Talk:The Mysterious Island

I am currently reading The Mysterious Island translation, copyright 1965, by Airmont Publishing Company printed as "complete and unabridged" in a 415-page paperback. It has an introduction by Raymond R. Canon and contains no illustrations except a line drawing of J.G.V. and color cover art of a submarine entering an island harbor with radar antenna installations on the shore and in the sea. It is listed as a Classics Series number CL-77 and is priced at 95 cents. I will compare some of this text to the original French publication and also give commentary on the Classics Illustrated Number 34 version of M.I., adapted by M. L. Stokes.IHSRC 00:01, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

Could this article please be rewritten by someone who has read the book? Otherwise it would better be deleted.

I agree. I read it (in Czech) when I was a child, but didn't make it through. I added something what I remember about it, not very much. I have also changed the names to Cyrus Smith and Nab (they also used this names in my translation), and changed the title of the article about Cyrus Smith to this name (I don't know where the name "Harding" comes from). Samohyl Jan 11:39, 11 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I'll be working on it a little bit, notably (but not limited to) scanning images from the book. I have already removed the end of the article, which must have come from some soapy adaptation -- certainly not from the book. Rama 23:20, 22 Feb 2005 (UTC)

What do people think about the name of Herbert / Harbert? Apparently it was Harbert in French, but has always been translated to Herbert for publication in English. Which should we use? --Apyule 02:30, 24 May 2005 (UTC)

At least we can be happy that the name is easy to recognize. Since this is the English-speaking Wikipedia, I would tend to favour using the English version, possibly with a footnote. Rama 06:03, 24 May 2005 (UTC)

I agree, so I added footnotes about the names. But there is still mystery left: In both editions from Gutenberg project, Pencroft is named Pencroff; but Pencroft seems to be common on IMDB pages etc. Rama, could you please check the original book? Samohyl Jan 11:14, 24 May 2005 (UTC)

Not steampunk

The book and movie were made prior to the genre and therefore can only be seen as a precursor to the genre and not affiliated within the same category as other works of fiction that fit the genre. This can be further explained with the purpose that Mteropolis and Brazil have not been listed either as cyberpunk works, but as precursos. 82.155.15.197 17:55, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

Movie adaptations

Should there be any mention of the fact that the 1961, and especially, 2005 movies have very little to do with the book (as in, major female characters, strange creatures on the island, military man being the leader as opposed to a scientist, nothing whatsoever about the science vs. nature for survival stuff that made the book what it was, and continued to establish Verne as proponent of science)?? Something along the line of, "a very loose adaptation in the horro genre--Knyazhna 06:54, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

I agree. Why not? Tavilis 10:49, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

Cyrus Harding is a military man. Maybe if you had paid closer attention, you would see that they refer to him as 'Captain' (his rank in the Union Army during the Civil War) (User:138.89.111.65) 9 June 2006

There is also a film "based on the novel" "The Mysterious Island" (1975), an 49 min. animation[1]. There is too little about it to tell how close it comes to the book, so I let it out of the novel article. Hoverfish 13:25, 14 October 2006 (UTC)

LOST Producers do (loosely) acknowledge this book

Cripes people. Please remove that quote about LOST, they have actually admitted borrowing from jules verne, as well as a variety of other sources.

Lost may be influenced by Verne's book, but it is not a TV adaptation per se. There's no Nautilus, no Captain Nemo and so on. The reference about Lost is more suitable to "Other references" subarticle. Tavilis 07:18, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

Building site of the Nautilus.

While many fans believe that Lincoln Island was the original building site for the Nautilus, this theory isn't really borne out by the text of the novel. In Nemo's account of his story we are told "On a deserted island in the Pacific he built a shipyard and there a submarine vessel was constructed," but the island is not identified as Lincoln Island. Later we are told "Alone [Nemo] succeeded in bringing his Nautilus to one of the submarine ports which he used at times. One of these ports was hollowed out under Lincoln Island and it was this one which was now giving asylum to the Nautilus."

So Lincoln Island was just one of the Nautilus's secret underground harbours (we see another one, in the Atlantic, in Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas.)

If Lincoln Island had been the site of Nemo's original shipyard, some remains of it would have survived to be found by Smith and his companions. Don Sample 23:12, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

I see no reason why there sould have been remains. Captain Nemo says himself that he burned and destroyed everything (I don't remember if he tells that to professor Aronax or to the colonists). He would have blown up the whole island if he had been able to do so. The forest would have quickly destoyed that little what fire left behind. And there was over fifteen years between building of Nautilus and the events of The Mysterious Island. As you can see I am one of those fans who think Nautilus was build on Lincoln Island...Dionne Jinn 11:24, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

Building the Nautilus was not a small undertaking, that could be done in a few wooden buildings. It would have required a very large infrastructure, a lot of heavy machinery, accommodations for dozens of workers, and so on. Even if he burned the buildings, the foundations would remain. Lincoln Island wasn't covered in tropical jungle, it was temperate forest. It takes a lot longer than 15 years for it to erase all signs of even simple wooden buildings, even if they have already been burned down. Don Sample 22:07, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

In the book the colonists go to Tabor Island where Ayrton lives. It takes effort to find any trace of human presence on the island and Ayrton only stopped taking care of his surroundings about ten years earlier. And Tabor Island is even further south than Lincoln Island. Ayrton had not tried to destroy the buildings but they were still very hard to find after less than ten years when the colonists visited the island. Dionne Jinn 08:42, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

They found the cabin on Tabor Island in less than a day of looking. They spent years on Lincoln Island without finding any sign that it had once been inhabited. And pretty much the only place on that island that it would have been practical to set up the large settlement and shipyard needed for building the Nautilus was right where the colonists established themselves. Don Sample 22:23, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

A leaden bullet

Does anybody know where came that leaden bullet that broke Pencroft's tooth? That bullet is the most mysterious thing in the Island! Everything else is explained as captain Nemo's doing BUT captain Nemo didn't hunt on land nor did he use normal firearms! He preferred to hunt underwater and use glass and mercury bullets loaded with electricity. I cannot see him hunting peccaries with a rifle or a shotgun.

Any good ideas? Dionne Jinn 07:23, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

Nemo had regular firearms, he supplied the colonists with some. He might have done some hunting on land, just for a change of scenery, or menu. Those electric bullets of his couldn't be that easy to replace, he may have saved them for special occasions. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Don Sample (talk • contribs) 06:24, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

Pencroft's first name

I believe that I saw his first name somewhere in the book...It stated that it was "John", or something along the lines of that. I don't remember the exact location I found it, but it was before page 500, out of a 600 paged book... Can someone verify if this is true or not? Thanks :) James chen0 01:41, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

His first name seems to have been "Bonadventure." From Chapter XII of Part II:

To satisfy Captain Pencroff, it was first necessary to give the boat a name and after several proposals discussed at length, the voters agreed on that of Bonadventure which was the baptismal name of the honest sailor.

I did a search of the text, and only found 5 references to people named "John", none of whom were Pencroff. (Electronic copies of all of Verne's books are available from http://jv.gilead.org.il) Don Sample 08:21, 25 October 2007 (UTC)