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The Verne Jules : Mysterious Island (Sc) [Anglais] [Poche]

J Verne
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Description de l'ouvrage

1 décembre 1987 Signet classics
Based on the true story of Alexander Selkirk, who survived alone for almost five years on an uninhabited island off the coast of Chile, The Mysterious Island is considered by many to be Jules Verne’s masterpiece. “Wide-eyed mid-nineteenth-century humanistic optimism in a breezy, blissfully readable translation by Stump” (Kirkus Reviews), here is the enthralling tale of five men and a dog who land in a balloon on a faraway, fantastic island of bewildering goings-on and their struggle to survive as they uncover the island’s secret.
--Ce texte fait référence à l'édition Broché .

Descriptions du produit

Extrait

Chapter 1
I

The Great Storm of 1865.-Shouts in the Air.-A Balloon in a Whirlwind.-The Torn Fabric.-Nothing but Water.-Five Passengers.-The Events in the Gondola.-A Shoreline on the Horizon.-The Outcome of the Drama.

"Are we rising?"

"No! Quite the reverse! We're sinking!"

"Worse than that, Mr. Cyrus! We're falling!"

"For the love of God! Drop some ballast!"

"That's the last sack emptied!"

"Is the balloon climbing now?"

"No!"

"I think I hear waves crashing!"

"We're over the ocean!"

"We can't be more than five hundred feet above it!"

Just then a powerful voice rent the air, and the following words rang out:

"Everything heavy overboard! . . . everything! And God save us!"

Such were the cries echoing over the vast emptiness of the Pacific Ocean on March 23rd, 1865, at about four o'clock in the afternoon.

Surely no one will have forgotten the terrible northeasterly gale that was unleashed at the vernal equinox of that year. The barometer fell to 710 millimeters, and the storm went on unabated from the eighteenth to the twenty-sixth of March. Great was the devastation it wrought, in America, Europe, and Asia alike-a vast diagonal swath of destruction eighteen hundred miles wide, from the thirty-fifth parallel north to the fortieth south! Shattered cities, uprooted forests, shorelines ravaged by crashing mountains of water, ships slammed against the shore-by the hundreds, according to the dossiers of the Bureau Veritas-whole regions leveled by cyclones that smashed everything in their path, a human toll that numbered in the thousands, both on land and at sea: such was the scene in the wake of the cyclone, and such were the tokens of its fury. In the ranks of natural disasters, it outstripped even the horrific devastation witnessed at Havana and on the island of Guadeloupe, on October 25th, 1810, and July 26th, 1825, respectively.

Now, even as these many catastrophes were unfolding at sea and on land, another drama, no less prodigious, was being played out in the turbulent skies.

For a balloon, wafted along atop a whirlwind like a toy ball, and caught up in the rotational movement of the column of air, was traveling through the heavens at a speed of ninety miles an hour,* spinning in circles as if seized by some aerial maelstrom.

Beneath the appendix on the underside of the balloon swayed a gondola holding five passengers, scarcely visible in the dense mists and sea spray that suffused the air.

Whence came this aerostat, this plaything of the terrible storm? From what point on the globe had it taken flight? It could not have set off in the middle of the cyclone, of course, and the cyclone's first symptoms had appeared on the eighteenth-five days before. The reasonable conclusion would thus be that the balloon had come from far, far away; indeed, given the speed of the wind, it could not have traveled less than two thousand miles in every twenty-four-hour period!

But, caught up in the storm as they were, the passengers had no point of reference, and hence no means of gauging the distance they had traveled. Indeed, a very curious phenomenon must then have been at work: the violent winds propelled them at a terrific speed, and yet they themselves had no sense of their own motion. Forward they sped, ever turning circles, as perfectly unaware of their rotation as of their horizontal movement. Their gaze could not penetrate the thick mass of fog below them; and around them all was gray mist, forming a veil so opaque that they could not say whether it was day or night. No glimmer of light, no sound from land, no ocean roar could have reached them through that vast darkness so long as they remained at high altitude. Their rapid descent alone had alerted them to the peril they faced above the waves.

But now, relieved of all heavy objects such as ammunition, weapons, and provisions, the balloon had once again risen into the upper levels of the atmosphere, to an altitude of 4,500 feet. Realizing that the sea alone lay beneath the gondola, and believing the dangers awaiting them above to be less formidable than those below, the passengers did not hesitate to jettison even the most vital elements of their equipment; their only thought was to prevent any further loss of the precious gas, the soul of their conveyance, that held them aloft over the abyss.

The night passed, full of fears that might have proven fatal for less vigorous souls. Then daylight returned, and with the sunrise the storm began to abate. A newfound calm settled over the atmosphere in the first hours of that twenty-fourth of March. By dawn the clouds had grown more billowy, and had lifted higher into the sky. Over the next several hours, the whirlwind gradually expanded and weakened. The winds, once hurricane-force, were now at the "near-gale" level, meaning that the speed of the atmospheric levels' translatory motion had fallen by half. The balloon was still caught up in a wind that would have caused a prudent sailor to take three reefs in his sail; nevertheless, the perturbation of the atmosphere had greatly decreased.

