped on a two-wheeled carriage, and promised the coachman a hundred pounds; along the way, crushed two dogs, cut five carriages, and finally arrived at the improvement club.
When he appeared in the living room, the clock pointed to eight forty-five...
Phyllis Fogg completed the globetrotting in eighty days! ......
Phyllis Fogg won a £20,000 bet!
Now one would ask, how could someone as meticulous as Mr. Fogg get the date wrong? He had returned to London on Friday, the seventy-ninth day after his departure, on Friday, December 20, so how could he have thought that it was Saturday, December 21?
Catalogue of "Eighty Days of Circumnavigation" (Source: Collection of Translated Literature of the Department of Modern Chinese Literature)
"Around the World in Eighty Days" is not actually "science fiction" in the strict sense, it is closer to a simple adventure story. However, in the eyes of the Chinese people at that time, the "scientific flavor" of the novel was already very strong. In the preface, Chen Shoupeng said that he was amazed by Western novels such as "Eighty Days of Travels", and that the like of barnyard history could include the expertise of astronomical geography. It can be seen that Xue and Chen picked out this novel from the sea of books to translate, and really valued its educational role:
It includes the names of the world's sea ports, and the two railways in India and the United States are particularly detailed. All the mountains and rivers, the terroir, the victory of the sect, the history of the unspoken calendar, and the hidden calculation of heaven and driving methods. The author self-marked that this book has a special knowledge of twenty thousand words. It is a simple barnyard history, which can have its greatness, and it is not ordinary novels that only make thief and obscenity, so the Europeans call it, performing in the pear garden, receiving all the Mongolian studies, allowing it to be appreciated by the elegant customs. The Two Translators of the English People's Opinion, Tao Er and Deng Faus, and there are also translators in other countries, and the more they spread, the more they are learned, which is enough to cover all the qi.
In 1906, the translations of Xue Shaohui and Chen Shoupeng were republished by the novel Lin She, and the title of the book was changed to "Travel Around the World". Since its first edition in 1900, The Eighty Days' Tour has been published three times, which shows its popularity. As many people as there are readers, people will also leave some comments, just like we can still see "Reading" written by Jin Songcen today, which recounts the plot of the novel in the form of seven poems, which is interesting to read:
The round ball Fang Yi played a game of chess, and the bet won the golden circle to regain his wife.
I excommunicated my father, and the case is too bizarre.
The sea of people withdrew from the waves, and was shocked to hear that the thieves did not take the spear.
Foot root wireless rotation, three famous oceans and four continents.
The price of the Elephant Ice Car is extremely high, and the gold yuan is 60,000 to buy a boat.
Qian Hao redeemed a pair of shoes, so the career is too proud.
It is easy to close the door and difficult to close, and the time is cut off for a moment.
Only bitter travel new companions, early lotus pit pulling the future.
When the sun goes west I go east, the idiot timepiece synagogue clock.
Generally guarding the London dial, the words will be in the middle of the day.
Touching the gold is a bitter thing, and victory depends on the final game.
On the eightieth schedule of the consummation day, Haozhu still embraced the forest pond.
Following the Eighty Days' Circumnavigation, Verne's novels were translated one after another. In 1902, Lu Zhidong and Hong Xisheng translated "Travel under the Sea", which was published in "New Novel" No. 1 to No. 18, while Liang Qichao also translated "Fifteen Little Haojie" and published it in the "Xinmin Cong Bao". From 1903 to 1907, it was the most popular period for translating Verne's novels, Lu Xun translated "Travel in the Moon Realm" and "Underground Travel", Bao Tianxiao translated "Iron World" and "Secret Messenger", the Commercial Press published "Around the Moon", Xi Ruo translated "Secret Island", Zhou Guisheng translated "Journey to the Center of the Earth", Xie Qi translated "Flight", and many translations were published successively, setting off a wave of "Verne Fever" in China. After May Fourth, there were fewer translations, and only novels such as "Nautilus" and "Man in the Sea" came out. However, somewhat troublesome is that the Chinese translation names at that time were not uniform, and the words "Jules Verne" were sometimes translated as "Jules Room", sometimes translated as "Joswellu", sometimes as "Garvini", and even sometimes the nationality of the author was confused (for example, Lu Xun mistakenly referred to the author as "Julius Peron" when translating "Journey to the Moon"), so a reader may have read several science novels and finally did not know that these were written by the same writer.
