Anca Mitroi
174
France as a civilizing, colonial power. In Le Château des Carpathes,
the two Romanian protagonists, Franz de Telek and Rodolphe de
Gortz, have noble traits, Western education and even a certain degree
of sophistication. This is not only the case for the upper classes: with
some exceptions – like Frik, the shepherd, depicted more like a beast
than a human, hairier than his own sheepskin cloak, and “aussi mal
tenu de sa personne que ses bêtes”
11 – the representatives of the lower
class can also be endowed with undeniably positive qualities: both
Miriota, in her simple yet seductive peasant attire and her fiancé, Nic
Deck, are presented as prototypical Romanians and depicted as attractive, honest and intelligent, although a bit naïve and superstitious, like
anybody in rural Romania, as the narrator implies.
The vaguely Westernized characters who are still able to return to ancestral customs and beliefs once they go back to their fatherland, together with characters like Miriota or Nic, who cling to their
faith and traditions in the midst of all the turmoil, make Verne’s attitude ambiguous at the very least: the Romanians are presented as
rather primitive indeed, and yet this primitivism may have been another element that contributed to the novel’s positive reception. In the
portrayal of the Romanians’ unadulterated ways, the readers could
perceive a nostalgic tone: the setting of Le Château des Carpathes is
placed beyond time, outside of history, and Verne thus creates a
“paradigme du site hors espace et voué à une temporalité ahistorique”.
12 Paradoxically, what was described in such minute detail
turns out to be an abstraction, or an indirect way of nostalgically evoking the pre-modern qualities of an idealized Ancien Régime France.
Verne invests a few imaginary or foreign lands with the qualities of a
romanticized old France; Joëlle Dusseau remarked this perspective in
other Vernian novels in which the narrator seems to describe foreign
lands (like Canada) when he is actually talking about his homeland:
“Le Canada c’est la France, mais c’est la France de l’Ancien Régime.”
13 This is why, as Verne talks about the long lost traditions of
the Western world, or about preserving various foreign customs un___________________________
quatre-vingt jours Notes de lecture”, La revue des lettres modernes, Jules Verne. Le
Tour du monde. La revue des lettres modernes, (3) nos 456-61 (1976), 11-20.
11 Verne, Château, p. 9.
12 Jean-Pierre Picot, “Le Château des Carpathes: influences, confluences, effluences”,
Caietele.Echinox. Vol. 9, Jules Verne dans les Carpates, p. 37.
13 Joëlle Dusseau, Jules Verne (Paris: Perrin, 2005), p. 301.
174
France as a civilizing, colonial power. In Le Château des Carpathes,
the two Romanian protagonists, Franz de Telek and Rodolphe de
Gortz, have noble traits, Western education and even a certain degree
of sophistication. This is not only the case for the upper classes: with
some exceptions – like Frik, the shepherd, depicted more like a beast
than a human, hairier than his own sheepskin cloak, and “aussi mal
tenu de sa personne que ses bêtes”
11 – the representatives of the lower
class can also be endowed with undeniably positive qualities: both
Miriota, in her simple yet seductive peasant attire and her fiancé, Nic
Deck, are presented as prototypical Romanians and depicted as attractive, honest and intelligent, although a bit naïve and superstitious, like
anybody in rural Romania, as the narrator implies.
The vaguely Westernized characters who are still able to return to ancestral customs and beliefs once they go back to their fatherland, together with characters like Miriota or Nic, who cling to their
faith and traditions in the midst of all the turmoil, make Verne’s attitude ambiguous at the very least: the Romanians are presented as
rather primitive indeed, and yet this primitivism may have been another element that contributed to the novel’s positive reception. In the
portrayal of the Romanians’ unadulterated ways, the readers could
perceive a nostalgic tone: the setting of Le Château des Carpathes is
placed beyond time, outside of history, and Verne thus creates a
“paradigme du site hors espace et voué à une temporalité ahistorique”.
12 Paradoxically, what was described in such minute detail
turns out to be an abstraction, or an indirect way of nostalgically evoking the pre-modern qualities of an idealized Ancien Régime France.
Verne invests a few imaginary or foreign lands with the qualities of a
romanticized old France; Joëlle Dusseau remarked this perspective in
other Vernian novels in which the narrator seems to describe foreign
lands (like Canada) when he is actually talking about his homeland:
“Le Canada c’est la France, mais c’est la France de l’Ancien Régime.”
13 This is why, as Verne talks about the long lost traditions of
the Western world, or about preserving various foreign customs un___________________________
quatre-vingt jours Notes de lecture”, La revue des lettres modernes, Jules Verne. Le
Tour du monde. La revue des lettres modernes, (3) nos 456-61 (1976), 11-20.
11 Verne, Château, p. 9.
12 Jean-Pierre Picot, “Le Château des Carpathes: influences, confluences, effluences”,
Caietele.Echinox. Vol. 9, Jules Verne dans les Carpates, p. 37.
13 Joëlle Dusseau, Jules Verne (Paris: Perrin, 2005), p. 301.