By eleven o'clock, the air had cleared noticeably at the lower altitudes. The atmosphere was bathed in the sort of damp limpidity that is often seen, and even felt, in the wake of a major meteorological phenomenon. It seemed not so much that the cyclone had moved on to the west as that it had simply exhausted itself. Perhaps, once the center had collapsed, its energy had dispersed in sheets of electricity, as sometimes happens with typhoons in the Indian Ocean.

At about this same hour, it became evident that the balloon was once again sinking through the lower levels of the atmosphere, slowly and continuously. Worse yet, it seemed to be deflating little by little, the envelope growing longer, distended, no longer spherical but ovoid.

By noon, the aerostat hovered no more than two thousand feet above the sea. Its volume was fifty thousand cubic feet,* and it was thanks to this that it had stayed so long afloat; for a balloon with such a capacity can travel both high and far.

Now the passengers jettisoned the last few objects weighing down the gondola, the small remaining store of foodstuffs, even the utensils crammed into their pockets, and one of them, hoisting himself onto the ring that encircled the ropes of the net, tried to tie off the aerostat's appendix with a sturdy knot.

It was clear that the passengers could not hope to maintain the balloon in the upper reaches of the atmosphere. A great quantity of gas must have escaped from the envelope into the open air!

They were finished!

For no continent lay beneath them, not even so much as an island. Not a single landing place as far as the eye could see, not a single solid surface in which to cast anchor.

Only the vast ocean, whose waves continued to crash with an inconceivable violence! The sea, with no visible end, not even from an altitude that offered a view of forty miles in every direction! Only a liquid plain, relentlessly tossed and whipped by the winds, which appeared from this height as an endless cavalcade of frenzied waves topped by a vast expanse of foaming whitecaps! No land in sight, not a ship to be seen!

The descent would have to be halted, no matter what the cost, for if left to fall unchecked the balloon would soon vanish into the billows. It was thus to this urgent task that the passengers of the gondola now turned their efforts; but no matter how they struggled, the balloon only continued to sink, all the while moving at great speed with the direction of the wind, from northeast to southwest.

A truly terrible situation now faced the aerostat's wretched passengers! They were clearly no longer in control of their craft. Their exertions had no effect. The envelope of the balloon was deflating before their eyes; the gas was escaping, and they had not the slightest hope of preserving it. The descent was accelerating perceptibly, and, at one hour past noon, the gondola hung only six hundred feet above the ocean.

For the leak had proved impossible to stem, and the gas flowed unhindered through a tear in the fabric of the balloon.

By ridding the gondola of its contents, the passengers had prolonged their aerial suspension by a few hours. The catastrophe could be delayed, but it could not be prevented; and unless some land appeared before nightfall, the passengers, the gondola, and the balloon would disappear forever beneath the waves.

One final maneuver was left to them, and it was to this that they now turned in desperation. It should be plain to see that the aerostat's passengers were men of great mettle, able to look unflinching into the face of death, without a single murmur of complaint. They were determined to fight to the very last, to do whatever they must to slow their fall. The gondola was nothing more than a sort of wicker basket, incapable of flotation; once it had dropped to the surface of the water, it would inevitably sink like a stone.

At two o'clock, the aerostat was scarcely four hundred feet above the waves.

Just then, a manly voice-the voice of one whose heart was impervious to fear-made itself heard. To this voice responded other voices, no less forceful than the first.

"Has everything been thrown out?"

"No! There are still ten thousand francs in gold!"

And at once a heavy sack fell into the water.

"Is the balloon climbing now?"

"A little, but it will soon be sinking again!"

"What's left to throw overboard?"

"Nothing!"

"One thing! . . . The gondola!"

"Hang on to the net! and off with the gondola!"

For this was their one last means of lightening the aerostat. The ropes attaching the gondola to the ring were cut, and when it had fallen away the aerostat climbed two thousand... --Ce texte fait référence à l'édition Broché .

Revue de presse

“The reason Verne is still read by millions today is simply that he was one of the best storytellers who ever lived.” —Arthur C. Clarke --Ce texte fait référence à l'édition Broché .