Around the Earth in Eighty Days, illustrated in the French 1873 edition, illustrated by Neuville et L. Benett.
In fact, at that time, the introduction of Chinese science fiction writers was not only Verne, including Herbert George Wells, who was as famous as Verne in Britain, harune Oshikawa in Japan, etc., but Verne was undoubtedly the most translated science fiction writer, and even his novels occupied a place in the best-seller list at that time, according to statistics, from 1896 to 1916, the number of translations of Verne novels ranked third, second only to Conan Doyle and Henry Ryder Hagard. Since Chinese loved Verne so much, did these novels really play their due scientific and educational functions as the intellectuals expected? Translators hope that the majority of readers can get enlightenment from the novel, but paradoxically, when they translate, they often deliberately delete the specific description of the application of technology in Verne's works, and delete the real "hard-core" scientific knowledge: this is of course related to the lack of level of translators, who have not studied natural science knowledge, and certainly cannot be translated; but the more important reason may be that the translator thinks that this part of the content is negligible, and deleting it does not affect the coherence of the plot, and the reader does not have to understand what instruments the Nautilus is equipped with. By what energy supply, the content of sodium chloride in seawater, etc., they just need to know that the submarine is a powerful thing that cannot be made by the Chinese, but the Westerners can make it. In the absence of specific knowledge introduction, the technology that appears in the novel will appear too magical, so that the goal of science and education may be half achieved, even if the translation of Verne's novel does not improve the Western scientific knowledge of Chinese readers, it also cultivates their identification, yearning and even worship of Western advanced technology. This helps to explain why the translators of the late Qing Dynasty and the early Ming Dynasty had a soft spot for Verne: there were many Western science fiction writers in the early 20th century, and Chinese valued Verne the most, leaving aside market factors, because Verne's works exuded a technical optimism attitude, a presupposition that scientific and technological progress could create a better future for mankind. This is exactly what the Enlighteners want people to accept. In contrast, wells's novels that wrapped issues such as class antagonism and colonial warfare under the surface of science fiction were naturally far less likely to arouse the interest of Verne's works at that time.
Chinese translation of "Around the World in Eighty Days", China Youth Publishing House, 1979 edition
After May Fourth, due to changes in literary thought, people no longer paid attention to science fiction novels reclassified as "popular literature", and the translation of Verne's works became less and less. Until the 1950s, under the call of "marching toward science", Verne's value was once again highly valued, and the China Youth Publishing House began to publish the "Verne Anthology", which once again set off a climax of translation of Verne. With the overall arrangement of the publishing house, the translation work began to be systematic, and in the past six years, eight works such as "Captain Grant's Children", "Mysterious Island", "Eighty Days Around the Earth", "Journey to the Center of the Earth", "Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea" have been published, and many well-known translators have been invited to participate in translation and publicity, and various proper nouns have been unified. It can be said that it is this anthology of the China Youth Publishing House that indirectly promotes the classicization of Verne's novels. After the 1980s, people were more and more exposed to excellent science fiction works from all over the world, but the classic area of Verne's novels was still strong, and was once recommended by the Ministry of Education as an extracurricular reading for students. Although some scholars began to point out his side as a serious writer, in the mainstream perception, Jules Verne's novels were classified as science fiction literature and children's literature, which actually continued the fate planned for him by the publisher Hetzel.
【Reference】
1. Roberts, History of Science Fiction, translated by Ma Xiaowu, Peking University Press, 2010.
2. Brian Aldis, David Wengrove, "A Billion Years of Carnival: A History of Western Science Fiction", translated by Shu Wei, Sun Juli, and Sun Danding, Times Publishing and Media Co., Ltd., 2011.
3. Guo Yanli, Introduction to Modern Chinese Translation Literature, Hubei Education Publishing House, 1998.
4. Yan Fangfang, "The Enlightenment's Reform Prophecy and the Two-Way Interpretation of modern Science Novels: Rethinking the Dissemination of Verne's Science Novels in the Late Qing Dynasty and early Ming Dynasty", Journal of Harbin University, August 2006, Vol. 27, No. 8.
5. Chen Xianghong, "Verne's Centennial Translation and Dissemination in China", Journal of Soochow University (Philosophy and Social Sciences Edition), No. 3, 2017.
6. Ji Min, "The Acceptance of Jules Verne's Science Fiction Novels in the Late Qing Dynasty", Beijing Language and Culture University, 2008.