Détails sur le produit

  • Poche: 507 pages
  • Editeur : Penguin Books Australia (1 décembre 1987)
  • Collection : Signet classics
  • Langue : Anglais
  • ISBN-10: 0451520661
  • ISBN-13: 978-0451520661
  • Dimensions du produit: 17,8 x 10,4 x 3,6 cm
  • Moyenne des commentaires client : 5.0 étoiles sur 5  Voir tous les commentaires (1 commentaire client)
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5.0 étoiles sur 5 Jules Verne, what else? 13 janvier 2013
Format:Format Kindle
If one can overlook the offensively dated racial comments, the tale of the castaways is mysteriously entrancing. It doesn't feel much like an epic breathtaking adventure but it does give you the feeling that you are living a full Robinson Crusoe adventure yourself (granted a fairly optimistic one). I felt involved and I felt like I was on holiday. A unconventional but extremely good read.
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Amazon.com: 4.4 étoiles sur 5  448 commentaires
95 internautes sur 96 ont trouvé ce commentaire utile 
5.0 étoiles sur 5 Is Mysterious Island Verne's best novel? 19 juin 2002
Par Joanna Daneman - Publié sur Amazon.com
Format:Poche
Many of Verne's novels have become cultural icons for Americans though Verne was French and we read him in translation. Nevertheless, his philosophy that enlightened good will and scientific advancement would save society is so close to American idealism, he seems much more American than almost any of his contemporaries.

Everyone is familiar with Around the World in 80 Days and 20,000 Leagues. For some reason, The Mysterious Island is not read as widely. Yet, in my opinion, it is Verne's best and most rewarding novel.

The opening of Myserious Island reads a bit like a serious version of "Wizard of Oz." Cyrus, Pencroft, Herbert, Neb and Gideon, and a dog named Top make a daring escape from a Civil War prison in a balloon, but the balloon is blown way off course to an uncharted volcanic island. These men are worthy souls; Captain Cyrus is an inspiring leader, Pencroft, an earthy but hardworking sailor. Gideon is kind of a "everyman" -- observant, strong and resourceful and loving, and Herbert a young, knowlegeable naturalist. These men and their dog Top conquer the island's challenges and make the very best out of their isolation on the small island. But are they prepared for the surprises the island has for them--and the ultimate surprise in the second half of the book. The suspense keeps the reader turning the pages through a great deal of descriptive information about nature, chemistry, physics and engineering. This is classic Verne and what really put the Science in Science Fiction.

One reason Mysterious Island may not have developed the strong audience of the other Verne novels is that there is so much detail and scientific discussion. That is rough going if you have little interest in such subjects. There are abridged versions that cut a lot of the description, but frankly, the science is what I love best about the book. How Cyrus and company make nitroglycerin and use it to reshape their island home is one of my favorite chapters in sci-fi literature.

If you liked Swiss Family Robinson as a child, you would surely enjoy Mysterious Island. It's one of Verne's best works and deserves to be read.
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5.0 étoiles sur 5 This is a review with very little extra to add to the first review 12 juin 2009
Par Scott O. - Publié sur Amazon.com
Format:Format Kindle|Achat authentifié par Amazon
I am trying to be the cheapest person who owns a Kindle. So I am searching out classics to read on the Kindle that cost $0. Came across Mysterious Island and I have been captivated by it. Very good read. Intelligent with adventure. After reading the book, I wondered about any movies made about this book. I saw one listed on Netflix that had giant sea monsters fighting the island inhabitants. The movie also had women on the island with the men. I guess whomever tried to sell the idea of the book to Hollywood was afraid of just presenting the book as is. No sea monsters and no women. I think the movie version would be "a little" like Castaway.
To sum up. The book is free and easy to read, and enjoyable. Thanks for your time.
178 internautes sur 189 ont trouvé ce commentaire utile 
5.0 étoiles sur 5 Mysterious Island Is Fantastic 18 mai 2009
Par Jason A. Cross - Publié sur Amazon.com
Format:Format Kindle|Achat authentifié par Amazon
I have not had a chance to talk about any of the books that I have read recently, but I decided that today I would. Recently upon getting my Kindle 2 I downloaded for free a copy of Jules Verne's The Mysterious Island. One of the great things about owning a Kindle is that the second you own it you can download many classics for free and you already have a well stocked library full of classic novels that triumph over some of today's commercial attempts.

I really recommend reading this book. It starts off slowly, and there were times in the middle of the book that I began to get overwhelmed by the complex descriptions that Verne offers about how this band of Civil War escapees manage their life on a strange island. Verne goes into such depth that the reader can actually tell that Verne probably spent many hours in his own contemplation about what he would do if he were stranded on an island. And let me be the first to say that if I were stranded on an island I would want Jules Verne right beside me. His knowledge of the subject went further than you would expect it to and considering that the book was written in the 1870's. The type of information that was possessed by the characters given by Verne surpasses what most people would know today. It wasn't too far after being stranded that the band of men were making pottery, iron and planning to make guns. At one point they even knew to take small whale bones and hunt with them. These are things that are lost in today's world of luxury.

I think the beauty of the story lies in its ability to transport you to this other place and time. As I read the book I felt as if I was back in the 1800's trying to survive and thinking as I read, "what would I do?" It is an excellent book that could be read by young and old alike.
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